Hello Gorgeous

I don’t even know where to start with this post…what to say.  Maybe that’s because all three of our kids have the kind of colds that turn your nose into a faucet.  Imagine following your sick toddler/baby around so you can wipe his/her nose before it gets wiped on anything but a tissue and then multiply that by three.  Yes.  Glory days over here.  Anyway, really that’s just an excuse for my lack of words because in reality, your jaw will drop like mine when you see how amazing this kitchen is and speech will evade you.  Backtrack, shall we?  I clued you in on Monday that I’d be sharing my friend Jesse’s gorgeous kitchen here on the blog.  She diy-ed herself from start to finish and only shelled out $425 at that.  I KNOW!  Crazy, right?  I’ll share the show-stopping before’s and after’s today along with a few details and then in the next few weeks, I’ll share details on individual projects in her kitchen while she walks me through.  Stay tuned for that.  But, until then, feast your eyes my friends…

This is her kitchen a few months ago:
 
Originally, the cabinets were white but gross, gross, gross complete with peeling paint, grease, cigarette fumes, and lots of other things you probably don’t want to know about.  Jesse washed, sanded, primed, and repainted them – the bottoms were colored-matched to Curry Green by Eddie Bauer Home (the matching yielded a paint a tad lighter than the swatch) and on the uppers is Crème Fraiche by Valspar.

Presently:

Along with the cabinets, she also mixed a few colors of leftover paint she had on hand to get that amazing color on the walls…and then, like a good friend, she gave me a swatch because she’s awesome like that.  It’s always hard to view the true hue of a paint color via computer/phone/device but it’s light gray/greige-ish (I mean, how do you explain a color in words?)

Her diy-ed runner:

Her runner is actually two Nate Berkus for Target rugs sewn together.  You’d never know it wasn’t one rug.

Before (but after cabinet painting):


After:

The sink area before:


After:

And those gorgeous marble countertops?  DIYed!!!! 
They look even more amazing in person, trust me.

She also put in the subway tile backsplash herself.  She became my new hero the day she told me she was going to do that on her own.

And the little things count too.  Like that concrete planter in the above picture – she made it.

A view from the other direction:

Here’s the other side of her galley kitchen a few months ago:

And here’s the same side now:

Her fridge/freezer used to be off-white but she took some chalkboard paint to it.  It looks superb, no?  Also, out of view, is the previously white range hood that she spray painted black to match the rest of the appliances.



Let’s move further on down the galley, shall we?  Take a gander at this way-before and after:

Jesse replaced the armoire with a small dresser found at a consignment store that she painted the same color as the lower cabinets and made that gorgeous round mirror that hangs above it.  Details on that coming soon. 

An in-process shot:

After:

And to the dining area we gaze:

I couldn’t pick a favorite shot so, another:

Here’s what it used to look like:

Inhabited by the one and onlies, Levi, Abel, and Vera.

And now:

The roman shades hail from Overstock.com.

Jesse gave the base of her round table a coat of white and sanded the top down to it’s natural wood grain.  (Note:  after sanding down the top, she added a wax finish to it that apparently looked awful.  But, while I was at her house taking pictures, she rubbed coconut oil over it and said it’s looked great ever since!)  She found the chairs ‘round it on Craigslist.  Aren’t they awesome?
 

The large frame on the wall was thrifted (for $1!) and she painted the nun symbol inside it with the help of her boys.

And last but not least, turn your eyes skyward to the light.  It too is painted – Faded Seafoam by Valspar.

And that’s it!  I don’t know about yours, but my kitchen’s lower cabinets are screaming for color now and my stainless fridge is longing to get friendly with some chalk.  Next house…

Thank you to Jesse for letting me plaster her kitchen onto this here blog post!  No kitchen this beautiful should be hidden from the virtual world, right?

Stay tuned for project details from Jesse and Jeremy’s kitchen in the coming weeks!  Oh, and ps, say a prayer (or 3955) for us because we’re going to potty train next week again.  Last time things went a little south, only just not where they were supposed to…  

.           .           .

Bonus pic of what our kids were ransacking while we moms styled and shot:

Levi Spiderman entertaining the twins in the front row, Abel and Vera in the nose bleeds, and Sebastian in his own little world.  :)