Ta-Da! Kitchen Reveal

My mom always said, if your going to re-do your kitchen, make sure it's what you LOVE & WANT if your going to spend the money. I trust her considering she has redone every kitchen in every house they have lived in. So, since we can't afford what I LOVE & WANT right now, I did what we could afford to make our kitchen pleasing to OUR eyes.

Thank you Rustoleum for turning my $10,000 kitchen remodel into $200. That's a whole lot of savings!

Details:

It took an entire week to transform the kitchen.

Countertops: Rustoleum Countertop Coating in Midnight. $20

Cabinets: Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation in Linen, skipped the optional glaze. $179

Paint: Behr's Silver Drop

We still have a lot of little work to do, adding wall decor, little odds and ends adding ONE MORE coast of countertop coating. But for now, this is perfect. I am in love! I am so happy we took the risk because it was the best $200 we spent on this house yet.

So with out further a-do, Our new kitchen!

Kitchen Transformation: Part II

I admit: Major fault #1 of mine is when I get a plan/vision/idea of any sort on any magnitude, I usually expect for it to be an easy one day project if that.

Sure transform my kitchen: NO BIG DEAL.

Take cabinets off, paint, whip back up and waaa-la... new kitchen.

Not so much.

This project, which yes I wanted to start at 10pm the first time because I was so excited quickly got shot down by Chris and our 2 best friends staying out of town. Of course I knew I wouldn't finish it, but I wanted to get started... I am a night shifter.. 10pm means NOTHING to me. I forget that I have to take every door down, label every piece, degrease and clean every nook and cranny, tape off everything so I don't ruin my kick ass $20 painted countertops that I just guarded with my life for 3 days while they cured.

So I went to bed to rest up for my big project that I started bright and early the very next morning.

So here it is spelled out for you, keep in mind I am NOT a perfectionist, I am an impatient procrastinator and I get bored VERY quickly.

Step 1

Take off all the doors, label with painters tape the door number to where it came from. I also numbered cups to each door and the hardware from each numbered door went in the specific cup. this was to make sure everything matched up the way it was before I attempted to paint this beast of a kitchen.

Taking the doors off

Labeling

Step #2

Cleaning & degrease the cabinets. I used oven degreaser (only because that was already under our sink and I was too impatient to go to the store to buy anything else and I used Lysol & water). After letting them dry I started the first step of the transformation kit. "Deglossing"
This was my least favorite part, you use a scratchy pad that comes with the kit and scrub the cabinet doors and cabinets with the deglosser. Royal P.I.A!

Cleaning & Deglossing sucks!

I'm SO sexy here!

Step 3

PAINT!!! Apply the "bond coat" which is the actual paint & color your using. We picked Linen and decided not to do the optional staining.


A: I didn't want to wait an extra 12 hours for THAT to dry on top of the 8 hours of the bond coat
B: We tested it on the back of one of the cabinet doors and quickly found out I am SO not an expert on staining. I pretty much looked like I leaked coffee grounds on the cabinet.


It took 2 days to paint EVERYTHING. We used 2 coats on the doors and 3 coats on the frames. Not sure on my theory there, but it just looked better.

3am night shifter painting while everyone sleeps

While all this was going on the kitchen was also being painted because once again, I was impatient and wanted it done. I'm pretty sure Chris wanted to murder me during this project. HA! I had this place turned into an assembly line of glossing, painting, trimming, taping.. you name it.

Step 3
Apply the "Protective Top Coat"
The trick is painting with the grain and finding the quickest most efficiant way to cover the piece before the top coat starts to dry and get sticky. We hung the doors after several hours and had no issues.. Ok.. so maybe I cheated and shorted a few hours but I just wanted to see the finished product.


So...
a $20 Rustoleum Countertop Coating in Midnight Blue
a $150 Rustoleum Kitchen Cabinets Transformation Kit in Linen
a bunch Purdy paint brushes & a few foam rollers
a can of Behr's Silver Drop
and you have.....
Drum Roll...........................

A sneak Peak of our newly transformed kitchen

The complete before & afters coming soon. After the knobs go up, all the tape is gone and I clean up the mess. I am so happy with how the entire kitchen looks and I can't wait to post more pictures. I did weeks worth of blog stalking other transformations and was fully prepared for the good and the bad. Thankfully, it turned out better than I expected. This little transformation will hold me over until we win the power ball and can pay someone else to redo our entire kitchen. A girl can dream, right?

Kitchen Transformation: Part 1

If I could hug and kiss the people at Rustoleum right now, I would. Considering we have exhausted our money in purchasing a new home, we were left to be frugal when it came to remodeling. We have many many many years ahead of us to save for a true kitchen remodel, but something had to be done, like STAT. Our kitchen was at the mercy of me and a paint brush.


The whole downstairs just turned me off, made me want to grab a bucket and vomit. For weeks I have been stalking home decor blogs and DIY blogs and decided to go along with the cool people and paint our god awful counter tops and boring cabinets.

I mean, it COULD have been worse, but at least I had something to work with. I am not the craftiest person, but I sure do know how to stalk blogs and educate myself on how to make a vision happen.


I took a chance, I risked the beauty of my god awful fake marble Formica at the mercy of my roller brush of Rustoleum Counter top paint, midnight blue! It was one of those 'standing in the Lowes aisle make a desicion at the last minute kind of thing' and it was actually Chris who suggested it. Yes, he knew my DREAM counter tops are Silestones Marine Stellar, but it cost too much $$ for that risk.

This $20 can of 'awesome' was perfect.

Rustoleum actually has a Countertop Transformation kit, but it was over $100 some odd dollars and I was being too frugal. Plus they didn't have my navy blue midnight color.

I taped off the walls and around the sink to prep the area. All you need is a nice brush, I used Purdy 2" brush and cabinet foam rollers. It took some time to figure out the routine to make it look best, but by the 2nd counter top, I was on a roll and I even finished this in one night. It took 3 days to cure, it's not perfect and there's PLENTY of little imperfections and needs a 2nd coat in certain areas. Especially the last section I did considering I was overtired and ready to be done so I wasn't as diligent with the task.

But I love them! Chris was pretty impressed with the outcome. Would I do it again? Hell yes! It made my awful ugly formica counter tops livable until I can convince Chris I NEED the Marine Stellar Silestone. (((Swwwwooooooooon))


To be continued.....