June 19, 2008

Thank you Apartment Therapy...

I'm sure most of you are sick of my bitching about the kitchen at our new place. We've been here a year now and made minor changes to the kitchen since we've moved in but none of them have made the kitchen a nice place to be. I've been losing my mind in here (it is my place of work - where I spend the most time) and every day when I walk in, I feel bummed about cooking. So I was reading Apartment Therapy the other morning and there was a post about open shelving in the kitchen. I was like... huh... and ran and grabbed my cordless drill and within minutes I realized how awesome taking off some of the cupboard doors would make the kitchen look.

Inspired by the instant change I stopped painting the base board in the hallway and started painting the cupboards and tiles. 4 days and many many coats of semi-gloss white ... things are looking up!

Before:
After!
BeforeAfter!
The breakfast nook. Now I need to get some floating shelves for my cookbooks and nic-nacks and a floor stand for the water and we'll have a nice place to eat pancakes!
Now... I still have A LOT of fracking work to do. As you can see the walls are in horrible shape so I have to fix them up but that gives me time to figure out a wall color (I'm leaning towards Sea Foam Green)
I took to heart what AT wrote about keeping only beautiful things in the open cupboard area so the shelves don't look cluttered. Plus the things I grab for every day (like the measuring cups or the grater are in easy reach). Everything else is kept out of sight behind doors.

As you can see we're a little bowl crazy. We only have 4 plates. We like bowls. :) My plan is to paint the inside of these shelves a bright cheery colour. I'm leaning towards Festive Orange. We're also going to order new counters and re-do the floors but one thing at a time. One thing at a time. Now my kitchen is a nicer place to be. I'm stoked. Once I put everything away last night... I was inspired to make Portobello Mushroom burgers with a side of potato salad.

The stress of living/working in a dark 70's nightmare kitchen is gone and we can happily save $$ for my dream kitchen without all those orange mushrooms looming at me laughing that it's not going to happen any time soon.

I'm stoked on the new changes and it only cost me $75 in materials. HOORAY!! Let the cooking begin!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love it! Very nicely done. Ha ha frackin' - yay BSG!

Anonymous said...

Wow, what beautiful changes! The open cupboard space really does look great. :)

I've always heard that it's not a great idea to paint kitchens or dining rooms green because the color makes people subconsciously "sick" and thus not want to eat as much. I don't know if it's true or not since I see green kitchens and dining rooms everywhere. I've heard oranges, reds, and yellows are better for those spaces as it stimulates hunger (why do you think McDonald's uses yellow and red?).

mirandar said...

WOW HUGE difference!!!!!

(LOVE your dishes!)

Erin said...

Yes! It's like a mini-episode of trading spaces, I love what you did. And I like the seafoam green/festive orange combo.

Tracey said...

LOVE it! My kitchen walls are painted a color similar to that green and have been for about three years. I never tire of it, it looks very pretty with pops of red against it and you have plenty of that!

I'm Kristi. said...

Great work!! The change is unbelievable!

jenny said...

OMG! I love it!! The way that it changed the whole vibe of the kitchen is amazing!!

(I have my lunchboxes lined atop my cupboards as well!!)

Ken said...

Oh my goodness -- your stove! That's the stove I grew up using in my parents' house, and they still have it. There's something just so cool about it... retro but functional, and the burners in a retractable drawer -- genius! At one point, a repair person told them the stove can be repaired without a problem -- unless that drawer mechanism breaks. No replacements for those, anywhere. :(

Anonymous said...

it looks so good! i love the clocks.

Anonymous said...

WOW!! That looks so good. What a great idea taking off the doors

TrampledbyGeese said...

That looks great. I should invite you over to do ours.

Anonymous said...

Very wonderful looking! Brava!

Melwyk said...

That looks amazing! It inspires me to do something about my dark brown and orange 70's kitchen also...

Belladonna said...

Changing living space can be fun. One day my beloved left for work in the morning hearing me say "I think I'm going to wall paper the bedroom to make it look bigger". When he came home I had a crow bar and a hammer in my hand and had knocked out half a wall, grinning broadly as I proclaimed: "I don't want it to LOOK bigger. I want it to BE bigger." Yeah, love a good project! (In my own defense I DID double check to make sure the wall I took out was not a main supporter.)

Carrie™ said...

Amazing transformation! I hate the kitchen where we are now, but it's just a rental, so I can't go crazy and start ripping doors off - although I'd like to. I can only dream about my future kitchen. I checked out the Apartment Therapy site...very cool. Thanks for the link.

Unknown said...

I love apartment therapy...and your kitchen is marvellous!