Kitchen Makeover One Year Later

You’ll have to forgive me as I wax sentimental today. You see, my baby girl celebrated her tenth birthday over the weekend and I’m just in total denial that we no longer have any children in the single digit age. Time needs to just.slow.down already!

We spent a super fun day together on Saturday doing some great mother/daughter bonding stuff like shopping, having lunch at our favorite little cafe followed by cupcakes from the cutest cupcake store on the planet. Oh and she also got her ears pierced!!

I’ll be back another day to talk a little bit more about what I’m learning about 10 year old girls but let me just say I could not feel more privileged to be her mom and it is an absolute joy watching her grow into such an amazing young lady. She told me the other day that she doesn’t want to grow up and I told her I was totally fine with that! 😉

So, since I’m already feeling a little bit nostalgic, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to take a look back at one of our biggest house projects to date. I’m constantly getting messages from folks wanting to know how our painted kitchen cabinets have held up so I thought since we have reached the one year mark (cannot believe it’s been a year already!) since they were done, this would be the perfect time to provide an update.

But, first, let’s do a quick before and after just to refresh your memory.

Here’s the BEFORE:

And here’s the AFTER:

Our house was built in 1992 and by the time we moved in the original cabinets were definitely starting to show their age. A few more years of wear and tear by us and it was obvious to us that they needed some TLC. After researching all of our options, we decided to save up our pennies and having them professionally painted.

The HUGE benefit of this was that the painter was able to take all of the doors/drawers to his shop where they were sprayed with primer and then two coats of paint. They also tarped the kitchen and were able to spray the cabinet frames and the island as well.

We could not have been happier with how it turned out and even after a year of heavy use (including many teenagers tromping through here!) I can honestly say that it has held up amazingly well! Even better than I expected.

When we had our beautiful new Epic Plus flooring from Shaw Floors installed, I was very nervous that the cabinets might get nicked or dinged but there were only minor little scratches and we were able to use a teeny, tiny paintbrush and touch it up with leftover paint.

Having it done professionally meant having to move everything out all at once, including us, and it was definitely a hassle but if I truly feel that it was the right decision for our family. It meant waiting a bit longer to save up the money but, for us, it was worth it.

We would still like to update the counters and backsplash at some point but we have other, more pressing, rooms that need updating first so that will have to wait for a bit.

But, just having the cabinets looking so fresh and new and the old flooring removed and the beautiful new flooring in has completely transformed these rooms.

The paint color is Neutral Ground by Sherwin Williams and it is more of a creamy white. You can also see it here in this makeover of our built-in china cabinet which we had the painters spray as well.

I’ve heard so many positive things about the kitchen makeover and just a few negative. Some really preferred the dark cabinets and I totally understand that. In fact, we loved them when we first moved in! But, what you can’t see in photos is that 20+ years of wear and tear was really starting to show so something had to be done one way or another and honestly, living in Oregon, I want things as bright and light around my house as possible.

So, there you have it, I don’t regret for a single minute the decision to paint the cabinets and to have them professionally done. And, I have been so pleased at how well they have held up.

Over the weekend my husband and I sat down to talk about our next steps with this house. We’re trying to get it updated but also not dump more money than necessary into it. So, within the next year that means we will most likely tackle the kids’ bathroom and also the counters in the other two bathrooms. Stay tuned for those!

In the meantime, here’s a look at some of the other makeovers we’ve done since we moved in 9 years ago.

Deck Makeover

Family Room Flooring Makeover

Girls Bedroom Makeover

I hope you are all continuing to have a great summer and I’ll see you right back here at the fence very soon!