Do you have a space in your house that has bothered you ever since it became your home. This space for me is my kitchen. It's not wide, short in length and doesn't utilize the space to it's potential. The first weekend we moved in I was itching to create the space that worked for me and that would work for future homeowners. The big red exclamation was the cabinet stain. The sellers of our home tried to apply a DIY gel stain to the cabinets and took no steps to creating an ascetically pleasing look. They didn't sand down the cabinets, take off the hinges, tape the cabinets up, or apply a lath/ polyurethane top coat . The result was a disaster which resulted in excess dark stain on the wall, ceiling and counter top, streaky lines on the cabinetry, chips and marks all over, and one motivated buyer- me.
We first took off the cabinet section with the microwave (by we I obviously mean Nate), because that was the eye sore when first walking into the kitchen. I sketched out a plan with floating shelves in placement of the current microwave cabinet and an over the range microwave installed over the stove. It makes sense to replace the hood that was currently over our range with the microwave to give us more shelving space. Plus, the microwave stuck out so far out of all the rest of the cabinetry it drove me nuts. We then continued and took down the hood and cabinet section above. Tearing everything down is the easy and exciting part. Then you get into the "oh shit" situations that spin your head.
Putting back the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle is comparable to what we went through in our next steps. We bumped the right corner cabinet out, installed the top cabinet piece that was above the previous microwave to go atop the new uninstalled microwave, installed the microwave underneath and some how it all fit together.
I bought a wall texture spray and applied it to the left of the window. I only had to wait 30 minutes to paint over the texture and it made it look like the wall was always like that. We then bought a 9 1/4" wide board, cut two 30" in length shelves, and applied a gel poly to seal the cedar. My dad welded us 4 brackets to support the shelves and I spray painted them black to look concise with the kitchen's look.
On top of all these tasks, we also stained our cabinets on 3 separate occasions and applied a gel polyurethane. The previous homeowner was nice enough to let us know what stain she used and it took us 3 applications to finally get a clean look with no streaks. At Menards we purchased cabinet hardware to attach to all of our doors and drawers. We were lucky enough to not have had any preexisting hardware.
Our kitchen renovation was our most challenging reno yet. Each step of the way was a struggle and mind boggling. Over a month's period and around $600 dollars later we are at the finish line. Being handy and willing to take on these tasks allows us to make all these changes to our home. I do not even want to imagine the cost of a painter alone to come and re-stain my cabinets. Our kitchen now is functional, modern, spacious, and aesthetically pleasing. It gives off a warm and raw look that portrays a feeling of cleanliness. Being the kitchen, the cleanliness feeling is a must.
Through all my details and blurts of information in the blog, I hope you take a hammer to a space that is asking for it. What better month to it then January. You're stuck inside because of the cold, plus a lull of events occurs after the holidays. Am I convincing? Starting is never easy, because then for a month you'll be living with a space all out of sorts. Starting forces you to get to the next step though and all the steps following gets you to the worth of your effort.
Good luck and share with me what space you'd like to take a hammer to.
The End Result
Our Kitchen's Transition
