The Kitchen and the Beginning of De-Oaking!

I am beginning to believe I have a serious case of decorating ADD. Looking around my house, you can see room after room with an idea in mind of what the room was supposed to look like, but was halted prior to actually being actualized. Case in point: my "new" nursery. After spending countless hours creating a beautiful argyle wall I never really finished putting the rest of the room together.

Well, now that I am beginning a new chapter in my life as a stay-at-home mom, I think I am going to make a conscious effort to complete what I begin: starting with the kitchen.

Since we moved into our house 7 short years ago, our kitchen has been 4 different colors. Now you might be thinking that we either REALLY love to paint or...we hate our kitchen. The latter would be correct. It was far from my dream kitchen. Being public servants, actually I guess now one public servant and one family servant, we don't exactly have the cash flow to create my dream kitchen. But this minor detail will not stop me from at least trying to obtain a bit of the dream.

The week after the final week of the school year I began Operation Frugal Updated Kitchen or OFUK.

This was the second color (red). We liked it but decided to neutralize to try and sell our house.

The above red color is the second color we painted the kitchen. When we moved in it was white and blue. Then we painted it a yellow color, which was hideous with the "oak" cabinets. I never took a picture of the yellow because it didn't last a week. We liked the red but when we decided to put our house on the market, we thought people might think it a little strong. So below you can see the current color, which is one of the few colors that seemed to not look hideous with our honey oak molding (and which you can find in our hallway, nursery, bathrooms, and master bedroom).

Current color and before OFUK. 

 So the first step of OFUK was painting the cabinets: 4 weeks later or 4 bottles of wine later:

The color is called Bedford Gray from Martha Stewart, sold by Home Depot.  It is hard to tell from these photos but the color is a warm gray-tan, which actually works perfectly with our latte walls and less-than-favorite green-gray counters.

(I wish I could say my house in normally very clean; however, this is the state of my kitchen on a daily basis.)

Miraculously, there was no sanding involved. I just used a gripper primer and two coats of paint. The most difficult part of the process was waiting between coats to avoid any tackiness. I also was pleasantly surprised that I could avoid all paint brush marks by using a high density foam roller.

The Process:

• Remove doors, hinges, handles, and drawers. 
• Wipe them down to remove dirt, grime, and grease
• Prime
• Paint two coats
• Put back together! 

Because I have a 1 year old and a four year old who like to get into everything. I did my kitchen in sections after bed time to allow for at least 9 hours drying time before put to the test by little fingers.

To give the kitchen  more of a custom look, I bribed my husband into turning the cabinet to the right of the sink into open shelving by hacking away the middle piece and adding decorative molding. I also had my husband attach bead-board to the breakfast bar so it didn't appear too plain. And lastly, I painted chalkboard paint next to my growth ruler. That way I can make notes when I take the boys' growth pictures.

The NEXT step of OFUk will be the molding and lighting...stay tuned!