KITCHEN WALLS PAINTED & SOME GREAT FINDS!







 
 I painted the kitchen walls yesterday in a colour that was supposed to have been colour matched to the dinning room walls but somehow it's not quite the same.  Soooo, I'm going with it for now, well at least until it really starts to drive me batty then I'll paint it again.  Lessoned learned - don't try to skimp on paint by not buying the original somewhat more expensive one...disappointment ensues :( 

Great finds!

For the last little while, I've been searching for a shelf size silver sailboat I recently saw in Canadian magazine that I think would go so nicely in our little cottage home, but still no luck.  However, I did locate some great finds at Winners/Homesence yesterday that DO "colour match" my awesome prints in the dining room!  I always get so excited when I find things I love at a great price.  Take a peak at my new curtains, this cute little wooden box finished in chalkboard paint and a couple of mugs - LOVE THEM!  I must admit, I do have a weakness for different mugs and could have bought dozens of them of them yesterday.

SMOKEY BLUE - my new favorite colour



LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Chalkboard paint!!





REMEMBER THESE?



KITCHEN RENO

BEFORE SHOT

Here is a shot of our kitchen before, well one side of it anyway.

BEFORE

 AFTER SHOT

...and voila, the after.  Counter tops still need to be changed ideally to butcher block to match our Ikea counter cabinet on the other side of the kitchen.   As well, the walls need to be painted and the floor, sink, faucet, lights all need to be changed.  The list goes on and on, but over all this is a pretty good start.

AFTER



AFTER

HARDWARE



NIFTY HANDLES

I really wanted branch shaped wrought iron hardware for the handles that I once saw at Lee Valley Tools on line, but when I went back recently to search for them again, I couldn't find them.  So I opted for these little wrought iron cuties instead, which I found at Home Depot & Rona.  They are a huge step up from the green plastic hardware that was on the cupboards when we bought the house.

A CHALKBOARD TOO!

 And in this little nook I've made a chalkboard!  With a little chalkboard paint and some some m.d.f. anything can happen. :-)

There were 16 steps to refinishing each & every drawer and cupboard door.

Maybe there is simpler way but I wanted to be sure the wood grain still showed through and I didn't want (after all my hard work) anthing to get marred up.  So, this is how I did it.

1. Remove door or drawer and its hardware.

2. Sand each side down to rid it of any sheen.

3. Vaccume each side.

4. Wash each side with a solution of  TSP.

5. Rinse each side with warm water to remove the TSP solution.

6. Dry each side with towel and let air dry for a bit.

7. Paint front side first & let dry for 2 hrs. (as stated on the can, it takes 2hrs to dry to touch and 4hrs before recoating).

8. Flip over and paint back side - let dry 2hrs. then flip again and do the front side again.

9. Repeat steps 7& 8 until you have painted the back side with 2 coats and the top side with 3 coats.

10. Let dry to touch aprox 2hrs.

11. Re-attach the doors to the cabinet.

Note; I was doing to 2 -3 doors/drawers at a time and set a timer to go off every two hours.