Kitchen: Phase One

The other day I took a long hard look at my kitchen...

It left a LOT to be desired. It was yellow and green with almond counters and almond laminate cabinets and well, the fruit decals on the wall weren't helping things.  My kitchen was stuck in an outdated phase, halfway between the 1980's and 90's and I needed to change it and STAT. Seriously, my mental health was riding on this!

I had a budget of about $300 that I could spend so I knew it couldn't be a huge makeover, but I knew that I could make a difference with just a few changes. The fruit had to go...as did the counter tops and the wall color.

 Taking out the old almond laminate countertop was harder than Hubby and I expected. It was screwed in there very well and held to the wall with many layers of caulking. Many.

But many hours later we (okay, mostly Hubby) successfully removed the coutnertop and replaced it with this darker, granite looking laminate. Much better already!  Due to the tight budget we chose to reuse the old kitchen sink from the 1980's. It was in surprisingly good shape for it's age and made better than any sink at HomeDepot that was within my budget.

So here we are now. Grey walls, faux granite countertops and looking significantly better. See the little sample of tile stuck to the backsplash. That's my next project, installing a mosaic tile backsplash and doing something (help!!!) with the fronts of the laminate cabinets. I've toyed with the idea of chalkboard paint and new drawer pulls and knobs...but I am open to suggestions. Also, we are installing 2 new upper cabinets where the shelves are currently holding our "stuff". They will need to be painted/stained to match whatever I do to the lower cabinets.

Here is a close up of the backsplash tile. And let's not judge the paint on the window frame, okay....I'm gonna get to that later when I get ready to hang the new curtains that I'm making.

So if you're in the area, stop by and have a cup of coffee with me...

And we can talk about how I want to enclose the open pantry and give it shutter doors to match the utility closet....

and maybe you could give me some ideas on what to do with the laundry area. It's just plain...plain.


Okay there ya go! Phase one is complete.