kitchen re-do, part 1

i think this is probably the biggest project we have taken on. yes, the wallpaper was time consuming. and yes painting the living room, dining room, hallways and entry way was a huge amount of space to paint. but this kitchen re-do is the most time consuming, manual labor project by far.

turns out we arent a fan of shellac. or golden oak. or whatever you call the previous color of our kitchen. when we first bought and moved into our house we always knew we would change the kitchen and give it a little updating. ok maybe more like a lot of updating. we had someone from the home depot come to our house and tell us how much it would be to simply re-face our cabinets, add new hardware and get a new counter. not changing the layout or anything. just add a thin layer of new wood to the outsides and get new doors.  i dont remember the exact cost but it was around $12,000. no joke. clearly we do NOT have that kind of money and probably wont for a very long time. so no go there. the hubs wanted to refinish the cabinets on our own. something about pride. after a bit of convincing and some chatting with my parents (who are refinish pros) we decided we would tackle this project ourselves. some day.

and that some day was starting the fourth of july weekend. cuz why not? :) we solicited the help of my parents and the hubs' mom for some manual labor and started. here are some lovely before pictures...from before we moved in & the house was empty.

and heres one taken on friday before all the fun began. with all the doors taken off.

we i then had to take everything in our kitchen (the drawers, cabinets & counters) and move it. about 75% of the stuff was jam packed into our pantry and the rest is sitting in our living room by our windows and tv stand. so now we have to learn where everything is which can be pretty time consuming. oh well. no pain no gain right?!?!