The Kitchen Plan

I have been saying for awhile that I want to update our kitchen. BUT kitchens are EXPENSIVE and there is nothing wrong with our current kitchen. In fact I love our kitchen! We have SO much cupboard space! I have accepted the fact that I will probably never have this much cupboard space in the kitchen in ANY other house we ever live in! Considering our house is 900 square feet and 1/3 of that is the kitchen I think we're doing pretty well! My kitchen has the cupboard side and then the eat in dinning side. This is what my kitchen looks like currently on the cooking side (this is an older picture but it looks like this still other than we have a different light fixture and it doesn't have a box in the middle of the floor!) There is also a window to the left that looks out back. (I'll take a new picture before I start the project so you can get the true kitchen picture)

And this is the other half of the kitchen (once again an older picture... we have a different table in the kitchen now as well there is a large dark wood mirror on the wall on the right that we snagged from The Brick for $1!!! YES that is correct $1!!! ) I'm going to have to make a post of things in the house we have bought for fantastic deals... sorry that was a side note to myself!! I will take a better photo of our dining area too before I start the process!

We painted the kitchen bright yellow and I LOVE IT!! It brightens up the house and since our bedroom is just off the kitchen (on the right of this picture) I wake up in the morning to my SUNSHINE kitchen!! Anyway enough blabbering.. onto the kitchen plan!!!

Task #1 - The Counter Tops/Back Splash

I knew that changing the countertop and backsplash weren't in the budget and since it is a grey blue floor tile I actually have no problems leaving it the way it is. The reasoning behind this is #1 its floor tile and I can put a hot pot right on the tile and have no worries of it cracking or melting etc. #2 its a neutral colour with blue undertones so it will tie VERY nicely into my overall plan! The only thing I may do is reseal the grout to keep foods from staining it fun colours! I'm all for bright fun colours just not on my counter tops! This will cost us somewhere from $5-$10 depending on the type of sealer we get (which can be bought at any home improvement store)

Task #2 - The Cupboards

WE'RE GOING WHITE!!! Now there is nothing wrong with our current cupboards so we're just going to give them a face lift! The plan is to take off all of the doors and paint them white... WE'RE NOT DONE YET!! Next we are going to add moulding to the current doors to give them a nice clean updated look! They will be somewhat similar to this door except instead of a groove it will be moulding sticking out. Get the idea? (I couldn't find a better picture to describe it. Plus I don't entirely know how its going to look yet in my head it looks FABULOUS!) This will probably cost me the most. There are 25 cupboard doors that I will need moulding for plus paint. I'm going to estimate this at around $150 (on the high end).

Task #3 - Hardware
Our current cabinet hardware are similar to these which sell for $3.49 EACH! WOW hardware is expensive. Now there is nothing wrong with our hardware BUT after painting the kitchen cabinets white its going to be too much to have white hardware. SO the plan is to clean them up and spray paint them in a chrome or brass finish (haven't decided which one yet). We'll do this by first spray painting them with a primer and then adding the colour we want after. We are just going to paint the handles. The hinges I want to blend in so they will be staying white.

Task #4 - WALLPAPER

This is the part I'm VERY excited about!! I didn't want the kitchen to look completely white on one side and bright yellow on the other side SO I'm adding a little FLAIR above the kitchen cabinets in the way of wallpaper. As you can see from the picture of the kitchen there is only a bit of space above the cupboards so the wallpaper won't over power the kitchen but I wanted to bring out the blue in the countertop. SO here is the wallpaper I plan on using!Isn't it BRIGHT and fun and fabulous!!! I don't know if it will have the leaves growing up or sidesways just yet... we'll see how much of a pain it is to install first!

Task #5 - Blend the 2 rooms

Now even though I have described our kitchen as 2 seperate rooms they really are one big room and you might be thinking OMG they are going to have a bright yellow side and a bright blue side HOW DOES THAT WORK?? WELL this is where the blending and accessorizing comes in!! I will be bringing some blue to the eat in side and some yellow to the blue side! I plan on crocheting(or knitting) a blue and yellow rug similar to this one (in colours that match the kitchen of course)In addition I plan on making curtains for the window in the kitchen (the one that you can't see in the picture) in yellow and white. NOW onto my light fixture project! I plan on making this light fixture to hang over the kitchen table in blues and yellows. I discovered that the Capiz beads that these are made out of are fairly expensive BUT I have a plan to make it out of a substitute... Stay tuned for that wonderful project in the weeks to come!!!

And finally I will be bringing in yellow and blue tea towels (which we already have tonnes of) and other pieces of are to brighten up and blend the rooms! I am estimating this entire Kitchen remodel at a WHOOPING $400 (but I may get lucky and find a great deal on things and reduce that budget drastically!!!)

This project will be in the works over the next few months so stay tuned for the big reveal sometime in August!!!!