Kitchen remodel

 What does one do with her free time when her husband takes a traveling job?  Well…..she decides to remodel her kitchen and give it an updated look.  The first day hubby left for his new job I cried and cried and cried knowing that I would be alone a lot.  I spent days worrying about how I will manage to do it all since I had never done anything alone in my life.  

Then I found my strength, and decided it was time to update my kitchen.  We have lived in this house since 1998, and it was time to give it a new look.  We want to replace the cabinets and do a full remodel, but that is expensive and we simply don’t have time for that right now, so I did the best I could.  When I told hubby about it he was less than thrilled.  He told me that he didn’t want me doing it because in the past he always had to either fix my mistakes or he had to take over and finish them.  I vowed this time would be different.

I started with the “easier” part of the adventure…..the painting of the cabinets.  I chose white because I wanted a more modern look.  This was what the cabinets looked like before I started.

Gena asked to help with the painting so I let her help a little bit.  Here she is painting away.  When she first started I told her to change out of her new clothes, but she flipped out. I kept telling her she would get paint on them…..guess who was right.

Finally all the painting was done, and time to add handles….this is what they looked like when I was done with panting and handles:

Next, I decided I was going to resurface the counters, because I definitely did not like the light counter with the light cabinets.  I also didn’t like the fact that there was so much wear on them, and a huge burn spot where my son placed a hot pot.  The resurfacing really scared me because I was terrified I would screw it up.  The kit I bought was not cheap by any means, but I pushed forward.  Here is what they looked like before I started.

The process to resurfacing the counters was definitely an interesting one.  I had to start by cleaning them really good, and roughening up the surface.  Then I painted on a black coating and waited for that to dry.  

Looking back on it I kind of wish I would have just left them black, but I had no clue how this was going to turn out in the end.  The next step was to apply white with a sponge, and then some gold (this was where I really started to not like it as much), and then I had to add more black.  Between each step there was hours of dry time.  Finally came the last step of putting on a top coat.  Here is the final look of the counters.  

The absolutely final step was adding a backsplash.  I bought one I thought would look really good, but when I held it up I hated it with the counter tops, so I took it back and went for the one you can see in this photo.  I was a little worried about how to complete it, and my mom offered to come and help with cutting the holes for the outlets.

This was the final look of the kitchen (I also painted the window)

When I was completely done I was so proud of myself.