Kitchen Reno: In Progress

It's been a very busy past couple of weeks, but our kitchen cabinets are being painted right now.

Derek and I chickened out when it came to painting them ourselves. Neither of us was confident enough in our skills to be sure that we would do a really good job, and we really didn't want to go through all the trouble if they would end up looking bad. So luckily, we found a professional who is able to paint them and do a few other things that should make the kitchen look really good in the end.

Here are a few photos of what it looks like now:

A few things you can see from the pictures:

1.  We decided to go dark. Really dark. The paint color is a 50% mixture of brown and black. We thought about white, but we didn't want bright white. But with white trim and light colored countertops, we just didn't feel good about it. We'll be installing a lighter colored backsplash, that will lighten the walls up and hopefully make the dark cabinets pop.

2. The old backsplash is gone.You can see the white space below the brown paint and above the countertops where it used to be. A couple of weeks ago Derek and his parents removed it, and we filled in all the holes it left in the wall and smoothed everything out, so the walls are ready for us to install a new backsplash as soon as the cabinets are done.

3. Our island is gone. It's in the shop, and is getting a little work done on it, including a little extra something special.

4. We already showed pictures of the new stove, but the rest of the new appliances have arrived. You can see the fridge and part of the dishwasher in these photos. The microwave isn't up yet, because...

5. The old vent over the stove is gone, as well as the cabinets that were above it, and the new microwave is going to be installed above the stove. A little shelf will be added above it, where I can put some cookbooks or other decorations. I'm really excited about this because it will open up a lot of counter space. And, with the work that's being done on the island, we'll have more counter space there too!

6. The sides of the cabinets are not painted. That is because they are laminate. So we decided to cover them with bead board. So that will be added on later, when the doors come back.

So there it is in progress. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll be back with pictures with the doors on and new hardware!