The Kitchen...AFTER

Okay, so as I mentioned in my last post...the kitchen is still a work in progress, but it is a whole lot better than it was originally. (I have to apologize for how yellow some of these photos are...we've had a patch of rain here and it was hard to get good natural light, so the yellow ones were taken with indoor lighting (aak!) but I know you all have good imaginations so you get the idea.) We decided to go for a sort of French Country feel, so we chose a warm cream color for the cabinetry. I was originally planning on glazing the cabinets to bring out the details of the paneling, but once we got them painted, I was really happy with how they looked and opted not to glaze them.


It's difficult to tell in these pictures, but the color on the wall is Ralph Lauren's Cathedral Gray which as I mentioned in a previous entry is really more of a gray/green. It is very soothing, and sets off both the cream cabinetry and the black beadboard beautifully.

If you look closely at the baseboards in any of these photos, you can see that I haven't painted them yet. Yep, that's what I mean by a work in progress. They will eventually be the color of the cabinets. eventually. (And yeah, I know I need to get rid of the stereo in the corner...oh, and the white microwave...sigh.)

And here is a tricky trick for you all. Our appliances did not all match. We bought the oven and the refrigerator while we lived at our previous rental house so we brought them with us when we moved here. They "blend" with each other. The refrigerator is obviously black but it has a little bit of stainless accent on it, so it went well with the oven. But the dishwasher that was here when we moved in was white. I had decided that I would purchase some of that faux stainless sheeting. I had even found a place online where I was going to buy it (it's not very expensive by the way). But I was telling my sister-in-law what I was thinking of doing, and she told me to unscrew the casings of the existing front and remove it, and that oftentimes the appliance underneath is already metal. She was right! I took off the front and the dishwasher was actually a stainless color metal...but it looked horrible (it's an old dishwasher...probably won't last too much longer.) So I couldn't do that. There is an upside to this story, however. The other side of the white front was black. Yep...black! I flipped it over, put it back on, and now my dishwasher matches the refrigerator and stove. FREE!!! Pretty sneaky huh?

I love the fact that I cleaned off the refrigerator. It look so much cleaner in my kitchen without all of the photos and stuff on the fridge. But since I am a photo junkie, I had to put them somewhere. I have a cute magnetic white board (framed in black) that I put on the doorway to the basement across from the oven. All the stuff is still there, but it looks purposeful and not cluttered.


Here you can see the beadboard on the bar. It looks fabulous and makes the kitchen look so custom. We also put beadboard on the refrigerator surround...and the mudbench is just down the hall. It has beadboard too, so it all coordinates.

Here are those cute shelves the Hubby made to replace that dumb old floating cabinet. Eventually, we would like to replace the countertops with something dark (solid surface preferably), and if I had my way, I'd replace the split corner sink...what were they thinking when they put THAT in?!? But, we are on a pretty tight budget, so neither of those things are an option yet.

This sweet chalkboard (yep, another chalkboard!) was a Christmas gift from my brother-in-law and family. It has my current favorite quote written on it.

Gotta love this little rooster...what respectable French Country kitchen wouldn't have one of these?
So, even though it's not quite done...it's getting there and it's worlds better than it was so I'm a pretty happy girl!