Kitchen Redecorating - Part 1

I have found that if you imagine, dream it, plan and dwell on it  long enough, "it" will eventually come to fruition (kind of like the principles of The Secret). This has worked for me on things that I do have some control over, like finally getting our "Our House", decorating, vacations, love (though, I admit I haven't perfected it for say, things like The Lottery).

So after gathering a plan (you can see my rambling on that here), paint samples, fabric samples and watching them sit for months, I finally broke ground on our kitchen decorating. I said I wanted to have it complete by the New Year since we will be the hosts for an annual New Year's Eve Dinner we do with friends. Then I realized it was November already.

We finally made a fabric choice for the window seat after looking at four samples and we also narrowed down the paint choices. After making a special trip to Benjamin Moore for a chip containing the magic color of the moment, Moonshine, we finally had all of our choices there in front of us. As it turns out, Moonshine did not look right in our house. Luckily I picked up two more swatches while I was there and what worked for us was BM Cement Gray in a Satin finish for durability (color matched  in Valspar Ultra. Luckily Lowe's already had the color in their system).

Here are before pictures I took of our current kitchen (sans boxes and newspapers from unpacking this time).

Here it is with the first coat. This stuff is supposed to be like the Behr Ultra (paint + primer) so I was hoping, going over a light color, that only 2 coats would be necessary. That worked out mostly true. I only went over the large walls with a second coat. All of the small cut in places and walls above the cabinets were perfect with one coat. Woo to the Hoo on these Ultra paints with the primer built right in!!

After this step I got pulled away for a quick trip to FL to visit the in-laws Thur - Sun. before Thanksgiving. Getting back to the grind on Monday - Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, I used a metallic paint and my new Moroccan Dream stencil from Cutting Edge. There are so many tutorials out there that I won't dare bore you with another one. I already had experience using a stencil as I did a diamond pattern purchased at Home Depot or Lowes (can't remember it was so long ago) in the vestibule at The Old House. This time around it was a LOT more time consuming (about 8 or so hours total over 3 days. Because the stencil I chose was one that would keep the most wall color exposed, a lot of paint ended up on the stencil. That would cause gooey globs to start pulling off onto my roller so I had to wash the stencil a few times during the process. Next time I think I would go with one that most of the paint ends up on the wall, so your main color comes from what you stencil onto the wall.

The last time I used flat paint base with semi-gloss for the stenciling, but this time I wanted a slight metallic finish to it. Enter Martha Stewart Precious Metals in Tin from The Home Depot. SO glad we have both big boxes near us! The colors were a perfect match. So close in fact that you will see a spot that got missed! The wet Tin was almost identical to my dry BM Cement Gray base.



Check out the original color under the microwave
 (and ignore said Micro as we'll be adding a stainless one in the future)



You can really see the difference here and imagine
how great all the tiled backsplashes will be.

Our cute purple 1/2 bath. I'm considering stenciling this part of
the room. It's a little hall leading to storage, 1/2 bath and
utility room on the opposite side of the kitchen from the breakfast nook.

 

You can see the small part that didn't get stenciled. I'll go back and stencil that
with the single stencil they include. PLUS, there is some touching up I have
to do with a small brush. Did I mention this was exhausting and little mishaps occurred??


 As you can tell in the pictures, I did not paint under the cabinets. We are planning to install a tile back splash in our immediate future. I thought it was such a waste of my time and of a great color paint that I can see me using for other things. More importantly, I thought leaving it ugly like this would motivate the Mister to get out there with me to pick some tile and get to it.



We like the 3rd one in the line but haven't finished looking, but aren't totally
in love with it. We found one we love at The Tile Shop but at $25 per sq. ft, that's a no go.



While home for Thanksgiving my mom and I sewed the bench cusion fabric onto the 4" foam I bought with major coupons at JoAnns.

Anyway, this is what's been going on for the last few weeks (and now Christmas decorating added to that). Here's a list of what remains to be done in the kitchen:

1. Finish making pillows to run along the entire bench. All 129 inches of it! (I have cut them out but need to sew them AND I broke down and ordered some on Etsy.) Along with a couple of cute things I'll show when the pillows arrive.
2. Select and install the Tile on the back splashes under all the cabinets.
3. Pick up the small black table for the breakfast nook. I found one at Walmart and used the site to store feature online. I'll pick that up next week!
4. Make Roman Shades in a charcoal fabric using this tutorial and this tutorial because I want a backing.

I'm linking up: