My Creative Blog [Search results for gray kitchen cabinets] 

After 14 years of waiting for my ugly kitchen to give out our renovation of it is finally complete! The blinds are hung, decoration in place and everything is new and clean. It wasn't without some tears, the husbands not mine, think cost, but it was a hard fought battle and I wouldn't go back for anything. The dust left a bit to be desired along with the noise and I don't mind saying the shock of seeing my kitchen gutted down to dirt took my breath away!

My wish list was mostly met, wish list, but with a room only 16' x 14', six openings with doors and windows, and a wood stove that had to stay for warmth my grandeur ideas of clean open spaces was bumped off immediately. But that's OK I was happy to work within my limitations.
Those aren't the same cabinets just the same simple shaker style. We thought we would be able to keep the old cabinets since they were nice but when our contractors started taking them down they completely fell apart. Nice fronts but the rest were cheaply put together obviously to save on cost along the way.

Before

After
With such a small kitchen we wanted to keep everything simple so as not to overwhelm the space such as using clear pendent lights so the eye travels through. We went with the wolf stove /sub zero refrigerator package because we liked that the refrigerator is in the same line as the cabinets, it doesn't bump out into the room by a couple of inches like most refrigerators. This is where the husbands' tears came into play since showrooms don't place price tags on these appliances for a reason!
While I would have preferred an antique tiered console/table as my kitchen island I hate seeing microwave ovens and all the things that go with cooking out in the open let alone they get dusty. This island is perfect to hide all those things and gives me more working counter space.

We went with soapstone tile since it's durable enough for an eighty pound bouncing golden retriever. The slightest scratch is simply sanded out with a piece of fine sandpaper but so far that hasn't been needed. Laying the floor tiles in a long straight stretch helped to make the room look more elongated to the eye. The floor couldn't be sealed since it changes the color from shades of gray to black but it cleans up beautifully. We put radiant heat underneath that I love but the dog, not so much!

Before

After
Since our kitchen has the lowest ceiling in our home of 8' 2' we wanted to make the room seem taller. We did that by playing with perspectives and tricking the eye into thinking the ceiling was higher so we played with the different height of cabinets to make the room seem more expansive. We were able to do that because the refrigerator was so tall, the sink window sash goes right to the ceiling and the small pantry on the other end is tall. We had to keep the same configuration because of all the openings but hey it works.

I absolutely love my new bridge faucet from American Standard here since it reaches into the middle of the sink unlike the one that originally came with this kitchen and it has a sprayer!

Before

After
Our kitchen really came down to the use of materials to give it a new look. Since we had enough of the black soapstone, used on the counters, we used a slab for the hearth under the wood stove. We pile wood in an antique copper bin during the winter and used to ding the old walls so we thought it would be a great idea to pull the flooring tiles up on the lower part of the wall around the wood stove giving it a European flavor. That's a 16th century Italian wine vessel hanging over in that corner that I purchased from Michael Trapp here. I love green and tried to use touches of it throughout our kitchen.

After table and chairs
Gone are the antique table and chairs and in its place a small more solid table from restoration hardware that unfortunately they no longer sell. This table was actually sold as a hall table and is only 30' in diameter, plenty of room for two people to have dinner. The chairs from pottery barn here were kept open to let light pass through. Thankfully gone are the fabric roman shades from the windows and in their place custom made bamboo blinds from Smith and Noble here that are much easier to keep clean.

Before

After
I love this dishwasher from Fisher Paykel that has two drawers! It simply makes sense for us since we're a two people family, dog bowls don't go in there. I don't like dirty dishes hanging about for a week and since the drawers run independently from one another that is no longer an issue.
I've added a few antique pieces, a cappuccino machine and voile, new kitchen! Gone is the clutter and somebody else's design ideas. Absolutely everything in our kitchen is new right down to the wood stove. After all these years I've made my kitchen my own and the ride has been so worth it!

New here? You can check out our kitchen demolition here.

Imagine with me for a minute…See this soffit?

Imagine with me that that soffit is no longer there. There would be no interruption from the countertops to the ceiling, and as a result, the ceiling would seem so much higher. Nice, right? It would be so open and clean.

I could hang the cabinets from the ceiling, which would increase the space between them and the countertop. You with me? Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Ok, good. Because here goes:

First we removed all the upper cabinets (and by"we", I most definitely mean my hubs). We were amazed at what we found behind those cabinets- apparently the homeowners before us did their own DIY with painted tiles, framed by a sharpie marker! Plus, there's a vent that was hooked up to the microwave that we realized we need to take care of, as well.

I did loads of research on removing soffits, since this is our first big demo/remodel, and everyone said the same thing: make a small hole in the drywall and check to see if there is any wiring or pipes behind the soffit. In a lot of cases, soffits have no real structural function, but are there so you could hang cabinets from them. If you notice, new construction homes almost never have soffits in the kitchen. Luckily for us, there is a recessed light in our soffit, so we were able to remove it and get a good view into the interior of the soffit.

Since it's a pretty small hole, we stuck our small digital camera up in the soffit and took a few pictures in each direction to make sure all was clear. It worked like a charm and I was thrilled to see that there wasn't anything there but insulation!

Also, a bunch of people said that soffits aren't always made of drywall, but could also be plywood, which is why we weren't afraid when we saw this:

So, we kept on ripping things out (while trying hard to ignore the mouse droppings- Eew!) Then, when we were all done, my hubs said he thought that maybe this big beam in the front might be load-bearing beam that runs along the entire length of the back of the house. Ahhhhh!!! Noooooo!!!!

This is when we called in the experts, ie: my father-in-law and my parent's genius handyman, Robert. While we waited for them to come, I spent a few days trying to decide how I felt about have no upper cabinets.

I decided that I really liked it, but after stewing over it, I also came to the conclusion that it wasn't really practical for us since I removed the upper cabinets on the other side of the kitchen. My new plan for this side of the kitchen is a combination of cabinets and open shelving that I'll share with you as we get closer to it. (Believe me, LOTS has to happen before that).My hubs also spackled the wall, and painted it the new gray/tan in anticipation of the next step.

Well, you guessed it, we did find out that the beam was load-bearing like my hubs suspected and needed to stay in place. So, (and this is so sad, and yes, I know my hubs is a saint!) my hubs went to work drywalling the soffit back in, with the help of Mo's husband, Eric. Poor guy. But, we were able to remove the recessed lighting kit and install a pendant light kit. Woohoo! I can't wait to pick that baby out!

Even though we had a really big I'll be trying to make it up to my hubs for a long time minor setback, we did make some progress elsewhere. When we moved the oven to the other side of the kitchen and slid the fridge in it's place, we were left with this small cabinet space to the left. It was not functional at all, and it really made that side look disjointed.

We removed the counter from the wall, and then moved the whole thing over to the other side of the refridgerator, giving us more counter space to the right.

There is, of course, a crack between the two countertops, that, we're told can easiliy be masked with some paint that matches the counter brushed on the crack and then wiped away. You'll still notice it, but it won't scream out at you, and we don't plan on keeping this countertop forever (hopefully not past this year!). Here's where we are right now:

I have to admit that my 3 year old took this picture, but what can I say? She has a good eye!
Ok, take a deep breath. That's all for now.: )

Oooh, I so wish you could see my hallway bathroom right now. It is coming along exactly how I had envisioned. Mostly because I finally found the perfect piece of furniture for my new custom vanity. This vanity earned us a spot in Round 3 of Crafting with the Stars over at Sew Dang Cute, and although she's pretty darn cute in pictures, she's absolutely gorgeous in real life. So, here's the breakdown of the transformation this little table underwent:
Antiquated to Awesome Table Transformation While browsing one of our local antique stores, I stumbled across this table in an out-of-the-way-spot covered in loads of other stuff.

Now, she doesn't look like anything special, but I could see through her battered, yellowing self to see the potential in her simple lines and aged charm. My initial thought was to sand the yellowish tones off to hopefully reveal a distressed white/wood look. After what seemed like an eternity of sanding with two palm sanders, I realized that this piece probably really was an antique and that the paint had mostly likely been there forever. I hesitate to reveal this information for fear of the antique-lovers out there giving me a hard time about sanding such an old piece, but hey, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.

So anyway, the chippy paint look I was going for totally didn't happen because sanding it made the paint appear the color of a peach and that just was not at all the look I was going for.

So, on to plan B. Monica came over to help out and she brought the custom gray stain they used on their farmhouse table and also a mahogany stain she had. We had some walnut stain left over from when we originally stained our kitchen cabinets, so we tested all three on the top of the piece. We knew we could always sand out the stains we didn't like, but we made sure to place the sample stains in the middle where the vessel sink would go, anyway.

In the end, we decided on doing a custom mix of walnut and gray stains.

I brushed on the walnut stain first in long even strokes.

After about a minute, Monica wiped the stain off with a staining pad.

Even with just the walnut stain, it was absolutely beautiful, but I knew that the addition of the gray stain would make it match the colors in the bathroom even better, so again, I brushed the gray stain overtop of the walnut in long even strokes.

After wiping it off, we had this:

Note to self: Do not stain a piece of furniture in your kitchen. If you're not careful, stain will get everywhere leaving you in a slight panic and making lots of extra work for yourself.

Ahh! Let me stop here to point out how crazy our work environment was that evening:

How we got anything done is a mystery to me. Monica and I work very quickly and as a result, leave a trail of disaster in our wakes. We were simultaneously working on the table, painting a custom destination sign with coordinates for a customer, planning our posts for the next few weeks and drinking our favorite Pumpkin Spice Cappuccino from Wawa. Craziness, I tell you. But I digress… on with the project:

After the hours of sanding the top, I really REALLY didn't want to sand the legs, so we came up with the idea of doing a whitewash treatment. Basically, whitewashing is a combination of paint mixed with water that creates a translucent glaze of color.

You can see that adding the whitewash took away the yellow tones, but kept all that yummy aged character of the piece.

Finally, we broke out the power tools and got ready to make our holes for the new sink and faucet. This is a lot easier than you probably think it is. After measuring the center of the table where the sink would go, we used a drill with a 1 1/2" circle bit to make a hole for the pipes to run through.

This creates a lot of sawdust which for us was a problem. DESIGN BLOGGER FOUL! We should have drilled the holes FIRST before we stained!

Brushing off the saw dust on stain that hadn't dried yet gave us a minor heart attack, but we recovered after restained the parts that needed it. Phew! No big deal. (But if you attempt this project, drill first, stain second!)

We added the sink that we bought at Lowes so we could determine the placement of the hole for the faucet. We didn't use any scientific method here; we simply placed the faucet next to the sink and eyeballed where it should go. Remember folks, I don't claim to be a perfectionist.: )

In pictures, the faucet looks kind of goldish, but in reality it has a brushed nickel finish that adds just a touch of modern that is perfect.

We wanted to add some detailing to the piece to make it more unique, so I picked up some oil-rubbed bronze knobs from Lowe's. Monica pre-drilled a few holes, and then we screwed them right in. They look so cool and give the affect of a drawer on the front.

So, at the end of night one, this is how the table looked. Pretty sweet, huh? But the fun part was putting it all together the next day after I (and my mom who wanted to save me some time while I was coaching my tennis team) added 6-7 layers of a water-based polyurethane to the top to prevent water damage that may occur from my very messy wonderful family. We went with a water-based poly because it doesn't change the color of the wood tones. I'm not 100% sure this will be enough protection, and I'm paranoid about anything marring the surface of this beauty, so I'm going to be doing a bit more research on protecting the wood before we use it. Any suggestions?
So now that all is said and done, this is how my beautiful vanity looks:

I am so in love with this table, and am thrilled to death that it turned out just like I was hoping. It looks amazing in the bathroom, and pictures just don't do it justice. Next week, I'll be showing you the final reveal of our hallway bathroom after I add some finishing touches and I can't wait!
What do you think of my table-turned-vanity? Have you ever turned a thrift or antique store find into something fabulous?

Now, on to Round 3!

Linking up to: TT & J, Show & Tell Saturday, Tips & Tutorials Tip Me Tuesday, Sundae Scoop, Sunday Showcase

I almost never watch TV mainly because it bores me right to sleep in under five minutes'LITERALLY! One show I discovered last year that bowls me over on Bravo on Tuesday nights is 'Flipping Out' with house flipper turned back to interior designer Jeff Lewis. He's an obsessive-compulsive neat freak/control freak who would be absolutely impossible to live with but watching him is fun.

Kitchen at Valley Oak One House, Jeff's personal home until it sold
I got a little curious about his finished designs since you almost never get to see them on his show. The houses are usually under construction and the show seems to be more about Jeff's bizarre behavior rather than his finished work. I could never have a glass refrigerator like the one pictured I would be trying to arrange the contents all the time.

Kitchen at Valley Oak 2 House, Jeff's personal home now but for sale
I have to admit his obsessive behavior shows right down to the smallest detail. He designs are clean and open, well laid out and very contemporary, he says his designs are "California Modern" and I'll agree. I know from watching the show Jeff prefers open shelves in place of upper cabinets.

Commonwealth Kitchen by Jeff Lewis
While those open shelves look nice they show Jeff doesn't cook. Those shelves don't hold much and people who cook need their stuff. Plus what happens to all that stuff out in the open from cooking grease, the dust? I know I don't want to be cleaning something when I don't need too.

House Beautiful Kitchen of the Year 2010 by Jeff Lewis

House Beautiful Kitchen of the Year 2010, the other half of the kitchen
I love this kitchen! Tons of gourmet cook conveniences, nice clean lines with an eating area and sitting area all combined. The only thing I would change is the dining table since I prefer something lower and more intimate when having guests. Love the shot of red in the dining area, every room needs one little surprise.

House at Edgemont, LOVE the gray paint color and how warm this room looks!

Edgemont Living room by Jeff Lewis
Perhaps it's just me but what is up with everyone placing the flat screen TV above the fireplace? I thought the fireplace WAS the focal point of the room and the TV with its size takes away from it. Love this room otherwise!

While this living room is masculine looking it's stunning and so clean. While I think this guy is an absolute riot he's also a wonderful designer, shame Bravo doesn't show a little more of his finished designs. What do you think?

Albert Hadley

Nate Berkus

via Rebecca June
I often receive e-mail requests for gray paint color recommendations; but, I'm just a gal who's out here searching, too... Maybe we can help each other out a little here. Have you found a gray that you love? Leave a comment telling us about your perfect gray.
You might want to include: the paint brand and name (or number if you have it) where you used the paint (living room walls? kitchen cabinets?) qualities you like about the color (cool/ warm, light/dark)
Maybe we can put together a piece like Paige at Tracery Interiors did recently on blues. That was awesome!
This is such a subjective area. But you may really help someone to narrow down their search for 'a perfect gray.' (And that someone could be me....)

Jill Brinson's kitchen design sponge?

atlanta homes and lifestyles magazine

via blueprint bliss

via blueprint bliss

decorpad
are you thinking about it....?

Come on, you knew that all those old cabinets and cabinet doors would someday be put to use in my house, didn't you? (Remember my cabinet turned planter box?) Well, my most recent transformation was super easy, and pushed me a little bit out of my norm because I used DecoArt Frost Gloss Enamel paints, which I had never tried before. The result is this adorable cabinet door turned hat rack for my baseball -and baseball hat- obsessed little boy.

We consider ourselves to be very fortunate girls. So blessed in so many ways, but one of the ways we are so lucky is that we get to work with some amazing companies! DecoArt was generous enough to send us all this awesome stuff to try out. It seriously was like Christmas morning opening up that box!

After thinking about what I had laying around the house that I could attack with glass paint, I remembered my stash of cabinet doors leftover from our kitchen remodel. I chose one long, rectangular door that had glass inset in it. I washed the glass with soap and water and then cleaned the side I was going to paint on with rubbing alcohol which allows for better adhesion for the paint.


I taped up the glass and spraypainted it my favorite white spraypaint from Rustoleum.


I chose my color scheme based on the colors in my son's room. I ended up not using the green paint, but I'll go into that more later. DecoArt recommends using a makeup sponge to apply the paint, and luckily I had a bunch of them on hand.


One of the main colors in Charlie's room is gray, so I mixed a little bit of the black frost paint in with the white until I was satisfied with the color.


I taped off stripes so that I would have two gray stripes and one white stripe and then gently dabbed the paint on the glass using the makeup sponge. I did this 3 times total to get the color I was going for, allowing the paint to dry a bit in between each coat.


The paint goes on sort of opaque but dries to a really cool etched glass appearance. The colors are much more subtle and translucent once they dry. It really is such a cool affect that you couldn't get using other paints.


While the paint dried, I had my hubs drill four holes for the hat hooks on the bottom of the the cabinet,

and then I spraypainted these knobs from my kitchen cabinets in a hammered bronze medal spraypaint.


After letting the paint dry overnight, I pulled back the tape to reveal the stripes. WRONG METHOD! DecoArt recommends that you let the paint dry for 4 days, which I totally should have done because my paint pulled up a bit when I pulled the tape off. Do like I say, not like I did.; ) To add a little more detail, I used the stick-on stencils they sent us, which were awesome. You just place them on the surface, smooth out the air bubbles, and then rinse them when you're done. You can use them over and over again! Love that.

Using a small dauber, I applied the paint to the knobs.

Ta-da! The look is so simple and classic looking and I love it! The paint is so subtle but adds a lot of interest to the glass.

Remember I mentioned the green paint before? Well, I was going to stencil Charlie's name on the glass over the stripes, but I'm a simple kind of girl, and the plain stripes really appealed to me. But just for fun, here's what it would kind of look like if I did paint his name, thanks to the wonders of PicMonkey:


I may eventually want to add some color, but for now, I'm enjoying the nice, subtle, neutral tones of this hat rack.

I wish I could really capture how cool the glass looks, but trust me, it's awesome.

There are loads of ideas and how-to videos on the DecoArt website, if you're interested in giving glass paint a go (which you totally should!) You can find DecoArt's glass paint line at Michaels. I'm planning on using all those other paints with my senior ladies in the craft group I lead once a month. Holiday mugs, here we come!: )
*This post was sponsored by DecoArt, but all ideas and opinions are my own.: )Linking up to: Tutorials & Tips

You all are familiar with marquee signs, right? They're those lighted signs that you see outside of old movie theaters, hotels or casinos in Las Vegas.

Source
These signs are definitely a retro throwback, but have come back as a home design trend in a big way! Adding one brought whimsy and fun to this kitchen and dining room that otherwise lacked both. These beauties aren't only meant for kitchens, though! They would look fabulous in a kids bedroom or playroom, a fun family room or even a game room. The best part about this project is that you can use absolutely any word that has meaning to you!

We've actually seen a bunch of tutorials for marquee signs using 3-D cardboard letters, and honestly, we toyed around with the idea of using them too. But we knew we wanted this to be a permanent fixture in her dining room so we didn't want it to be flimsy or break after awhile. Using chipboard letters (wooden would work too!) from Michael's on top of a plywood frame made this piece one that will last.
To create the box that your letters attach to, we used a piece of plywood and 1x2 pine boards. Cut the plywood to your desired size and the cut two horizontal 1x3’s and two vertical 1x3’s. Attach those pieces to the back of the plywood with a nail gun, creating the frame. We painted our plywood with the same color as the kitchen cabinets (Summer gray by Valspar) to tie in with the rest of the room, but feel free to go as bright as you want. It's your project, after all!

Decide how many lights you’d like on each letter and mark their placement. Our bulbs were evenly spaced.

Drill pilot holes where on each mark on the letters. Doing this allows the larger bit to go through the letter without splintering it, so don't skip this step!

Using a large bit the slightly larger than the socket of the light bulbs, drill larger holes through your pilot holes.

Go ahead and clean off those letters and spray paint them in the color of your choice. We LOVE Rustoleum's spray paint in Blue Lagoon (it's the color we used on our giant shaped frame)

Once your letters are dry, lay them back down on the plywood and figure out the spacing you want. Draw a small “x” in each of the holes and then drill a hole in each of the “x’s”.Place a few dots of liquid nails on the back of the letters and align the letters over the holes in the plywood. Let dry completely. Thread the sockets through the holes and then screw the bulbs in. We used these string lights from Target- there are about 25 bulbs per strand, so plan accordingly.

We chose to add an outlet behind the marquee sign to hide the cord, but you could easily drill a small hole in the bottom of the frame to pull the cord through. If you paint the cord the same color of your walls, you'll never even notice that the cord is there!

We think this sign is pretty darn awesome and Linda has since told us that it inspires her to be more creative with her cookies and cakes business!

Haven't seen this episode yet? Watch the whole thing online HERE!

Also, we're always adding new Knock It Off projects to our DIY gallery, so be sure to check those out, as well.: )

via Slumber Designs

House and Garden

Amy Morris Interior Design

via Flourish Design and Style
We had dinner at a friend's house last weekend. When I walked into the kitchen, I saw charcoal gray cabinetry.
If you have ever considered going that color, trust me...
You need to go there....
Happy weekend, my friends....!