The Beginning of a Transformation....Part One!

Hello!! I am back!!!

As many of you know, Joe and I were on vacation last week. We attacked our Kitchen for the entire week and I still have some finishing touches to complete.

Our Kitchen has been a thorn in my side for 32 years. When we bought our townhouse, the Kitchen had black walnut cabinets, avocado green floors, a gold counter top and of all things, a brick red vinyl molding around the walls near the floor. I figured that they used scraps that were left over from other townhouses. I did luck out with a white tile back splash where most of my neighbors had gold or avocado green.

Over the years, I tried to change the Kitchen as much as I could on a very limited budget. I painted the cabinets a cream color in an attempt to lighten up the kitchen 15 or so years ago. Since there are no windows in the kitchen ( townhouse remember with other houses attached on each side and patio on back of house turned into Den) ,I always have to have lights on in the Kitchen. About 10 years ago, I put up an apple border with a green background. I loved red in the Kitchen after seeing pics in Country Decorating Ideas magazines. Back then ,mauve and blue were the fashionable colors and red wasn't. Later on, red became the fashionable color for Kitchens. I guess I was ahead of my time then. LOL!

I always wanted a Country Victorian looking Kitchen. I finally think that I have created one now.

So this is part One of my Kitchen transformation.....

Last Monday afternoon after I woke up since I worked the night before, I started boxing up everything from the Kitchen........



The boxes lined the Hallway and spilled over into the Living Room. I DO have a lot of stuff!

Tuesday started with me still packing up the Kitchen and Joe stripping off the old border......


Wednesday , we painted with Kilz, the walls and the ceiling. Put 2 coats of a pale yellow on the ceiling and on the top half of the walls and 2 coats of red on the bottom of the walls.

I always paint my ceiling the same color as the walls because I used to watch the Christopher Lowell show many years ago and he always said that having a white ceiling looked like you threw a white bed sheet up there and that your ceiling was another "wall" so to speak. And it also saves you on trimming......... LOL!



The hutch and the desk that were yard sale and flea market pieces many years ago also got a redo......

Here is the hutch with the first coats of paint on it........

Here is the desk with it's new coat of paint.......

You can also see that to create the Country Victorian look I wanted, we put up a chair rail.....

I bought this border on Ebay about 3 years ago because I loved the yellow roses and the scalloped edges.....

I finished putting up the border at 8 pm on Thursday evening after sitting all day on a tiny stool where the refrigerator is priming , painting, caulking and replacing part of the flooring that had cracked.......

Friday and Saturday, we took down , primed and repainted the cabinets with a high Gloss White. Joe painted the doors and drawers outside in almost 90 degree heat while I worked on painting the cabinet bases in the air conditioning......

Here is Joe , with his head light on so he could see, taking the cabinet doors off.


Sunday, I put the final coats on shelves, painted my bar stool seats white and we put all of the doors back on. I then slept for about 2 hours and went to work since Sunday night was my Holiday to work. Time and a half made it worth while. I was off Monday night so we had the kids over for a "Cook In" as I always say since our yard is not big enough to have everyone outside.
When the kids left, I started putting back some of the things on my shelves......

I am going to show you some before and some after pics now. I am only showing you some bits and pieces of the Kitchen now because I still need to complete some projects.

This is the before with the old border and white walls......

This is the after with the warm pale yellow walls and the shelves and lower half of the wall now painted red and the chair rail added. Plus the molding around the door painted with the High Gloss White.......


This is above the hutch before.....


And this is now what it looks like. See the back of the hutch is now painted red......

Here is the long shelf with all of my vintage Kitchen items before......


And here is it now......

Here is the sofit above the Kitchen cabinets with the new border and the High Gloss White paint on the cabinets.......


Here are the cabinets now a bright white. I decided to keep the cream colored handles as they match the pale yellow walls.....

This is the before pic of part of the wall where the pass through from the Kitchen to the Dining Room is.....

And the after pic with the inside walls painted red.

I plan on still keeping the white lace curtains up between the 2 rooms because I still don't want the Kitchen to be seen from the Dining Room because of the difference of colors. I think the white curtains really makes the red stand out.....


This is the before pic of the counter bar.....

And the before pic of my bar stools that I painted a long time ago with a paper doily used as a stencil. You can see the paint is fading off.....


Here is the after pic with the counter bar painted red on the sides, the new chair rail and the stools with a fresh coat of white on the seats......


I am not sure if I will do anything else to the stools yet.

I guess you could say that I sort have teased you with these pics of bits and pieces of the Kitchen but I do not want to show you the entire Kitchen until I can get it all finished. I still have to paint spindles and a final coat of white on the hutch. I am looking for copper tin inserts for some of the cabinet doors and we have not decided on a light fixture yet.
I have had 7 light fixtures in this Kitchen in 32 years and am still trying to find what I think is the perfect one as far as lighting is concerned since this is a dark room. We currently have track lights up.
I am undecided to go to the new flourescent lighting with warm light bulbs or go with new track lighting with halogen bulbs. Any thoughts??????

We are still keeping the gold counter tops and gold flooring because of lack of money and they actually match the kitchen now!

I know it was a heck of a way to spend a vacation but this kitchen redo was 5 years in the making and I am so very happy that it is almost done. Yes, I am sore!! My fingers on my right hand keep going numb every time I try to hold a paint brush!! My right knee is swollen and my back is broke but..........

I am really pleased with how it came out and I can honestly say that for the first time in 32 years, I am LOVING my Kitchen. I think I finally created the warm Country Victorian Kitchen I always wanted.

I hope to be able to finally start to visit with all of you again. I missed my blogger friends!
I also want to say HELLO to some new followers I picked up over the past few weeks. I am sorry that I have not had time to visit you and hope to do so soon. Thanks for signing up to follow me here at Debbie-Dabble!

I am also hearing of problems with leaving comments on blogs for over a week now. I am so sorry that this is happening if you try to leave me a comment. We can only hope that blogger fixes it soon.

I am linking up to these parties:

Tabletop Tuesday

WOW Wednesday

Rednesday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Show and Tell Friday

I hope to show you the finished project next week!!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and everyday that you take the time to visit me!!

Hugs,
Debbie