Fastest Reno Ever: Kitchen Edition

posted on : February 17, 2014

Our kitchen is one of my favorite rooms in our house. Thankfully so, because, like a lot of kitchens, it tends to be our Command Center. Before, we’d only be in there for what we needed to do. Now, we really enjoy spending time in the room, playing games, working from home, etc. I love having a space that fits us!

Fortunately, it did not take very long to make the room into what it is today… thanks to the help of many other people besides Mitch and I. Let’s get right to it- we all know that the pictures are the best part anyway!

Once upon a time, our kitchen looked like this:

And this:

Things that stayed:

All original walls, ceiling, and closets. Well, closet.
All appliances (thank you, God, for blessing us with brand new appliances upon move in!)
Kitchen Cabinets and Counter tops
Chandelier (although this ends up getting its own makeover… keep an eye out for that post!)
Flooring
Back door leading to patio

Things that went:

Wallpaper
Chair rail
All original curtains
Light fixture in galley
Leftover layer of soot on all walls and cabinets from a previous neighbor smoker/past fire (This was my own personal place of misery… while everyone else got to do the fun painting, I was scrubbing soot off of all of the cabinets and fridge. Womp, womp. I just didn’t feel right about giving the job to someone else…)

Step 1: Remove all of the wallpaper and the chair rail! A big thanks to my cousin, Jess and my mom for their demolition skills and patience with removing wallpaper!

Also pictured above: Our very first kitchen table (it comes with its own story, so we’ll save that for another day) and the MASSIVE bag of rice off of which Mitch was living during those days.

Step Two: PAINT! We chose a bright, cheery yellow for this room. We wanted it to be bold, but cozy. In the end, I think it was the perfect color choice for us.

Below: Getting ready to open the first can of paint, EVER USED in this house. Funny enough, it wasn’t even for the kitchen… that’s ceiling paint!

Above and Left: This is where the S.W.A.T. team comes into play… on one Sunday afternoon, we had family members, church members, and Youth Group kids all over the house and in the backyard working on projects. They were AWESOME! The result: a finished kitchen in one day. Incredible.

Step Three: Installing Beadboard paneling in seating area and into galley. My dad and Rachel, a Youth Grouper, went to town on this project and had it almost completely installed before the end of the night.

Above: For this project, we used Cape Cod MDF Beadboard, purchased at The Home Depot. This product is awesome- easy to put together and gives an “instantly gratifying”, finished look to the project. Eventually, we put a coat of Behr Ultra White paint on it, but it looked great even before that. The baseboard and chair rail are sold separately, but should DEFINITELY be used with the beadboard, as the beadboard snaps into place in the grooves of both rails. This takes a ton of time off of the installation process!

Below: Right before we put the beadboard up! My sweet mother painted this for me to model next to. She made sure to give our house some character… some “mystery behind the walls”, so to speak.

Below: Installing the beadboard!

Above: Halfway there!

Below: Finished!!!

Step 4: Paint all trim and doors white. (This goes for the whole house, actually. The house had dark gray trim everywhere, which we quickly changed to white.)

After all was said and done, the room felt so much more like us! A big THANK YOU to all who helped us make it so! Here are a few more Before and Afters to end with for today: