Our Kitchen Renovation, Part One

When we bought our house in 2016, I knew the kitchen needed more than a little bit of help! With shiny-orangey brown cabinets and a backsplash straight from 1984, we’d walked into the perfect setting for a renovation.

After adjusting to a new city and new schools for our kiddos, we finally got around to painting out cabinets in May of 2018. We used Sherwin Williams Extreme Bond Primer and ProClassic Paint. I chose to have Sherwin Williams color match China White by Benjamin Moore for the paint color. We painted and primed the cabinets by hand, but we used these brushes for the top coat. The finish is very smooth and looks good! My only regret is that we didn’t let the paint cure for more than a day or so, and the paint is pretty chipped in some places. Moving forward, I’ll let cabinets painted during a humid Arkansas summer cure for a few days before reinstalling them. We opted to keep the current brass hinges and replaced the cabinet pulls with these lovely little ladies from Amazon.

My hubs had a couple weeks off at the end of 2019, so we began tackling the rest of our kitchen renovation. Here’s what we’ve done so far:

Removed the backsplash (and the sheetrock that it was adhered to!)
Removed a large bank of cabinets that was sitting on the counter and using up too much of my counter space
Hired an electrician to replace all the plugs and bring them up to code
Hired an electrician to update all the can lights and add one new one

My hubby and oldest son removed the tile backsplash and the bank of cabinets above to make room for a bit more counter space and open shelving.

On the docket to finish our renovation:

Re-install the sheetrock so that the backsplash can be replaced
Order new countertops and backsplash
Order new sink and faucet
Schedule installation of countertops, backsplash and sink
Build and install open shelves to replace the bank of upper cabinets that were removed
Build and install shelves to replace an unused desk area directly behind the sink
Remove a randomly placed celing fan
Move the smoke detector just a smidge farther away from the stove so that I can cook dinner without being serenaded by the smoke alarm. 🙂
Paint the ceiling…this little job was made necessary by an overzealous bottle of kombucha that exploded all over my kitchen.

When it comes to DIY projects, we certainly don’t work at a fast pace. I’m enjoying the process that comes with updating our kitchen and I’m thankful to have you all follow along with me.