Kitchen Reveal

To be perfectly honest, we didn't accomplish absolutely everything we set out to. First, my husband got sick. Fun. Then, he gave it to me. Then, my daughter came down with and just as she was getting well, she gave it back to me. If there's one thing our family knows how to do it's share. Unfortunately, the floor isn't finished. It is however, ready for the underlayment and install which should (knock on wood) go reasonably quickly since we're using peel and stick tiles. But in the spirit of the Imagine the Impossibilities Challenge, we did push ourselves and I am so pleased with all that we got accomplished, even if we were passing our germs back and forth during.

TaaaDaaa! Here is our new and lovely kitchen:

We've come such a long way. Here's a little trip down memory lane for you:

Sorry for the blur. The pics were actually taken by our realtor several years ago and the resolution just isn't there. The area to the right of the brick column now houses the refrigerator, but other than that, we kept most of the floor plan the same.

The existing cabinets were really in sad shape, so when Home Depot put their unfinished cabinets on sale for 20% off, we were all over it. We stacked them in one corner and started dismantling the kitchen. The goofy strip my husband is peeling off was a very retro back splash. So glad it's gone now!

 We had the unfinished cabinets in  and most of the counter tops on by late Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, we had the mess you see on the floor and guest coming over the following day for Christmas dinner. Oops?

 Because my husband is a complete perfectionist, he made his own veneer, then glued and clamped it on overnight.

After all that, it was finally time to stain the cabinets, which was my department. We used Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations in Meadow. It was a lot less messy then varnish and looks so much better than regular paint. You can read my review here if you're thinking of using it.

I set up a makeshift paint booth and deglossed everything first, which did a great job of really opening up the grain. The bond coat application went on really easily and quickly. The pictures here make the color look a bit on the minty side, but it's really more of a creamy sage green.

Here's the finished product with hardware, also from Home Depot.

We installed the vent hood and man, it is so nice to have one of those again!

We created a simple and inexpensive back splash out of beadboard. We painted it with Glidden's Blue Grey Slate. I actually got the paint for free when Glidden was doing a FB giveaway, so that made it even better. I'll go through the process of installing the beadboard at a later date, but this post is getting long-winded already :) How about another before&after to wrap thing up?



Ahhh. Ever so much better. Again, I do apologize that the pictures are what they are but unfortunately this is the Pacific Northwest in January and any natural light that manages to filter in is grey and minimal.

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Please go check out their projects and leave them some kind words...I'm on my way to do that right now!

Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations-Kitchen Reno

Whew! The cabinets are the appropriate color, (almost) all the hardware is on, the vent hood is up, and with a bit of luck, our back splash may be up by the end of the day. Fingers crossed!

I also want to say that I am in no way being paid, compensated or anything else for this. These are my unvarnished (heehee) opinions of Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations and nothing else. You should be able to find the kit in the paint department of your local hardware store...it comes in 2 sizes and looks like this:

This kit is really and truly meant for cabinets that have previously been painted, stained, whatever. But, you can use it on unfinished wooden cabinets, which is what we did. These are the basic ingredients...you can make it a 3 step process or a 4 step process, depending upon the look you want.

The two main selling points for me are: no sanding and it's tintable to quite a few different colors. I've even heard that you can get it color matched to just about any color you want, too. We chose Meadow:

So, I set up a little "paint-booth" with the idea of keeping any stray dog hairs at bay and started deglossing. You'll know that your surface is properly deglossed when one of two things happen: painted/stained wood will look dull and bare wood will look a bit bleached, like this:

One small problem with deglossing bare wood, though. It raised up a bunch of splinters, so I wound up having to go back with a green scrub pad to get them off, then wipe them down with a lint free cloth. So, I probably could have used my little palm sander and been done sooner, but oh well.

Then, 2 coats of color. You're supposed to allow for 2 hours between each coat, but I cheated and it still came out fine. Not that I'm recommending you do that.

We tried out the decorative glaze on a scrap piece of wood and just didn't like the results. To me, it made the wood grain stand out a bit more and kind of gave the green a muddy appearance.

So, we just put the protective coat on and hung them up. Well, really, I put the protective coat on and my husband put on a second out of the whole fear of kids and dogs thing, but really, you only need one coat. Then, we installed the hardare, which we got from Home Depot in "contractor packs." I can't remember what we paid, but the knobs were about a buck each and the pulls were about a buck fifty each, so it was pretty economical.

And we got the vent hood up, too. So nice to have one again.

We're currently working on the back splash, then moving on to the floor. Stay tuned for the big reveal on January 31st!

In summary, though, I would absolutely recommend Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations. If you have any type of DIY experience, using the kit is a breeze. And if you don't, the instructions are so intuitive ans simple that it would still be pretty easy. My biggest gripe at the end of the day is that quite a bit of the wood grain still shows through on some of our upper cabinets. However, that is just me knit-picking. I'd like a little more opacity, but the cabinets really do look fantastic.

Oh, and if you'd like to read another review that I thought was spot-on, check out Centsational Girl's review here.