Project Progress: Kitchen Update Week 4

Starting to make some major progress in the kitchen!

As I was looking at the kitchen, it seemed like there was just so much dark wood. I love dark wood, but it was a little overwhelming, I think. I thought it would be fun to put beadboard or wainscoting around the bottom of the island and paint it white. In the end, wainscoting won out, because I just love the look, plus the island isn't perfectly square, so it would have been hard to get the beadboard on right (not that that's ever stopped me before).

I measured out all the lines in pencil, then we measured and bought some trim. I also primed first. David made all the cuts. Crazy how my countertop is over-run. You can see I was also staining more cabinets and drawers during all of this.

Then we used the nail gun to put the trim pieces up on the side. Then we realized that the back of the cabinet is warped. Like, really badly, and the dishwasher is pressed against the back. We weren't sure how easy the dishwasher would be to remove (although we are going to find out soon, because the dishwasher totally broke--not related to this project--so I'm back to no dishwasher). So, we decided to attach the trim to a thin board and then put that up.

Oh look, a stack of cabinet doors, hanging out while David attaches trim.

You can see how we laid it out before attaching the pieces in the photo below. Don't worry about the wandering trim, we did pencil lines to make sure we got it in the right spot.

Nailing the trim to the board was quite the adventure. We did it though, and got it put up, carefully avoiding the dishwasher.

Then I started painting it. Even with primer, I had to do four coats. Blah! Took forever.

Oh, and crazy story about buying this paint. We go to Home Depot, and pick out the sample for Swiss Coffee (same color I used as the base of the countertops). Well, the Home Depot paint guy was super busy, and as we are walking up, he asks, "Antique White?"

And I say, "No, Swiss Coffee."

Then he tells us it will be five minutes. We also got a sample size in pink to paint something for Aubrey's birthday (which I will show you, if I ever finish it), and so we left the samples on the counter and left.

Come back, and I grab the paint. Woke up the next morning, ready to paint. Look at the top of the can. Guess what color I have? I'll give you a hint, it's not the color I wanted. That guy at Home Depot must have really wanted to give us Antique White. I'm wondering if they changed the name or something, because I can't find Swiss Coffee on the Glidden website.

I used it and it works. I could have taken it back, but it's not really a short drive and I really wanted to finish. It will work well for trim paint ,and it might be the same color. I can't find my paint chip, or I would figure it out once and for all. I mean, if they had changed the name of the color, shouldn't the Home Depot guy mentioned it, to avoid the death-ray thoughts I was giving him that next morning?

Paint color mix-ups notwithstanding, I love the end result. Doesn't it brighten up the kitchen and update it a little bit more? I'm getting there, piece by piece. We still need to get a new piece of trim to cover the corner, but our AC also broke (or wasn't working) when we fired it up for the first time, sooooo we had to fix that instead of doing more in the kitchen. Hopefully I will be able to get the few odds and ends I still need, but we are in major budget crunch time. Not enough to panic, but enough to make me stop buying trim.

So, to recap, before:

After.

Sigh. SO much BETTER! Not bad for about $25.

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