Before and After Day 6: Cooking Up Some Changes!

Here we are now at Day 6 of our little before and after.  Today's episode - the kitchen.  Again, as in the dining room, we begin with Big Bird yellow.  The good thing about this kitchen - LOTS of cabinet space.  The bad thing - white counter tops and back splash, and plain, brown cabinets.

Here's the before picture with the same faux wood, laminate floor that was in the rest of the house.  On the right, you can see one of my many attempts at removing the shelf liner.  It'd been there since the house was built in 1988 and had its fair share of stains and stickiness.  The picture on the oven (which didn't work) is a picture of me when I was about 3 or 4.  I randomly found it inside one of the kitchen cabinets!

This is the opposite side of the kitchen and that's me cleaning inside the cabinets.  For the first several days we were in, that's all we could really do because there was STUFF everywhere else inside the house!  

The fridge

Handy Andy scrubbing away - notice the bleach on the counter.

Me - still in the cabinet.

I believe this picture is after the first coat of primer.  See the lighter yellow back there?  We learned a lesson about primer during this project - Original Kilz is oil based.  Don't go there.

This is the laundry room - the pantry is behind the door.  I've always found it odd that there's a really cute picture of my cousin, Samantha, that hung over the washer and dryer...

And now, my friends, we proceed to the AFTER pictures!

Newly tiled floor? Check. Shined up refrigerator and cabinets? Check! New Oven? Check!  Cute hand towel and red can opener?  CHECK!  Old English and my dad and his poly urethane helped the cabinets with their 180*.

The opposite side.  Andy loves his Keurig in the back corner.  Oh - you can see the dishwasher we scored for $50 on Craig's List AND the curtains Andy's mom me.  They match the over-the-door one in our dining room!
See that post here.

It's hard to take a good pic of curtains on a window when it's so sunny!  But there's a look at our back yard!

Top of the curtain

Dark, but you can see the shape

And the colors!  I was looking for a pattern with red and yellow in it, but we didn't find much of anything. So, I picked the red/tan fabric and gave it to Toni.  Well...SHE comes be-bopping in with these fabulous yellow-trimmed curtains :-)  I love the buttons at the top!

My cutesy apron/decoration that hangs by the oven.

And these are my dishes!  We had to hunt at several Ross stores for them, but where else can you get a full set of nice dishes for $25?!  I ended up with three sets because when trying to find them online, just ONE replacement plate was $15!  Why not pay $10 more and have a whole extra set just in case?

Well, that's it for now! There's only one more day and a few more pictures to come!

Everyone out there, please say a prayer for my friend, Heather, and her family. We are going to visitation at the funeral home tonight for her daddy.  She's not even 20 and she's burying her father - she needs our thoughts, prayers, and love. <3

~Melissa