A Kitchen Update

A few of you have asked how the kitchen was coming along, so I thought I would give you all an update today.

This past weekend, the only real visual accomplishment was the completion of the back door and pantry door and putting a little shine to the trimwork (hubby HAD to have this). We did come to some decision as far as countertops (I think anyway) and a kitchen sink and faucet.

Saturday, Jason took the pantry door down and "spruced it up". Now if you remember the before pictures, this door was a plain flat interior door. I knew I wanted it to have more character. We had talked about what to do to give more interest. Jason took it out to the garage and worked his magic on it. He planned to add trim to the door to make it a raised panel door. What I didn't know is that he used the old trim that used to be above the cabinets to make the panels (repurposed trim). Now that makes it even more special in that he used a part of my "old kitchen" on the door. And he purposely left me a 4 1/2" opening or space below the first raised panel for a "Pantry" sign (that I don't have yet but have always pictured there and plan to purchase).

Then came the paint. We had chosen Cabin Red, also Lowe's Eddie Bauer paint. Everyone that came around agreed that from the paint sample, it complimented the bittersweet paint very well. However, one stroke of it on my door, and I knew I didn't like it! I was trying to be positive and convince myself that it would dry differently and that it would be okay. Well two doors painted later and dried, I was SURE it wasn't going to work. It looked pink! Jason agreed. Here's what it looked like:



So off we went to Lowe's again late Saturday evening. I didn't expect to get my money back, but I hoped maybe we could tint it some. I put the paint on the counter and proceeded to tell the guy why I didn't like it...and before I could get it all out, he said, "And it was pink." He said that I was about the fourth person in a couple of months with that same shade/color that brought it back for the same reason. He said they all complained that it wasn't the color of the sample...it was more pinkish. That made me feel a little better because the sample swatch really coordinated. He was willing to trying tinting it for me. He started to add more red, but I told him to try brown first. After a couple of times of tinting with various amounts of brown drops, we had a shade I thought would work. Had it not worked, I was going to Sherwin Williams on Monday to buy what had been my second choice of all the paint samples against the kitchen color.....Sundried Tomatoes. But we brought it home and Jason put on the "new color" and it was SO MUCH better. Here's how it the doors turned out:





However, I still thought they would coordinate even better if the color wasn't so bright...muted some. I told him I thought we should try antique glaze over them. He wasn't fond of that idea. Remember he isn't real keen on the old, distressed, grungy look of too many things! I convinced him to do me a sample on a board lightly brushed on with antique glaze (I had not been feeling well during all this...sore throat, headache...etc..). He did it for me, but brought it in and said, "There's your glazed one....see which way you like it better, but I hope you don't like it this way!" lol! Well which way do you think I liked better? Yep, the glazed one! I knew immediately that I liked it alot better. It just seemed to compliment the wall tone! I told him so, and asked him to trust me. I told him I thought he would really like it better in the end. And whew, was I glad when it was finished and he DID like it better. He liked the way the glaze brought out the wood grain on the pantry door, and that fact that it toned down the color a tad bit and made it go better with everything.



I have no idea why that circle is on the wall...the flash I guess..it's not really there in person:


A little closer view..you can see the wood grain Jason likes:


And after all of the painting ordeal was over, late Saturday night, Jason brought in a piece of formica countertop that we had been considering at Lowe's. Remember I told you earlier that we came to some decisions? Well one of them was that we didn't like the tiles for the countertop. The more we looked at them all week and "lived with them", they just didn't make us happy. They seemed to compete with everything! The four color combination was too busy. The two color combination (the floor tile color and terra cotta color) just made me think of a checkerboard and the one color (terra cotta) was best but still just seemed to take over everything. Maybe it was because there was tile on my floor. I'm not really sure. We also decided against the three formica countertops that I showed samples of in an earlier post. I think because my cabinets are so light, the countertops needed a darker contrast, so we had pretty much decided on a black(ish) countertop from Lowe's. A couple of friends from the Country Sampler forum have this countertop, and I loved the way it looked. It's called Labrador Granite. Here's a piece of it lying on my counter. What do you think?



The plans are this weekend to put in countertops and hope that our ordered kitchen sink arrives from Home Depot. The original sink I wanted just didn't coordinate well with the countertop, so I researched and looked....and researched and looked some more. In the end, we ordered this one.



It had good reviews. We sat the laminate piece near a similiar black sink in Lowe's and it seems to work best. We're hoping we made the right decision and that it arrives this weekend in time. If not, Jason plans to just cut the place for it and drop it in when it does arrive. I'm nervous about it all coming together, but I feel fairly confident and excited about it.

Then the next decision will be curtains. Too many decisions to make! Any ideas on curtains? My dining room burgandy sturbridge valances look great in there against everything, but that's just it....I already have them in the dining room and I have the navy sturbridge valances in my living room.



So that's the kitchen update....oh and just last night, Jason painted the pantry door knob black. He was going to buy a new one. I suggested we at least try the $1 Walmart black spray paint and see how it looked. I think it's fine.





And Jason got a big hug and kiss for doing the majority of painting everything this weekend when I wasn't feeling well....I got to be supervisor pretty much this weekend..so I'm really thankful for all his work, and all without complaining at all! :)

And now you know what work is in store for us over the holiday weekend......