Kitchen Changes – A Slow Remodel

We moved into this house a little over 3 1/2 years ago. When we got here, there was so much to be done. The previous owners had smoked in it for a L.O.N.G. time! The amount of tar on the walls and fixtures was ridiculous! Still sometimes, I will smell a faint hint of smoke in one of the closets.

We tend to be project starters, but sometimes our follow through stinks!  We get a little burnt out after working on something nonstop for months, too.

As for the kitchen, we had textured it, removed all the cabinets and cleaned them well, replaced some of the rotting boards on the floor, installed new tile, removed some old rock looking wallboard paneling, replaced countertops and faucet and finally painted it a pretty red color. The thing is…it was way better, but it never got finished.

What we didn’t do:

Paint the cabinets
Replace the cabinet hardware
Replace the nasty tarred up light fixtures
Finish painting the kitchen….especially the line along the ceiling
Replace the back door
Replace the Mini Blinds
Add a Curtain

I won’t even tell you the list of everything we did wrong and I’d like to redo. 🙂 You’ll just get to see it as it happens I suppose.

Remember how I told you that we built the new bedrooms and laundry room? Our old laundry area was in the kitchen and it is now becoming our pantry. We’ve been debating for a while about painting the kitchen cabinets and figured that we could test that out by painting the cabinets in the new pantry area.

Here’s the before (The husband had already started sanding….forgetting that I wanted to take pictures!):

and here’s the after (minus the hardware):

What do you think? I think it’s a pretty big improvement!  We are thinking about adding some crown molding to the bottom of the cabinets to dress them up a bit.  We may even consider putting some sort of trim on the doors to dress them up a bit, too.  What do you think?  Have you ever tried adding trim to cabinet doors?  How did it go for you?  I’d love to hear any opinions and/or experiences you have!

Then there was the light above the sink.  It was recessed lighting and we couldn’t find any great way to replace it without removing part of the ceiling.  That’s the kind of job that calls for some major procrastination!  So we left it.  It was nasty, but remember……I don’t tend to notice things unless they’re staring me in the face….and this just wasn’t.  I was quite accustomed to not using that light!!  If I looked up, it would bother me…..but mostly, I just didn’t look up, lol.

So…..here’s the before that came out (when my dh gets it in his head he’s going to do something, he doesn’t even think about the fact that I may want a before picture for my blog, can you believe that?!) .

Obviously, we were planning to replace it, because we painted on it.  Who cares about that thing….ewwww.

Well, it sat and sat and sat and sat and sat……(Now I sound like Prudence in Once Upon a Potty!) and finally, while spending some money we received for Christmas at Lowes, we found it.  We found a Recessed Lighting Conversion Kit, where we could just screw this bulb into the existing can that was was already up there.

How brilliant is that?  We were totally kicking ourselves for not doing this sooner!

Here’s what it looks like dangling from the ceiling.  I’m not yet going to show you the whole window, because I have more plans there…..and it’s still not quite how I’d like to see it.

Progress, right?  Sometimes I feel like the tortoise in The Tortoise and the Hare.  Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

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