Tag Archives: renovation

An Alpaca in the Kitchen

Ok. We don’t really have an alpaca in the kitchen. Although that would make for some interesting photos. We do have alpaca colored cabinets in the kitchen though.

Ok. So that’s not completely true either. We have cabinets that are partially painted in Sherwin Williams Alpaca. Partially is the key word here since so far I have only worked on the top cabinets and the doors are still covering my dining room table.

I just finished the third coat of paint on the front of all the doors and hope to start on the back side of them later today or tonight. For the most part painting has been fairly easy and quick. “Well what is taking you so long?”, you ask. Finding the time to paint. The best time for me to paint is during Noah’s naps or after she has gone to bed. It works well but it kind of draws the whole process out.

Thankfully I (and Michael Luke) am loving the color choice. I’m not sure Noah has noticed. Kids these days!

Thank you so much for weighing in with your color choices in our little poll. A majority of you chose Alpaca. Even with all your Alpaca encouragement I still almost when with Requisite Grey. Not because I don’t value your opinion but because I was just afraid it wouldn’t be dark enough.

After seeing Alpaca on the cabinets though I can’t imagine it being any darker. The tonal value is really close to the existing cream color which you can still see on the bottom cabinets.

The difference is in the underlying tones. The original cream color had a lot of yellow in it. Too much for our taste after painting the walls yellow. The new color has a subtle pink tint. It doesn’t come across as pink at all but it picks up some of the warmer tones found in our floor tile. And because red and yellow are next to each other on the color wheel they yellow walls work well with the cabinets.

The light grey of the cabinets really allows the counters to shine in all their glory.

Which is totally what I wanted! And kind of a cool picture as we, the body of Christ (the cabinets) want God (the counter) to shine in all His glory. Like I read in my quiet time this morning… “He must increase, but I must decrease.” – John 3:30

Hopefully, painting the bottom cabinets will move a little quicker than the top. I’ll be sure to share pictures along the way as well as let you know the process I used to paint and prep our cabinets.

Have you ever painted cabinets before? If so, how long did it take you? What do you feel like has been your most labor intensive DIY project?

P.S. Don’t forget that your purchase from Color Created Family helps to cover our adoption expenses as we journey towards bringing our little girl home from Hong Kong. This month a portion of each sale will also go towards The Sparrow Fund who helps families through the adoption process.

For more Color Transformed Family follow me on:

Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Hometalk,
or RSS.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Meanwhile…

7 Replies

We are still working on finishing the backsplash
in our kitchen. Well, I should say Michael Luke is still
working. He is doing an amazing job but it’s hard for him to
find the free time to finish it up so it may be another week or two
before I post finished pictures. Meanwhile… Remember back at the
beginning of the year? When we replaced our kitchen
counters with Formica 180 FX in Dolce Vita. Well,
our kitchen counters weren’t the only thing we replaced.
We figured while we were at it why not replace the counters in the master bath as well.
Replacing the counters was already on our To-Do list. So
since we were already paying for labor and the additional cost for
the actual material wasn’t that much extra we decided now was as
good a time as any. Our white porcelain sinks looked so beautiful with the Dolce Vita counters that I had to add more white accents. Like the family picture of us in the
white frame.
You may have noticed in the picture above that there is a small strip of wood exposed underneath the counter. This is because our new counters sit 3/4″ higher than our previous ones. This small change in height
might have frustrated some people but for me it was the go ahead to
paint our existing cabinets a beautiful white. In case you
are wondering I haven’t been secretly working on painting them yet.
Priority numero uno is to finish the kitchen first and then
maybe work on sprucing up the master bath some more. I was loving the white accents so much that I swapped out the pottery
that Noah’s supplies used to sit on for this beautiful Vera Bradley
tray. I also relocated this keepsake frame with our room key from the first night of our honeymoon at The Peabody. The white just looks so amazing on the
counters that I can’t get enough of it right now!
Future plans for the bathroom include painting the cabinets and walls as well as installing new floor tile throughout the entire bathroom. To be honest
though, I don’t see any of that happing too soon. We need to
finish the kitchen first and then we will have a better idea of a
timeline. Meanwhile… Do you have any projects that require more
of your free time to finish them? Are you getting any of the snow
from the storm that is pummeling through the north east. I
don’t know what we would do if we ever got that much snow at one
time. Just a half an inch of snow shuts down the entire city
here in Birmingham!

For more Color Transformed Family follow me on:

Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Hometalk,
or RSS.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Kitchen Budget Breakdown

9 Replies

The other week I gave you the run down on what our plan is for the kitchen. (Check out our mood board here.) I took a little longer than expected (gasp… shocker I know) but I’m back with all the budget numbers and our “We Can Beat That Price” to beat.

So here goes.

Operation Bring Sunshine to the Kitchen (Estimated Pricing)

new countertops– ($600 counters, $427 labor installation) We realize granite is the going thing in houses these days but we are opting for something a little different. At first we considered s solid surface material such as Corian but believe it or not it is pricing higher than granite right now. For a few years though I have had my eye on Formica’s 180FX.

It’s a laminate but doesn’t have a pattern repeat like your typical laminate. It’s a digital image of a real slab of stone printed onto a piece of laminate with the texture and sheen of the stone it is portraying.

We are going with the pattern shown above, Dolce Vita. I am so excited about it and can’t wait to see it installed. If everything goes well we will have our new counters installed within the next two months! Yay!

paint upper and lower cabinets – ($30) Not much to say here… just paint. I do plan to take one of our doors to Sherwin Williams and see what type of paint and process they recommend. The paint that is on them right now is super durable and doesn’t have any chips. I want the same thing with our new paint.
under cabinet lighting– ($70) I had been eyeing some under cabinet lights from IKEA for a while and thought that was what I would go with but I found some LED under cabinet lights at Sam’s last month that won me over. They are battery operated (which works out a lot better for our kitchen set up) and are all controlled by one remote. So much easier than having to turn each individual light off by hand.
new refrigerator– ($1,100) We’ve got it narrowed down to one refrigerator.

Our house is over thirty years old (older than us) and wasn’t designed for the larger refrigerators on the market today. Samsung offers this 30″ wide, armoire style one though that will fit perfectly in our little area. We’re just waiting for the right price to pop up before we pounce on him.

new above range microwave oven– $150

We actually already bought this little dude, way under what we were originally budgeting for it. I’ll fill you in on everything once we get him installed.

paint walls– ($30) Pretty self explanatory.
tile backsplash– ($30 tile, $30 supplies) I’m thinking inexpensive white subway tile with a darker grout color. I’ve been seeing that a lot lately and like that it won’t show dirt as much.
add cut out to pantry door– ($20) This explanation works better with a picture.

Source: southernhospitalityblog.com via Krystle @ Color Transformed Family on Pinterest

clean grout in tile floor– (10) Since we decided economically it makes sense to keep our ceramic tile floors I’m going to try to revive them a little by cleaning the grout.
new hardware for cabinet doors and drawers– ($100) Upgrading to satin nickel finish hardware. A little extra eye candy for the room.
replace ceiling fan and light– ($160) Updating the builder grade fan to something a little more modern.

So that brings our grand total estimated budget to $2,757. Which isn’t a bad price for a kitchen renovation but We Can Beat That!

So follow us along on our journey as we attempt to renovate our kitchen for under our estimated price.

Are you working on any “We can beat that” projects? What one room are you just itching to start renovating? Are you as visual as me and have to ~~write~~ type stuff down so that you picture everything?