Kitchen Makeover

A large, eat-in kitchen was a very exciting upgrade for us from our last home.  Although we loved our last kitchen renovation, it was A LOT of work and we took the room down to the bare bones.  That kitchen was just ugly and didn't have enough storage.  A renovation was necessary.  (You can see my posts about our old kitchen renovation HERE.) Our new kitchen has TONS of storage (we still have empty drawers), and although we aren't crazy about everything in it, we decided that a complete reno wasn't necessary at this time.  We just can't justify spending that much money right now for a kitchen that is completely function and just needs a little bit of a makeover.  We are giving ourselves a good 10 years until we take this kitchen down to the studs and at that time, we will do a completely new layout (I don't like the glass kitchen top stove on the center counter or the oven in the corner).

Sooo...what to do in our BRIGHT BLUE kitchen.  Well, for starters, we needed to paint.  (Obvi.) We found a bunch of inspiration on Pinterest and knew that we wanted to do a turquoise-ish blue on the walls with classic, white subway tiles.  (Picture was found on Inspiration for Decoration, an amazing website that also featured Ethan's nursery randomly.)

We first started with Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue and realized it was much to light.  Mike did the second coat with the next color on the swatch, Wythe Blue. 

Not quite the color we were going for but close.  Because of the different lighting hitting the different walls, the color looks different everywhere.  Sometimes it looks grey and other times green.

Here is an after shot of the sink:

Mike pained the back of the shelves a dark gray.  We are toying with the idea of tearing that wall down.  We definitely want the open space into the family room but unfortunately, there is plumbing that is in that wall.  Therefore, it will be a bigger deal for us to just take it down and we would need more help to run the plumbing across and down the side of the room.  

Before and after: new paint color, subway tiles under cabinets and around sink, new white plugs and light switches (man, those cream ones were killing me). Did I mention that white subway tiles are about 22 cents each? So for 200, we only spent about $45! 

I guess it shouldn't really say "after".  We still have a lot of things to do.  I would like to get some kind of window treatment above the sink.  I am not crafty enough to make something but I'd love some kind of roman shade.  Anyone have suggestions on where I can get one?  (Maybe an Etsy seller makes custom ones...off to search.)  We also need some red and yellow pops of color with a rug and things on the wall.  We need to figure out something with those random shelves in the counter top (we are thinking about putting doors on them).  I am sure you also noticed, we are desperate need for NEW LIGHTING.  Yikes. 

So that's where we are in the kitchen department.  Almost done but a bit more to go.  I'll definitely post when we are completely done. We have also finished Ethan's room so that is up next!