The Kitch Sitch: Before

So now that we've covered the basics - crown + floor + mild bookcase zhushing + organizing closets a la Container Store, I think we have yet to cover the kitchen: also known as the smallest amount of counter space you've ever seen.

The kitchen is pretty much what you'd expect from a 1960s house.  Paneled cabinets, no island, not a lot of cupboards, no pantry for our Sam's habit, and a small area for a kitchen table for a family of four.

Here we have the "bulk" of the kitchen. Updated you say? Oh no, that's just a BAR sink.

 

this was us on inspection day. we travel with crap everywhere we go.

 ugly picture and faux flowers not mine.

 

The above pic is also of this weird set of cabinets with a matching piece of granite on top that is accessible by cabinet doors on both sides.  I guess it was some sort of temporary island?  I have no clue.  Basically this area was the original eat in kitchen space, with the rest of "kitchen stuff" actually behind me in this picture.  Think of me standing in front of the oven, with my back to it, and taking this picture in front of me.  It's basically almost an L shaped kitchen with a tiny tiny, indent on the L part.

 

So in addition to getting a new refrigerator (does anyone else have trouble spelling that word?) we knew we needed more counter space since you basically get locked up in this kitchen when someone is washing anything in the tiny bar sink, and we needed some pantries - between Emma's gear, our food, and all the fun kitchen wedding gifts we received, space was seriously lacking.

 

Enter a multi-faceted, hair brained scheme to incorporate some "random" furniture I'd been hording in our old basement and my overwhelming desire to buy a paint gun.  Essentially I proposed that we purchase two tall, unfinished pantry cabinets that could flank the strange island piece, essentially creating a wall of storage in the old eat in area.

 

kitchen in transition. one unpainted pantry in, and random shelving under the window holding everything else together in the meantime.

 

By painting these guys white, I hoped to create somewhat of a built in look on this back wall.  We were able to save $250 by purchasing these cabinets unfinished, and purchased a Wagner paint gun for $100.  Fuzzy math you say?  I didn't count the purchase of the gun against the unfinished savings because we actually originally intended to use the gun to paint all of our interior doors to match the new crown - which we did.  I also didn't count it because $250 saved sounds better than $150.

 

All in all the paint gun was fairly easy to use and INCREDIBLY fast.  It also gives almost a powder coated enamel texture to the finished product without any of those obvious "i painted this myself" brush strokes.

we actually used these guys to hold up all the doors we painted first.

 

Tips for painting with a spray gun:

1) You don't have to thin the paint unless you would thin it to paint on a wall

2) Make sure you fill the container as to the top of the fill line - you'd be surprised how quick you go through it (to give you an idea, we were able to do only 2 full doors, front and back, on one "fill" of our paint jug)

3) Have some test scraps ready to spray each time you refill the jug, because as you refill you'll get air bubbles in the line, which causes the first few sprays to be spotty, which could ruin your finish

4) COVER EVERYTHING - its worth it but messy, be prepared

5) Clean it like crazy!  The first time I used this gun I spent more time cleaning it 35 minutes) than I did actually using it (20 minutes) but that's really what keeps the little $100 version running

 



 

iphone pic.  can you feel how horribly hot it was in this pic?

 

We actually hand painted out the trim of the doors so we didn't get tons of spray all in the cabinet - what a nightmare that would be.

 

So that was phase 1.  Phase 2 was the transformation of the massive old furniture I had, and some VERY mild reno in the microwave dept.  Back with more on that tomorrow.

 

Have a fabulous day!

 

xoxo,

KC