A Kitchen Makeover on a Budget

One thing really great about being pregnant is the nesting instinct that kicks in at the end of the pregnancy. The things that have been on "my list" for a long time now are miraculously getting done.

One of those things on my list was to update our kitchen. With a baby on the way, we didn't have much of a budget to work with to get it done. But, after watching a lot of Trading Spaces I knew that we could make a big difference with just paint and new hardware. So one random Sunday night I decided to start tackling it. My timing to start such a big project was less than thrilling to my poor husband. Sorry sweetie!

The first thing we did was take the cabinet hardware and doors off and staged them on drop cloths in the garage in preparation for painting them. Then we sanded, washed, primed and painted our oak cabinets. That first swipe of white primer on the bare oak was definitely a leap of faith—there was no turning back now. Oh, and Consumer Reports rates Behr's Premium Plus Ultra Satin Enamel as the best interior paint, so we went with that for the paint. 

Next came the hardware for the cabinets. We had an oddball hardware size and had to order them special online. The best website that I found was organized by center-to-center length between the holes in the handles. If the hardware you want is on sale, when you click on the image it will give you a coupon code to enter at checkout. They put the coupon code in very small letters up and to the right of the image, which I missed the first time around. Once I finally entered the code I saved over $200. We splurged a little on the hardware and I'm glad we did because it really made the cabinets pop. 

Once the cabinets were painted and new hardware installed, we painted the oak trim white. Same deal as the cabinets: sanding, washing, priming and two coats of white paint. Next was painting the kitchen walls. Home Depot has sample size jars of paint for less than $3 that you can buy in any color to try a test patch on your wall. I highly recommend doing this before you commit to a color. We did not do a test patch and ended up spending an entire Saturday painting the kitchen the wrong color. Of course my mother-in-law was quick to point out with a sour face how "yellow" it looked at least four or five times. Uuuugh! I kept telling her (and hoping) that it might dry darker.

After she left, I went back to Home Depot, got a sample jar in a darker shade, did the test swatch, liked it, went back to Home Depot and got the right color. We started painting again at 9 p.m. that night and ending up getting it done by midnight. Whew! Anyway, check out the before and after photos. Oh, and my husband and I are going to stay quiet about the second wall color and just tell my mother-in-law that it did, in fact, dry darker. Shhh! ;)