Kitchen Updates - More Before & Almost After

Well, my blog friends, my kitchen is getting closer to done. We're at a point where you have to wait a day or two between steps so in the hiatus, I thought I would post a few pictures.

This is the south wall. Sorry about the blanket over the door, we don't have any heat on in the basement right now and we're not putting a door there so we hung a blanket to keep the cold out. We still have crown & baseboards to do in here, so the white stripe at the floor level will go away. There will also be a broom closet and we may move the fridge over here. If you're new to my blog, then you'll notice the door on the right went away, that pantry became my bedroom closet and you can see the ginormous floor to ceiling pantry there on the left that my sweetie and Aaron built for me.

Here's the east wall. I just love it. Those brick on the backsplash are old Chicago pavers. We just put the acrylic sealer on it Tuesday night so maybe Saturday we can grout. We're doing black grout there, I think it's gonna look awesome. There's is still a valance to be built to go over the sink, between the two cabinets and that window trim will be painted white. We also have not decided on door knobs and drawer pulls yet, but we will make that choice soon. I can hardly believe that these pictures are the same space! And the floor!!! I'm so thankful that worked out.
These are the north and west walls. I took the original picture from a crummy angle, but you can see the rest of that original wall in the east wall before picture. I don't know why the kitchen walls and floor were green, but I am sure it was very pretty when it was first done. That's my friend Judy in the before picture, she helped me do some cleaning in the beginning. The lights will be changed out when I finally decide what I'm doing for lighting in here. I'll let you know what I decide...
I just love the way our little house is coming along. I am so very blessed to be married to such a talented man who made all of this come to life!

Refrigerator - Part 2 (make it unique)

If you read yesterday's post, you learned the steps it took to make that almond colored fridge a black fridge. Today, I don't have a how-to for you. I simply have a few pictures for you. Here's what the fridge looked like when I started:And this is what it looked like yesterdayThen I took this machine and some self-adhesive vinyl and came up with this ideaand made this
The top half of the side of the fridge is a chalkboardThis is my fridge, some will love it and I'm sure some will hate it. No matter what, it's uniquely mine. There's not another one like it anywhere.

Drop a comment, let me know what you think. If I can pray for you, please let me know.

Refrigerator - Part 1 (Spray Paint)

I want black appliances in my kitchen! I could give you three or four of my Daddy's little sayings for when we said we wanted something here, but I'm sure your parents have their own...insert one after that last statement.

Seriously, though, the plan for my kitchen is black appliances, but our fridge was that gorgeous almond color that some people adore. Not me. I want black. So I searched the internet and got several articles on how to, but no pictures so you don't know how the project actually turned out and I don't want the thing to actually look spray painted.

Disclaimer: If you have never spray painted a dang thing in your life, please learn and perfect the skill before you try to paint a huge piece of your kitchen! Learn from me, you'll be glad you did. (You'll see why in a minute.)

Here is a picture of the fridge when I started. Isn't she a beaut? Ugh!

First thing you're going to want to do is get it good and clean. Start with whatever degreaser you use in your kitchen. I use Mox by Conklin, it cleans anything, I mean ANYTHING and is less than half the price of 409 or whatever and is safe around kids and pets. Then, (some websites say to sand and some do not, the paint can says to sand, so I did) sand the entire surface with a very fine sanding sponge.

Then you will want to tape and/or plastic off anything that you don't want to paint.

You will also want to cover or remove the door handles. Aluminum foil works great for this, since it is easy to manipulate to strange shapes. I was planning to take off these ugly handles and not put them back on, but the screws are inside the door so it would be a major undertaking to get it all back together and I'm not confident enough to do that.

After covering everything up, you will want to wipe the fridge down with mineral spirits or denatured alcohol to remove any traces of oil left by your hands. Then you can paint with appliance paint from your local hardware store. If you have never painted before, Valspar has some great video tutorials on their website.

In this picture, you can see the blotches from me not knowing what I was doing. I really thought I did...but I didn't.

Here we go, I learned how to spray paint and redid it. Much better!

Now then, the painting is done and the fridge will be moved into my house tonight!! YAY! It's not finished though, I still have a few things to do and will post the pics when I'm done...here's a hint, though, to tide you over

I have an idea on what to do with the door handles, but welcome your suggestions. Just one thing...they can't be painted. Even with plastic paint, due to the excessive use, any paint will come off and look bad in a short time.