Well here it is! We finally did stuff to our kitchen that makes us want to be in there!
First, look at what it used to look like. Cranberry stipe and all.
Can't forget our favorite the most hideous part - the HOLE!!
Well, it took the contractors just a day and a half to ripe out all the dry wall from the ceiling, install new drywall, add more insulation to the ceiling and install 4 - 5" recessed lights. The best part is they are now on a dimmer! No more being blinded when coming down in the morning while it's still dark. No more glaring bright light late at night. Love me some dimmer switch!
Ahh! Soo much nicer! Bye, bye ugly stucco ceiling! We DON'T miss you at all! In fact, we now wish we could replace all of the ceilings in our house with smooth drywall. Not likely though.
And did you notice we painted the walls too? Yup! We figured, the ceiling looks so good with fresh paint, why not finally pick a wall color and get to it! We finally settled on Benjamin Moore: Pale Sea Mist. We know we eventually want the cabinets to go white and we think this will look really nice with crisp white cabinets. We also finally hung up the three wall trivets we received as a house warming gift over 2 years ago. I was waiting until our walls were no longer white to hang them so they could actually be seen.
We went ahead and painted the cranberry shelves white also with standard white trim paint we already had. Oh and remember that cranberry stripe we painted above the cabinets in a bizarre moment of "hey, wouldn't that look good"? The contractors primed over it for us when the redid the ceiling drywall. An unexpected bonus! Meant zero priming for us to do!
I probably shouldn't be showing picture of the kitchen when the counters are a mess. Hello lazy Saturday afternoon!
The fresh paint on the walls makes us hate the dark cabinets even more. Cabinet painting might commence sooner rather than later.
The only part we don't like about our new lights is that they are not as bright as we would like. Not sure if it was miscommunication with the contractor or what, but it's much darker on the counters than we would like. We had planned on installing under the cabinet lights also, so we're going to take care of that then decided if we want a few more recessed lights in the ceiling. We shall see. In the mean time, we like that our kitchen feels a little closer to being a nice room that we want to spend time in.
I hear you on the cabinets. The green looks really nice, though. Are you thinking white for the cabinets? We did this job a while a go and I will say that a paint sprayer makes it SOOO much easier (having done it both ways). If you're up for the $100 investment, it makes painting the doors WAY easier.
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