A Blue Kitchen Turned New

Hello!

I wrapped up this kitchen a few weeks ago, and it was a lot of fun since it was the kitchen of a good friend who I got to know really well while we were both training for our first marathon.  (When you run miles and miles with people, you learn a lot about them, talking about anything and everything to keep your mind off the fact that your legs want to stop and sit down.)  She is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and it was a lot of fun getting to see her and her family over the time that I was working there.

They just bought their new home and were looking to get the kitchen updated before they moved in and got settled, so that’s where I came in.  Originally, I was just going to paint her built-ins, but my scope of work broadened.  Here’s where everything started – these are the bookcases that they were looking to have painted, and the original reason for me coming in to help.  The furnishings are the previous homeowners’ as they had not moved in yet.

Great looking, but the color wasn’t what my girlfriend wanted.

So, I gave them a fresh coat of paint and some new pulls from D. Lawless Hardware.

I love how the stone surrounding the fireplace takes on a whole new look with the change in paint color.  Just like granite looks completely different once cabinets are painted.

And the beautifully styled bookcases certainly don’t hurt the final result (the bowl is out of place because I did a touch up prior to taking the photo – my bad).

Now let’s get to the kitchen!  Here are some of the before shots –

When I came to take down the cabinets, the previous owners were getting ready for an estate sale, thus the reason there’s a bit of chaos going on in some of these photos.

A lot going on in this kitchen from where it began.

This fireplace is getting a facelift as well –

Lots of changes took place in this pretty kitchen.  I feel like we could play one of those “Find the Difference Between the Two Photos” kinds of games, since there are a lot of updates that were made (and still more to come).

The lights were updated, and I love the change.  Not only did they go from two to three pendants, the style is clean and updated.

A minor change is that I removed the appliqué that was on the range hood.  The devil is in the details.

Another big (obvious) change is the hutch that was between the refrigerator and the double ovens.  The homeowner took the antique hutch that used to be there, and the new homeowners had a custom built-in hutch built to fill the gap completely.  They’re still waiting on countertops, but I love the glass front doors that they added (and the carpenter that did the work does an amazing job).

You might notice a huge change from this vantage point.

Do I need to refresh your memory?  I too, suffer from short-term memory loss sometimes.

You can really see how the fireplace takes on a whole new life by updating the surround.  I love a checkerboard floor, but the fireplace took it a wee bit too far.

Notice something missing?  Those big hutch-type pieces were like a hutch-desk hybrid of some sort, and not at all functional, as the desk portion was really high, and just kind of weird.

 

A big thanks to D. Lawless Hardware for their always beautiful cabinet hardware.  You never disappoint!

The cabinet color is Simply White by Benjamin Moore – such a great, clean white.