Monday, May 28, 2012

Quick and free kitchen update

 

So I am very much a light and bright kind of girl when it comes to decorating my home.  Over the last two years or so, I’ve have slowly gone through my house and painted walls and furniture to reflect my tastes.  But there is one area in my house that isn’t at all my style and I have felt stuck and unable to do anything about it.  That would be my kitchen.

It is filled with lots of dark wood cabinets and dark countertops.  My dream kitchen is white and airy, with open shelves.  I have thought a lot about painting the cabinets, but for several reasons, I’ve decided (for now) not to paint. 

My Reasons:

1. It would be an insane amount of work and mess to sand and paint all the drawers and cabinets (37 in all!). And I’m not sure I could sanely handle weeks of kitchen disaster with three small kids under tow right now.

2.  Eventually we will move with Tim’s job.  It could be six months from now; it could be three years from now.  We don’t know, but I can’t hardly fathom doing all the hard work to make it my dream kitchen and then moving away.  It would seem pointless. 

3.  Our house is only six years old and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the cabinets.  In fact, for resale value, it’s probably best that we leave them the way they are. 

So, for all those reasons, I have left them alone.  But my heart yearns for light and airy with fun pops of color.

So I found a way to have a little bit of a compromise.

 

Here is the before picture of the brown cabinets, gray counter tops, and tan floors.  Blah.  It’s not me.  There are more cabinets to the left side of the room, which contributes to overloading of dark blandness all across the room.

IMG_5209

 

Yes, I know that it’s nice and all, but like I said, it’s just not me and it leaves me uninspired.  So in an effort to appease myself and my desire for less brown and more color, one afternoon, I had the bright idea to just take off some of the cabinet doors.

Ta-da!

IMG_5328

 

I instantly liked the change.  This was a no-cost, little effort, quick fix that allows me to bring in more lights and brights to my kitchen, while also making it possible to quickly and easily change it back at some point if/when we end up moving.  A friend suggested I wallpaper the backs of the cabinets with fun patterned scrapbook paper to make even more of a statement.  I think that’s a great idea and hope to do that soon.

So that’s my quick kitchen update.

Until I have my own white kitchen, here are some white kitchens I’m drooling over:

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via here

 

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here

 

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via here

 

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via here

 

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via here

I love those aqua cabinets!  I could totally do that!

 

And just because I’m curious on your opinion, would you paint or not paint your kitchen cabinets if you were me.  Have any of ya’ll ever painted your kitchen cabinets?  If so, how terrible was it? 

4 comments:

  1. It's funny. I have light cabinets now and I'm not sure I'd do it again. They show everything. Now maybe it's poor quality of the cabinets in this rental house but I think your cabinets are gorgeous. I love that you opened some of them up though!

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  2. We painted the cabinets in our house in Florida. It was a nightmare. David was deployed in the middle of it, so all my doors and drawer fronts were in the garage, half painted, until he came home. Then, we used the wrong kind of paint and it all chipped off, and we had to do it all over again with the right paint. However, I loved them painted. The original ones were awful, not nice-but-not-my-taste like yours, so anything would've been an improvement. I think your reasons for not painting them are valid and until I knew I was staying somewhere for a while I'd hold off. On the other hand...if you're painting them white then that's not so off the wall that it wouldn't sell, you know?

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  3. I have the SAME issue with my cabinets. I took off the doors, like you! I am going to paint the inside of the cabinets white. NO paint on the face of the cabinet so if I put the door back up, you would never know, (we may sell too) I love the look of it now. I have white dishes and glass ware. I love the look of white on white, so hoping the white INSIDES will look nice. I will blog it when I'm done. Nice to meet ya :)

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  4. I've put off painting my cabinets for the exact reason. I may move for a job. It could be a month or a couple years and I'm concerned about resale. My home is new and I have beautiful natural maple cabinets, but would love to paint them aqua. I may compromise and paint the island aqua since it is a movable island and I would most likely take it with me.

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