Kitchen Tour

Good morning! Time to tour my kitchen!  Disclaimer: this is a pretty small room and it was really tough to photograph. So be nice.

The previous owners of our home did a gut renovation of this kitchen before we got here. They installed the new lighting, cabinets, tile countertops, tin ceiling, stainless steel backsplash, sink and faucet, and floor tiles. I thought those things looked fine, and I couldn't afford to redo them, so they stayed as-is. I just did a few cosmetic improvements here and there.

I added the pot hanger early on. I'm not sure if I still like it that much, and our pots and pans are all old hand-me-downs from my family, but now that I've poked holes in the tin ceiling, I guess we'll keep it!  

The previous owner's paint job in this room was pretty terrible. I think they did it at the last minute as they were moving. Not only was it hideous with mustard walls and black trim, but the paint was bubbling and peeling off the trim.  We removed every piece of trim and sanded it down to bare wood to start fresh before priming and painting again. Now that paint is not going anywhere. Just like in the living room, the trim is Simply White, and the walls are Moonlight White, both by Benjamin Moore. We also added the trim along where the ceiling meets the wall. Before, it was just a rough edge of tin.

I painted the basement door with chalkboard paint, and the mountain art is a DIY with construction paper. The photo is an enlarged print from Celebration City in Branson, MO. You know, one of those old-timey pictures where you dress up and hold guns? It was taken about ten years ago, when I was still blonde.

I painted that stair runner forever ago. That landing below the little window where the living room stairs meet the kitchen stairs is actually called a "saddle." Then the stairs join together and go up to the second floor. The art on the wall is a Donald Judd knock-off by me, made with electrical tape.  

We sanded down the windows to bare wood, just like everything else, but I didn't repaint the inside part of the kitchen windows. My original plan was to paint that part of the windows Onyx, like our fireplace, but since then I've gotten busy with listing our house and making higher-priority repairs, so they are currently just stained wood. I'm not sure if I'll do anything different with them at this point.

Painting the walls of this room was a nightmare. At first, I had planned to paint this room light gray, like the dining room. I didn't think the wood cabinets would look right next to white walls, and I thought this room got enough light. After a coat of BM's Stonington Gray, I was stunned to see that the gray I had picked out looked periwinkle and way too dark. It was horrible.

So, I thought all I needed to do was go with a lighter gray. I grabbed another gallon of BM Classic Gray, which is the gray in our dining room and applied two coats. Still periwinkle and horrible. And still not sure how that color could look so right in the dining room and look so gross in the very next room.

I went with Moonlight White out of desperation, having painted my kitchen two different colors and two coats of each. Fortunately, this finally seemed to work, although I think I would have given up after that no matter how it looked. Interestingly, the Moonlight White looks like light gray in this room. *sigh*

At the end of the day, I really do love this kitchen. The layout really makes the most of the space, considering that we're dealing with the windows, stairs, and four doors in this tiny little kitchen. The tin ceiling and track lighting seem to make this room sparkle, and it really takes about ten minutes to get it completely clean.

And here's my favorite part:

{Before}

{After}

See what I mean about those paint colors? That before photo was from our walk-through with our realtor, during the day!