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Hey there! 

Many things have changed in our kitchen since my last post and since there is so much to cover I am going to jump right in.

After removing the cabinet doors, I primed and painted all of them. I used my tried and true method using the combination of Pro Block oil based primer and Sherwin William’s Urethane Trim enamel. I have an extensive video on my process on cabinet painting and you can get all the details here. 

We first started by sanding these cabinets (unlike my last cabinets) because of the condition they were in. You can see why we did this extra step here. 

After all of them were sanded, I cleaned them all with Krud Kutter. It works great for removing grease and oil. I did the same with the drawers and I used an old toothbrush for the crevices. 

Afterwards, I set them out to dry. I made sure they were perfectly dry before setting them up in my basement for the next step. It’s best to prop all of them off the floor using these or whatever else you have on hand that will work (like those jumbo legos). 

I primed all of the doors (as well as the cabinets that were not removed). When painting cabinet doors, I start on the inside of the door and then once dry do the exterior of the door. I start with a brush for the nooks and crevices and then I go in with a roller. 

Once the primer was dry, I paint them with my favorite cabinet paint. I used the color Eary Gray from Magnolia and color matched it at Sherwin Williams. There were  A LOT of doors (the most I have ever painted in one kitchen, yikes). 

 I gave both sides two coats and as always I started with the inside of the doors first (again, more on that in this video). 

While that was happening, we were removing the old countertops and replacing them with butcher block countertops. 

This is what our countertops looked like. They weren’t in good shape and I was NOT a fan of the color so out they went. And the Latino Engineer was eager to get his hands on them. LOL!

Actually he didn’t take a hammer to them but they were the so difficult to remove. The Latino Engineer and my father did their best to remove them without damaging anything but still things happened. 

More on that here. 

Once everything was removed it was time to add our countertops. We purchased these butcher block countertops at Lowes. 

They were fairly simple to cut and install. The hard part was honestly around the new farmhouse sink that we installed ourselves. That Kreg Tool Rip Cut kept our circular saw straight while we cut. 

The hard part was honestly around the new farmhouse sink that we installed ourselves.

We did have to use a router for the first time for the countertops so that we could connect them from underneath. 

We also had to patch up around the sink area since the sink was smaller than the opening that was there to begin with. 

But before we could start putting that cabinet doors back, I had to clean and paint all of the hinges. We decided to resuse them to save some money. 

They were pretty filthy but still ingot shape. I set them out to dry in the sun once they were clean.

After they were full dried, I primed and spray painted them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint. I also painted all of the original screws. 

When everything was finally dry and had cured for a few days, we began putting back the doors. 

We also got a new faucet. I had always wanted a farmhouse style kitchen faucet so I was so glad to partner with Gerber faucets for a Youtube video collaboration. It’s gorgeous and really easy to install!

My farmhouse faucet can also be purchased here. 

My new faucet, along with my countertops and painted cabinets definitely has transformed this kitchen! We sealed out butcher block counters with this and I apply this oil to maintain it looking great ever couple of months. I actually don’t mind doing that as I enjoy wiping my counters. 

The countertops give it that sweet cottage farmhouse feel. 

The light gray on the cabinets make it feel so light and airy, yet cozy and charming. 

We chose these for our cabinet pulls. 

Finally here is the sink area! I am in love! 

I will be sharing more on the backsplash and how we added more ambient lighting to the kitchen next so stay tuned! 

Until then… adios! 

Hello friends! I hope you all are having a wonderful week! Our first full week of summer vacation has started out great and I am ready to continue tackling our kitchen. 

If you have been following along, you know that I shared my mood board for my kitchen. I also explained all of the plans for the kitchen which I am so excited about. I also listed all of the sources in you like anything you see. 

One of the things I mentioned was that we were changing the layout of the rooms in the house. 

The former dining area will now have an island. We ordered them from a local cabinet company (B2B Cabinet) here in North Georgia. They were fast and had amazing prices. 

I wanted a dual sided island that would give me the most storage. The cabinets needed to be no more than 36″ x 60″ due to the size of the eat-in area.

I have also been wanting drawers in my kitchen forever. I have never had large drawers so I wanted to make sure they included that as well. So the cabinet company created this for me:

The Island

And because of the size of the measurements, I could only have upper cabinets on the back side. 

But that was fine with me. I will have a countertop overhang on that side since I do want an eating area on the island. 2 beautiful legs will hold up the countertop. That will still work out well since I will only be storing items that I don’t use that often in those cabinets. This will then free up space in the main kitchen area where I do use items frequently. 

Here is a kitchen island that is already done to give you an idea of what the island will look like with the legs. 

Source

Here is what the island looks like right now.

The Latino Engineer made platform boxes to raise the upper cabinets on the left to match the counter height ones. And the island may look off center now, but it will all be centered once the counter top with the overhang on the left side is installed. 

The Latino Engineer will add outlets on either side of the island (good thing he has an electrical background). We will cover the side seams with shiplap. 

Aren’t those drawers pretty? 

They still need hardware and I plan on having them match the ones I purchased for the rest of the main kitchen, but I think I need to tweak the ones for the drawers. They are too small for them. 

By the way, those floors are made from plywood (tutorial coming soon!)

Here’s what it looks like from farther away. 

You can see there are still some floors yet to be finished and that is our breakfast table you see in front of the island temporarily. 

The kitchen has no pantry, so the plan is to add one to the wall you see on the right. We will build it ourselves. It won’t be too deep but it will be the entire length and height of the wall so it will be a good size.

It may not even be done this year, but that is definitely going to happen.

The New Layout 

So where do we put the dining area?

Right here.

This is actually the living area of the home, but right now we spend all of our time in the sunroom. I think this area will be perfect for a dining room since it’s right off the kitchen. It’s a great size so there will still be space for a proper entrance to the house. 

Plus lots of houses have the formal dining right near the entrance so it still makes sense. 

Of course this leaves us with no real main living space. 

Truth be told, the minute we did our first viewing this house, The Latino Engineer and I knew the house was short one living space.  We both agreed that turning the garage into living space would be the best idea… and then I came up with this! 

I want to add 2 cased openings on either side of the fireplace. I want to modify the fireplace into a dual faced fireplace and have a step down into a large living room (currently the garage).

He loved the idea! 

I think that would look darling with a dining table and chandelier in front no?

Anyways that is not going to happen anytime soon, but it at least shows you the big picture of what we plan on doing here and how it’s all going to come together. So for now, TV time is in the sunroom.

But that’s totally something we can live with! 

So that is what we have been doing here at the “farmhouse”. It’s been so much easier to write about now that I am taking it one room at a time. 

What do you think of the progress so far? I can’t wait to share more with you all! Hopefully the next time I share an update the cabinet doors will be painted (but I won’t hold my breath!). 

Until then… adios! 

Happy Friday everyone! It is time to get down to the nitty gritty of all the behind the scenes going on over here. There has been so much work going on I just can’t keep up. Good thing is I have been documenting all of it (just not writing about it). 

Truth be told, it has been extremely overwhelming and my house has been nothing short of a disaster these past several months. I have been sharing updates on my YouTube channel and find that sharing there has been easier because I can just show clips of the process along the way. 

Let’s face it, showing us installing cabinets in the laundry is easy to follow along via video….

Writing each and every detail and showing images…. totally different story! 

Why do I suck at this?

For me it’s easier when everything is nice and cohesive and in super duper order on a blog post and I am still trying to figure out my style when posting about renovations. So as the progress continued, my images became overwhelming and I honestly didn’t know where to begin. 

See, the only place we have made progress on is the sunroom, but then that came to a halt when we encountered our flooring issues along the entire first floor. And because we had to rip out all the floors, the whole house was under construction and everything has been a slow going process. So there is nothing but just a hot mess to share. 

Seriously… not one Instagram worthy shot. 😭

So because everything was a mess, so was my brain. 

But I knew it had to be shared so I sat down and thought… how can I share everything without it being overwhelming (and extremely unpleasant) for me to write about???

Million dollar question right there.

I knew I needed to take baby steps. Just one step at a time. 

💡Lightbulb!💡

I will just share one room at a time! 

Doesn’t seem like a difficult conclusion, but there was just so much, I didn’t see things clearly. 

Okay, so where do I start? 

How about the room that I look forward to changing the most?

THE KITCHEN!

This was a space I actually wasn’t going to do this soon and frankly it’s not our ultimate dream kitchen, but we just need to do it. The room is so terrible I found myself less inspired to spend time there and actually cook there as time went by. 

It was dark, dingy, yucky and just plain ugly. 

Who wants to make meals in that?!?! 

So let’s take a trip down memory lane… do you remember the original house tour where I shared all the images of the house’s listing? Well, here are some images of the kitchen when it was listed. 

HOUSE LISTING IMAGES

Yep, it’s old. 

And simple. 

It’s an eat-in kitchen and the bay window area is where the dining room table goes, but after months of eating there we realized it was just too small of a space for our family of 5. 

As you can see everything is outdated and the colors were so dark and completely different from our last house, however, the house has some great potential. 

So I got to thinking about what I wanted for the space. 

Of course, all of the floors had to be ripped out and all of the popcorn ceiling had to be removed. The ceiling was done completely by my husband and the floors were done by him with some help from my dad. 

RELATED: How to Remove Popcorn Ceilings (with minimal mess)

Of course the minute you start removing stuff you start finding stuff… like patchwork on the ceiling and self leveling cement on your subfloors in your kitchen (that’s over a basement!). 

The one good thing we found was that there was not any animal damage on the kitchen and dining area floors that there were in other parts of the house. 

We wanted a clean slate with this house so we also removed any wall molding and even window sills. 

Once all that was done I came up with a mood board. 

I saw this beautiful kitchen on Pinterest and I fell in LOVE!

Farmhouse “Cottage” Kitchen Plans

Related: How to make a Mood Boardboard

You know I love the coastal farmhouse look, but this screamed Cottage Farmhouse and I think it will still go well with my blue and white accents and coastal feel. Plus our house is smaller in size than the last one and a cottage vibe would go perfect here. 

So I got started creating my look. 

And because we don’t have a huge budget and are paying as we go, we won’t be able to get really high end finishes and of course the work will mostly be done by us. So we made concessions in some areas and will be splurging a little in others. 

*Some of the following links are affiliate links. Please see full disclosure here*

Farmhouse “Cottage” Kitchen Plans- Sources: 

• Chandelier 
• Butcher Block Countertops
• Beadboard
• Faux Brick 
• Cross Back Counter Stools
• Farmhouse Sink
• Sink Faucet & Sprayer
• Oil Rubbed Bronze Cabinet Pulls 

We found the farmhouse sink on super duper sale here. This thing is huge! And the best part about it is that even if we change up the kitchen later, this is something I can reuse. 

Instead of going with stone countertops we will be going with butcher block for now. It is much less expensive. We can install it ourselves and later on when we redo the kitchen we can always reuse them somewhere else. Plus it has that farmhouse and cottage feel in one! 

I found this faucet online and I think it will go perfect with the sink! 

So we got to work! 

The Latino Engineer began removing all the cabinet doors. 

What a sweetie! 

Look at all that dust! UGH!

Next, I began painting the cabinets with my tried and true method. 

RELATED: How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets Yourself

This time instead of painting the cabinets white, I chose to paint it Earl Gray by Magnolia, but I got it color-matched at Sherwin Williams with my favorite cabinet paint. Check my detailed video here. 

We painted the walls Shiplap by Magnolia as well and you can see instantly how much lighter everything looks! 

Of course that is pretty much what we have done so far (with the exception of the floors, which is a whole ‘nother story!). 

We did get some cabinets ordered because we will be adding an island to where the dining area is supposed to be and moving the dining area to the living room, but I figured I can share all the details in another post. 

I will be sharing all about that next! So stay tuned! 

Let me know what you guys think about the plans so far!

I will see you guys in the next one. Until then… adios!