Bye Bye Bolty - Our Kitchen Transformation

So, when we first found our house there were a few small cosmetic things that really rubbed me the wrong way. They were just hideous and I have no idea why anyone would have chosen them for their home at anytime. The "lightning bolt" in our kitchen was definitely in the top five as far as the most awful list goes. Well, I am so  happy to tell you that it is finally gone!

Here's a shot of the kitchen with the lightning bolt still there in all of it's horrible glory...

...and here is he ceiling after the bolt was taken down, the ceiling was repaired and painted, and the lighting re-installed without any trace of that awful bolt. 

I can't believe we dealt with that thing for over a year. Do you remember it from this post? I hated it back then, and I hate it just as much today. I'm so blessed to have such a handy husband.
The whole process ended up being a little more time consuming than we had originally planned. The lightning bolt was the previous owner's way of covering up the damage from removing the fluorescent lighting that apparently was original to the home. So, after a few coats of spackle, and a few coats of paint, you can't even tell that the bolt was ever there. YES! Victory for team Barkanic!

This is the first in a series of posts that will give you all the details about everything we're doing in our kitchen to bring it up to date and transform it into the kitchen of our dreams!

Kitchen Cabinet Refinishing

Before we even bought our house we knew that the first project we wanted to tackle was the kitchen cabinets. We knew that if we waited until we moved in that we would have a whole bunch of food and kitchen supplies in our way, so we wanted to get it done before hand. 

Here's a sneak peek of how they look today!

Our first step was taking all the cabinet doors off, we numbered all the doors inside the well of the hinges, and covered them with tape. Then we started prepping them for paint. 

First, they got a good sanding with a palm sander. Then we wiped them down with a rag, followed by a tack cloth, to make sure there wasn't any lingering dust. Unfortunately I don't have photos of a lot of this because we were in the middle of our move, and I was a bit scatter-brained!

Since we were mid-project anyway, we decided to rip out that stainless steel back splash while we were at it, and I am so glad we did. To find out more about what we did to replace it, check out this post.

Once the cabinets were sanded and cleaned they were ready to be primed. We set up a temporary spray booth in our living room. In this photo you can see the construction paper on the floor, and just how crazy things were in the month between closing and moving in. We covered the opening between the dining room and living room in plastic, and sprayed everything in the opposite corner of the room. We covered the doors on this wall too, we left the walls uncovered, because we knew they were the next thing that would be getting painted.

First, we sprayed on Sherwin Williams Adhesion Primer, and when that was dry we brushed an oil based primer over any spots that bled through. We sanded everything smooth with a 220 grit sandpaper, then did a final coat of the adhesion primer. We followed the second coat with a very light sanding to make sure everything was silky smooth.

We let the cabinets sit with the final coat of primer for two or three days to make sure that nothing else was going to bleed through. We wanted to play it safe since the cabinets were original to the house (1991), and we weren't sure how much grease and oil they were exposed to over the years.

Then, it was finally time to start painting them! WOO-HOO!!! We painted the doors with Sherwin Williams ProClassic® Interior Acrylic Latex in Satin. We decided we liked the look of a white wall cabinet, and a slightly darker base cabinet, so we used Twinkle (SW 7135)- white with a slight touch of blue to it on the wall cabinets, and Zircon (SW 7667)- a light shade of gray on the base cabinets.  

We used the same colors on the faces and insides of the cabinets, that we did on the doors, but we only needed one coat of primer and two of paint. 

REMEMBER!!! When spraying, tape and plastic are your friend. Tape off any doorways into the room, tape off everything that isn't getting painted, if you don't there WILL be some kind of spatter or paint residue on it!

We sprayed the doors, faces, and insides of the cabinets with a professional sprayer that Mike borrowed from work, (if you need one check your local construction rental places, or just pick up one that is meant for homeowners, we recently got one at harbor freight for under $30!) we did two coats, allowing plenty of time in between for drying. When the were dry we left them a few more days to fully cure before they were hung.

We were so thrilled when they were fully cured and ready to be hung! 

Here's the before photo, you can see how far our kitchen has come! 

It's not all that noticeable in this picture, but a lot of the poly was beginning to peel off the doors, and they were looking very "eighties orange."

and...

the after!!

 We love our "new" cabinets SO much, and are really glad that we painted them. This was definitely the longest and most daunting task we have done in our home, but it was totally worth it. It would have cost thousands to replace the cabinets, but we spent under $200 on our supplies. 

Things I will do different next time

• Instead of spraying the faces and insides of the cabinets, I will probably do it with a foam roller. These are much less noticeable than the doors, and a lot harder to paint with a sprayer. I would roll them purely because of the convenience and the less mess factor.
• I think I will stick to an oil based primer and paint for everything next time. (We haven't had any problems with our finish, it looks just as great as it did in December, but I don't know how long it will last)
• I will use a more significantly different color difference between the base and wall cabinets. I was going for something not so subtle. 

Here's a few more pictures for you to enjoy!

This is the view from our breakfast nook. Make sure you take in the wonder that is that lightning bolt on our ceiling. It will be gone, gone, gone in the next few weeks. I originally wanted to take it out right a way, but Mike want's to try to reuse the track lighting, so it was put on hold. UGH!!! Can't wait for it to be gone!

We added the knobs a little over a month ago, I love how they add some fun color to the space!

edit: We still haven't chosen a paint color for the walls in here, whenever I think I've finally settled on something I see another inspiring picture on pinterest, and I change my mind. Ugh! Part of the whole paint dilemma is that the kitchen has a chair rail. I know I want to do wither beadboard or picture frame moulding below the chair rail, and that part will be white, but that just makes it more difficult because I have to find something that will look good with that. 

What color would you choose?

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below or email me!

Our 30 Minute Back Splash

Yes, you did read that right. The back splash or the lack of one has been driving me a little nuts. When Mike was redoing the cabinets we decided to rip out the faux stainless steel back splash that the previous owners had.

It had been glued or epoxied to the wall, and with it gone all that was left was some badly torn up dry wall.

We've been living with it like that for about 2 months now, and everyday it makes me a little crazy, so today while I was at home depot I decided to do something about it.

This isn't going to be our permanent back splash, but is certainly much better than trashed dry wall for the next couple of months.
Here's what I did:
I gathered my supplies-

I bought the paintable wallpaper in a pressed tin ceiling pattern at Home Depot for about $13. I had the thumb tacks, scissors and the razor already.

I started by unrolling a little bit more than what I needed and cutting the piece. Then I held it up as close as possible and made a more accurate cut. Because our cabinets are sandwiched between a wall and the refrigerator my job wasn't all that difficult. I cut as straight of a line as I could on the wall side (I used a scissor, and followed the pattern) I let the paper go behind the refrigerator about 5 or 6 inches and I cut that edge the same way.

I was able to pull the right countertop away from the wall a little because it isn't fastened to the cabinet. The paper comes prepasted, but I wanted to do a test run first with less permanency, so I just used some thumb tacks I had in the junk drawer. I didn't use very many, the photo below shows all the spots I used them.

Once I got it all tacked up and looking good and smooth I used the razor knife to cut small X's over the outlets, and then I used the scissors to cut them out the rest of the way.

 

I hung the outlet covers back up, and put everything back on the counter where it belongs. I am so happy with the outcome that we are thinking about leaving it that way for quite a while.

for $13 it can't be beat. Now if only I could decide what color to paint it. 

What have we been up to?

I have been working on a timeline over the past couple of days to see just how much progress we have achieved since purchasing our house two months ago. It's interesting to me how differently my brain processes data when it's presented in another way. Before we actually owned the home we put together a timeline of what we thought we would be able to get down in the first two weeks. WOW! those two weeks went by fast, and we still haven't gotten everything done that we thought we would right off the bat. I think that is a prime example of what HGTV has done to my mind as well as the minds of other innocent viewers. You see these dramatic transformations completed over a few days, and it makes it hard to be realistic when scheduling work on your own home. I suppose it would be possible if I had a staff of 30 plus people and some of that TV "magic" but alas I do not. We are just two average homeowners putting all we've got into our poor beat up house trying to love it back into a home. So far, so good. I am quite happy with what we've accomplished.

If you want to have a look at what we've been up to just check out our timeline and you'll be up to speed in no time. (hint: it'll be much easier to read if you click on  it and open it in a new window)

I hope you enjoyed checking out our progress. We have sure enjoyed the process. We still have a to do list that is 3 pages long, and always growing so check back soon to see what we're up to!

Lots of Love,

The Barkanics

Busy Busy Bees!

So it has been forever since I've been able to sit down and write a new post, and until last night we didn't have our computer here at the house, or even hooked up. Today is a new day, a day filled with Internet access and a day in which my office is functioning much better (doesn't function very well at all without a computer or any Internet access.) So my sincerest apologies, and a promise of some wonderful and meaty posts in the very near future. We have been quite busy, painting, hanging, changing and rearranging around our new home, and I cant wait to share all of it! Here are some photos of the progress!

blinds and curtains hung up in the kitchen

the rug is laid down, and the sofa and chair have been delivered

I've been having some fun decorating the mantel, it certainly is not anywhere near how I want it in this shot, but at least it's clean and I am loving my candle holder and the fact that we successfully mounted the TV above the fireplace

Our master bedroom is starting to come along, I finally took the time to hang up the rods and draperies this week, and I am SO glad I did. The fabric tacked up ala college dorm was really starting to grate on my nerves.

I'm not sure if this is the permanent solution for the window dressings, but its working well for now. I am keeping my eye on all things drapery clearance in search of the perfect patterned drapery in a 96' length for under $15 a panel, but I may decide that the mismatched look works just fine for us. We'll see.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying the New Year!

Happily Ever After

Ok, so Happily Ever After may be a bit premature as far as the house goes, but in terms of the cabinets I believe we are there! Here is the before and after shots to show you just how dramatic the change really is.

It's hard to tell in the photo, but the poly was starting to chip off the cabinets, and they had some pretty bad staining. I certainly prefer the new look to the old one!

Another thing that's a bit hard to see in these grainy iPhone photos is the difference in color between the uppers and lowers in the after photo. The uppers are painted in Sherwin Williams Twinkle (SW 7135) which is white with a very very slight hint of blue to it. The lowers are Zircon (SW 7667) which is a light shade of gray.

If you have any questions about the colors or the process feel free to comment below!

Let's Get Cookin'!

I am SO super duper excited to be able to share that we are done, done, done with refinishing the cabinets! They are all beautiful and back in their proper places, and I am totally LOVING it! My storage dishes are no longer on display! This photo is the last one I took before Mike finished hanging the doors. The two on the right were the last ones to go up.

Here's a shot of the finished cabinets! YAHOO! What a difference from the original coats of peeling poly on light wood. I am aware of the fact that new cabinets might have looked a bit better than these, but these didn't cost us thousands (or even hundreds) and the change is a major move towards a fabulous kitchen.

I know the pictures have a bunch of shadows, but I was to excited to not post about them tonight. This is a dream come true for me! I can still remember trying to convince my Mom that she should paint her cabinets white when I was about 14 years old, much time has passed, and my design sense has certainly gotten better, but I still love white cabinets. They are timeless, clean looking and just plain awesome!

If you want to have a look at our cabinets while they were still a work in progress check out this post.

We are Homeowners!

So, it is finally official my husband and I are the proud owners of a fabulous town home. We couldn't be anymore thrilled. We purchased the property about a week and a half ago, and everything went very smoothly with the closing (FINALLY! Praise the Lord!!)

So the first project we tackled in our new home was the kitchen cabinets. They weren't in bad condition before, the quality is very good, but the poly was starting to peel in some areas, and certainly not worthy of a spot in a kitchen and bath designers home. Since we liked them for the most part, and we are on a very tight budget we decided to refinish the existing cabinets. I chose a white for the uppers and a light gray for the lowers.

 Mike started the job by removing all of the doors and hardware and prepping them for paint by sanding, caulking cracks and priming the cabinet doors and bases. He started with the uppers,

and at this point I am thrilled with the way they look! There was a bit of something that bled through the first coat of primer, so he ended up doing one coat of adhesion primer, one coat of heavy duty primer, and two coats of paint (Sherwin Williams- Twinkle SW7135) They look A-MAZING! 

Another thing we did was rip out the old restaurant style stainless steel back splash. The tape wouldn't stick to it when we were masking everything off, so we decided to just pull it out. I am SO SO glad we did. Why live with something you really don't like when it doesn't have much of a purpose anyway. We will just paint the wall for now, and will eventually replace it with the Beveled Arabesque tile from Mission Stone + Tile.

Anyway, back to the cabinets, the amazing hubs finished up the refinish today, and they will be rehung on Tuesday or Wednesday this week. I am SO excited, and can't wait to fill them up with lots of yummy food for my wonderful family. I am also excited that Mike will be able to get to some of our other projects, like painting the entire house, and hanging light fixtures, fixing toilets. We have all kinds of fun stuff in store!

have a seat

So, as we are getting ready to buy our first house we have been doing a lot of thinking about what furniture we are going to use, and how we want the rooms to look. We have a ton of furniture, [I'll tell you all about that later] and we are trying to figure out what pieces will work for us.

Mike's Mom gave us a great counter height table and chairs that we plan to use in the kitchen, one thing we knew for sure was that we wanted to recover the seats. 

The chair on the left has the original cover on it. The one on the right is the finished product.

 

The covers weren't horrible, though the upholstery was starting to show a little bit of wear. I have reupholstered quite a few seat covers and ottomans in my day so I felt confident that I would have no problem at all doing it here. 

How to Reupholster a Chair with a Detachable Seat

Time: 20 minutes for first chair and 7-10 minutes more for each additional chair

Supplies:

• chair with a removable upholstered seat
• screwdriver 
• 1/2 a yard of the upholstery fabric of your choosing [enough for 2 chairs]
• measure your chairs just to make sure it will be enough. If you have a standard size seat you should have just enough with the 1/2 yard. If your chair is larger bring the dimensions to the store and ask for help.
• staple gun + staples
• scissors [pinking shears if you have them]
• a light colored marker 

1.) flip the chair over and figure out how the seat is attached to the frame. As you can see in the photo below ours are attached by a screw that goes through the frame and into the base of the seat. 

2.) Detach the seat from the frame. With this chair all it took was a screw driver and about 1 minute. 

tip: Put all of your screws and any other hardware into a baggie so that it is handy and not missing when you reattach the seat.

3.) Lay the seat of face down on the back side of your fabric and trace around the entire seat.

4.) Cut the fabric about 2-3 inches around the outside of your line. [you might need to cut more if you have a very thick seat]

if you have multiple chairs to recover you can use the first cut piece as a template for the others.

If the foam and fabric that are currently on your seat are in fair to good condition you can just attach the new fabric right on top. If not you can find replacement foam at a craft or upholstery store.

Another thing you want to be conscious of is whether or not you will be able to see the pattern of your previous fabric though the new one. If you had a bright print and are recovering with a light or thin fabric you can either remove the old fabric or put a neutral layer on underneath the new one as a lining. In my case the seats were an off white and in decent condition, so this was not an issue and I could just put the new fabric directly on top of the old one. 

5.) Begin by stapling the fabric in the center of the top and pull it snugly [not to tight] and staple the bottom center. Do the same thing with the sides. Leave about 3 inches on each corner unstapled.

6.) Pull the corners in and tight until it looks smooth and appealing on top. Staple as many times as necessary until the fabric is smooth and secure. 

7.) Position the seat back onto the chair and replace the screws that you took out during step 2.

TA-DA! You now have a chair that is updated, cute and 100% personalized. 

I love the way that this fabric looks with the curtains we got for the kitchen! 

This project has gotten me thinking more and more about painting the chairs. 

What do you think?

White, Gray or Yellow?

edit: Some pictures were edited and added to the post 2/25/2012

a Sneak Peek

Here's a little peek of what I've been working on for our kitchen

More Kitchen Dreams!

So I was beyond excited when I found this picture of Kev & Layla Palmer's Kitchen on their blog the Lettered Cottage. This is the closest I have found to what we want to do for our cabinet colors.

The differences that I am planning on are that we will be leaving our upper cabinet doors on, but some will be getting glass panels so I can display stuff. Also, the color we are using on the bottom has a lot more of a blue tone to it. We will have butcher block counters on the stove/ sink side of our kitchen and some kind of stone on the other side [maybe white marble] I used Sherwin Williams visualizer to get a bit of an idea for the feel of our kitchen once we paint it all up! Here it is!

to see more of what we are planning for in the kitchen have a look at this past post on our kitchen dreams

Check These Out! They're SO fun!

I just had to share these awesome plates from etsy seller Just Noey. They are going to look fabulous on display inside of our cabinets once we replace some of the doors with glass panels! The M is made of Mushrooms and the L is Lemons. I LOVE THEM! They are perfect! I have been looking for some kind of unique monogrammed dinnerware that I can display for a while and it doesn't get much better than this!