Our Fixer Upper Journey: Kitchen

This kitchen was our never-ending project … We literally lived with boxes stacked against all of the walls and our dining table completely covered for about seven months. There was a lot that needed to be done in this space, and we ended up doing a lot of it ourselves (again, with help from family and friends!). There were two different types of linoleum flooring, old grungy paneling on the walls, countertops that made me cringe, and paint peeling off of the cabinets.

Here are some pictures from before we moved in …

First up, Parker scraped the popcorn ceilings, and we repainted using a flat white ceiling paint. One good tip we learned was when painting a surface that is not completely flat or even, to use a very thick paint roller. The really thin ones will not allow the paint to stick to the texture.

This picture makes me laugh because we had no idea what we were doing, and it was still early enough along in the process to think it was still fun! You live and you learn!

We then had our handyman remove all the old paneling, put in new sheetrock, remove the bulky built-in pantry, and widen the doorways that led into our living room and hallway. All of the walls are painted in Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter.

Next up, was covering the old linoleum with fresh new vinyl plank flooring …

We decided for our cabinets to remove the old trim and hardware and strip off the old paint. We removed the doors and popped off the trim with a screwdriver. The smaller doors we were able to fit through my dad’s wood planer and the others we used CITRISTRIP to remove all the old paint.

The new trim was made out of skinny flat wood strips that Parker cut to size and attached with the nail gun. All of the cabinet bases were painted with a roller and the doors were painted with a sprayer in Benjamin Moore Gettysburg Gray. It is a warm beige-gray with a green tint. New black hardware from Amazon HERE to finish off the cabinets!

I’ve always loved the classic warm look of butcher block countertops and thought they would add a unique touch to this kitchen. I know a lot people feel like they aren’t practical or will be hard to take care of. I did a lot of research on how to prepare, seal, and clean them. We never had any problems with them while living there. Not to mention how inexpensive they are .. definitely the biggest plus! We bought ours from Southeastern Salvage and I got them stained, sealed and ready for the boys to install. I don’t remember which exact blog post I followed and don’t have pictures of all the steps, but it was a pretty easy process aside from having to wait a long time in between steps. I sanded it down and used a pre-stain wood conditioner. Then I did two coats of stain in my favorite stain color EARLY AMERICAN and three coats of the sealer called WATERLOX. This is the part that was very time consuming because you have to wait overnight between each coat.