Updated Kitchen Reveal

Hi there.  We're so glad you stopped by! I am so excited to show you my updated kitchen.   For some reason my after pictures didn't turn out very good, so I guess I'm not getting any photography awards? But you will get the feel of how it turned out. Back in the day, when we bought this house, this was the living room.  Because we had 5 children, we needed a bigger dining area, so we came up with this. Our house has been evolving ever since. Here is our dining area before. Maybe I should say, our dining room after it was a living room and before it was updated.

We refinished the hardwood floors. What a HUGE job that was, but so worth the $1,200.00 we saved! I painted the walls, using Behr paint.  That paint is amazing!  It has primer in it so it goes on beautifully and is easy to work with. The color is "cardboard".  

After I think the biggest change would be the window coverings.  I hung the rod up by the ceiling and past the edges of the windows.  I also hung a Matchstick Blind that I got at Lowe's.   I think it makes the window look so much bigger.   We also got a new rug from Lowe's. Because my budget was limited I shopped, and shopped, and shopped and this was by far the best deal. Under $100.00.  And, the colors are perfect.

Here is our kitchen before. Yes, that is orange paint with green counter tops.  SO glad to see both of these go bye-bye! I was even more excited to get rid of that HUGE sink.  Seriously, I think I could have used that thing as a bathtub.  It literally gave me 4" of extra counter space on both sides of the sink when we put the new one in.  I did not paint the cabinets, which is really in these days, because we have good oak cabinets and frankly, I wasn't up for that task, quite yet.  Maybe next year.

During

After

We put in new counter tops, sink, faucet and added bead board under the cabinets.  I love the look of bead board!  I decided not to have a back splash on the counter top and went with trim molding and painted it to match the bead board.

Here's another picture of the bead board on the kitchen walls, around my refrigerator. Isn't it charming? Notice I decorate the top of my refrigerator.  To me, it's kind of like an extra shelf and must be decorated!

Here is the before of what is now our sitting area. You can see the border and paint that we had before we started the project. I felt like this space could be something else, so I went with a sitting area and moved the island over to the right, after removing a wall.  We wanted the space to be more open, family friendly. This area, back in the day, was the eat in kitchen area.  Now you can see why it was a little tight with 5 kids and 2 adults.

Here is another during picture of the sitting area/kitchen.  Notice the raw wood under the bar stools.  That is where the wall was that we removed. Because of that, we had to patch the floor and the ceiling.  

Here is the after. We added the rug, which matches the one in the dining room, to give it a cozy feel.

Another view, from the dining area.

A closer look at the corner in the dining area.

Here is another view from the kitchen looking in to the sitting area and dining room.

and another from the sitting area in to the kitchen and dining room.

This is the area above our kitchen sink.  Because I don't have an area above my cabinets for decorating, I love having this area to break up the cabinets.

My hutch. Have I told you how much I love my hutch?  I l.o.v.e. my hutch! 

So there you have it.  Our new kitchen/sitting area/dining room.  What do you think?

Thank you so much for stopping by.  It means the world to us!
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