Kitchen Remodel - A Temporary Fix

Almost two years ago - Summer of 2011 to be exact - We tackled something that I have been wanting to do soo much since I moved in! The Kitchen. But unfortunately, we couldn't do a complete remodel (gutting, new cabinets, new everything) like we want to, because of one huge problem with our house - The foundation. 

The foundation of our house, especially on the kitchen side, is very bad. As in cracked, and leaning-house bad. The house is well over a century old - We found a document that had the date of 1854. In short, the kitchen is in such bad shape structurally, that we can't really do anything major in it yet until we fix the foundation. (BTW - This summer we plan on fixing it finally!)

So the remodel we did in 2011 is a temporary make-it-livable solution until we can completely gut it and redo everything! Warning: what you are about to see is pretty ugly.

Here's where we started. This was what the kitchen looked like when I moved in (please excuse the small phone pictures):

To me it was a cave-like nightmare of poop brown. Yep, I think that describes it. The super old cabinets were a dingy brown color, and the walls were textured and peach-colored. The ceiling even matched the peachiness of the walls, and even the curtains were a dingy brown color.

To start on our little makeover, we painted the walls a springy green, Valspar's "Summer Mist," and began painting the peach trim a semi-gloss white. Here's a picture with some of the paint on the walls and a little of the trim done. I know...the door is peach too. 

After a while, things were starting to take shape. The kitchen was beginning to feel less like a peach and brown cave, and more like a bright and sunny space:

The trim was looking 5,000 times better thanks to the time Trent spent caulking the seams and painting.

Along with the walls and trim, we also had the cabinets to tackle. Trent removed all the cabinet doors from the hinges, took them outside and sanded.

Once they were sanded, I primed them. Then eventually painted. We chose Olympic "Prairie Winds," which is kind of an antiquey white.

Here's our little helper getting in on the action:

And here's a little sample the cabinets we were working with BEFORE:

This is actually one of the open shelving sections that flank the stove. They're a little "handmade." But they work, so we left them for now. After all, it's only temporary, right?

Here's that same cabinet area after paint (and after removing those weird decorative corner things):

At that point we were starting to move things back in! Yay!

Oh, and I did leave a lot of little projects out that went into this, like the chairs:

These started out brown and ugly, but I went to town with the primer and white semi-gloss, and they definitely sunnied up a bit!

And we even installed Trent's favorite addition to the kitchen..Yep, a TV:

Another little project was putting in new cabinet hardware - including hinges and some of the drawer pulls (the shiny silver ones by the fridge, which you'll see in the pictures below).

Pretty soon, after what seemed like forever, we had stage one of the kitchen remodel complete (Let's call it "Operation: Make it Liveable"). Here's what it looked like at the end of our makeover (in September 2011):

Much better! It's so much more light and sunny, it's actually tolerable to spend time in here. You can see that we also put up a beadboard backsplash which we painted white semigloss like the trim. We just figured that would be something easy we could do to fix it up before the actual renovation.

We added Roman shades to all the windows and some accessories I've just picked up since I've been living here (like rugs, dish towels, little fake potted plants, etc.). And you can even see a little more of my plate collection hanging up there. Don't mind the mix and match of cups and dishes on the shelves - We don't have a lot of cabinet storage, and we aren't married so we don't have all of the matching dish sets quite yet! It's more of my college-dorm-day dishes. haha.

You can see that the ugly brown vinyl floor tiles are still there - another thing we're waiting on until we can get the foundation fixed.

Here is the table all dressed up in our Target tablecloth and sunflowers from the garden:

So that's step one of the kitchen makeover. At least it's livable for now, until we can fix the foundation and completely renovate it. And to give you a little timeline on how long all this took, I'd say it was pretty much all summer of 2011 (A few months). Here's a little Before and After to show just how far it's come to this point:

Since these pictures were taken right after the makeover about a year and a half ago, our kitchen really hasn't changed too much other than changing out accessories (ahem, maybe adding some owl friends), and replacing the ceiling fan for something a little more modern and flush to the ceiling.

After all is said and done, I like it a lot better now, because it feels a lot more "us," and hopefully soon, after the foundation is done, we can rip it all out and start over again! haha. But with a blank slate! Can I just say: Hello, stainless steel appliances, shiny tiles, and brand new cabinets. Can't wait!