I’ve been talking a lot lately about how my boys are almost two! I can’t believe that my tiny babies have been in our lives for almost two full years. They are such a joy and I am loving the toddler stage (yes, it’s hard, but I swear, nothing will be as hard as caring for two infants!!). Some days are hard, but overall I think we’ve been blessed with two fairly easy-going and fun kiddos who love each other (and us!) so much.

The other day, I went to tidy up their nursery. They drop a lot of toys and books between their cribs, so I pulled the cribs out from the wall so I could get everything out.

Guys, it was so so gross. I expected dust bunnies and dog hair (we have a giant Bernese mountain dog), but I didn’t expect to see just how filthy the wall itself was! Two years of baby hands and feet rubbing against the flat paint created dirty stripes down the wall. At first I thought it was a shadow, but nope, it was just grime combined with dried spilled milk. I am embarrassed to share this photo, but you have to see this to believe it.

Ew ew ew ew.

Knowing that it was there totally grossed me out, so we made a plan to paint that wall. We actually decided to paint the whole room because that wasn’t the only place that needed a fresh coat of paint (I won’t even talk about what the wall near the changing table looks like, but parents, you can imagine!). I wanted to give that particular wall a bold new paint treatment. I figure they’re getting a little older so they can have something a little less nursery and a little more bright and cheery little boy room!

So off I went to pick paint. Did you guys know that Target sells an exclusive line of paint? How handy is that! If you’re like me, you’re in Target at least five times a week. Devine Color + Target makes it easy to pick up paint to go along with so many of Target’s awesome lines of decor, much of which has found a home in the boys’ room. You can find Devine Color over in the home improvement section, by the light bulbs and wall hooks and such. You can also order online if you’re not headed to Target any time soon.

Seriously, though, let’s all admit we practically live there. *solidarity*

I’ve used Target’s line of Devine Color by Valspar paint a dozen times before on small projects, like my Geometric Mountains and Lost Sock Holder. Devine Pond has been a particular favorite color of mine for a long time (uh, bright teal? YES PLEASE.), so I knew I wanted to use it in this project. I also picked up deep blue Devine Compass and whisper-light Devine Horizon to create a pretty trifecta of hues for the wall.

Compared to some of my other paint projects, this particular design was a breeze. I started by taping off the top “triangle” for the lightest paint color, Devine Horizon. This is also the color that we’re painting the rest of the room. It’s similar to the paint color we originally had, but a little brighter and the eggshell finish will hold up significantly better than the flat paint. Plus it’s zero VOC so it’s perfect for using in a nursery.

Once my two coats of Devine Horizon had dried, I peeled up the tape, and added my second “triangle” below it. I gave myself an overlap of about 1/2″, so that none of the old paint would show through.

Once that dried, I taped again and finished up with two coats of deep Devine Compass, and voila! The wall was done.

But I was not done! I also picked up a big wooden C and S to hang over their cribs. I decided to paint them with white Devine Lightning to make them pop on the painted wall.

I decided to change out the dark curtains for the graphic black and white curtains I sewed a while back to brighten up the space. We’re putting up a blackout roller shade so our boys will still sleep. But I love how much brighter the room is with the lighter curtains.

We also recently got a set of metal chairs from the Pillowfort line in “Aquamint” and they look fabulous next to the cribs. The boys love having chairs that are their size, and they sit in them and page through their favorite books.

Or, if I’m being honest, they push them over to the light switch and turn the lights on and off, on and off, until the end of time. Because…toddlers

As I was putting their room back together, I realized just how much Target decor I have in that room. Our favorite set of crib sheets from the Oh Joy! line (ours are sold out since they are two years old, but there are other cute designs and they are SO SOFT). We also have two Nate Berkus embroidered quilts that echo the black and white in the curtains.

Top it all off with their stuffed bear (named Pablo) and it’s the perfect little toddler bedroom for our boys! They both love the new wall and can’t stop pointing at it. They were so excited to finally be able to touch it this afternoon.

For another beautiful wall mural design, check out my blog for this awesome looking Painted Flower Wall Mural Artwork and this adorable pillow to make for your little’s nursery – Sweet Dreams SVG!

The post How to Paint a Geometric Wall in your Nursery appeared first on Hey, Let's Make Stuff.

I partnered with Floor & Decor for our butcher block countertops. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Hey, Let’s Make Stuff!

Now that we’ve done our big kitchen reveal, I’ve been sharing the renovation details, as well as things we’ve learned, processes we used, and reasons why we chose what we chose.

When we first started planning our renovation, I thought that the cabinets would be the biggest challenge. Painting a kitchen’s worth of cabinets took a while, but it ended up being fairly straightforward. No, the beast of this renovation ended up being the butcher block countertops.

Yes, they were a beast, but holy wow, were they worth it. I am in LOVE with them. My husband is in love with them. And everyone who has stopped by to see them (or even just saw photos on social media) is in love with them.

I thought getting butcher block would be fairly straightforward: Buy butcher block. Install butcher block. Love butcher block. The end.

But it was much more than that. Today I want to share a few things we learned about butcher block countertops, so if you make the same decision, you’ll know the process ahead of time. A word of warning — this will be a long post, but when we were working on our install, I really appreciated detailed posts, so I’m assuming someone else will need all the details I share here.

Finding Butcher Block

I thought finding butcher block would be easy—several bloggers I know used IKEA countertops. We headed there only to find they didn’t carry an island piece wide enough to span our counter and the bar overhang. They do have a few island-sizes options now, but as far as I can tell, they aren’t even real wood — they are particle board with a veneer. This wasn’t a great option because we needed to connect two pieces to span our large counter.

So we went to Home Depot. Nope. Lowes. Nope. Then a friend told me to check out a new store that recently moved in near us—Floor & Decor. We walked in and were shocked at the size of the showroom. There were so many things to see—wood and laminate flooring, tile flooring and back splashes, tons of travertine and marble. A DIYer’s paradise!

And, tucked away in the back, was the holy grail — butcher block.

*Insert sound of angels singing*

They had lots of choices, from economical to downright gorgeous. This being our budget renovation, we chose the American Maple, which they had in stock. We needed two 8′ x 24″ pieces, and one 6′ x 36″ island piece. It came to about $800, which was a bargain compared to pretty much any other countertop option we researched.

Butcher Block May Have Right and Wrong Sides

One of the things we discovered was that our butcher block has a nice, clean side, and a side that is a little less so. It wasn’t a problem—we just put the wrong side down and the right side up. But definitely know that going into it and make sure you’re looking at both sides of the slab before you take it home. There were definitely pieces that were in better shape than others, and since you could see the bottom under the bar overhang, we chose the piece that looked best on one side.

Butcher Block Preparation & Finishing

We decided to prep the bottom of the butcher block before the installation so they would be protected from moisture and because the bar area could be seen from underneath. We didn’t do the top until after it was all installed, so that the stain would take evenly over the seams we had to make.

Here’s the process (it is the same for the top of the countertops, which we did after the installation):

• Unpack the butcher block. We worked in our garage, with the butcher block set on sawhorses.
• Face the wrong side of the butcher block up (see right and wrong sides above).
• Fill in any holes using a compound like Timber Mate (contractor recommended), making sure to wipe any excess from around your patches with a damp cloth. On the bottom of our counters, we used a different filler that I wouldn’t recommend and didn’t wipe away the excess. The stain didn’t adhere in those spots, leaving us with a blotchy surface. Thank goodness it was on the bottom! We learned our lesson for the top, and it turned out much better with the Timber Mate.
• Give the countertops a very good sanding with a palm or oscillating sander, starting with a 150 grit and moving to a 220.
• Raise the grain. This is an important process that our contractor taught us to get a smooth surface. Do NOT skip this step!
  • After your initial sanding, dampen the wood with a wet cloth and let dry. As the wood dries, you will notice that it becomes rough again — the water draws the loose fibers out of the wood.
  • Sand again using 220 grit and repeat until you get it wet and it stays smooth. It took us three rounds of raising the grain before we didn’t have any more loose fibers.
  • This is only important if you’re using a water-based stain or finish. The water in the stain/finish will raise the grain in the same ways as mentioned above, so you want to get all those loose fibers out before you use your finish.
• If you are staining your countertops (we used Minwax’s Special Walnut), start by applying pre-stain conditioner. The package says to wait a bit before applying the stain, but our contractor said not to wait and to work in sections. He called this a wet-on-wet application:
  1. With a clean rag, apply the conditioner to the surface in 2-foot increments.
  2. With a different clean rag, stain over the conditioned part of the surface.
  3. Go over the stained portion with your conditioner rag.
  4. Do the next 2-foot section, using your rags to seamlessly blend the first stained section in with the second and so on.
• Once you’ve done the first coat of stain, do a second coat if desired. Let dry completely.
• Apply two coats of Waterlox according to the directions on the container.
• Leave the top and side of the butcher block raw for now.

Hiring Butcher Block Installation Help

Ryan and I considered installing the butcher block ourselves for a hot minute, and then realized that the cost of renting or buying the necessary tools and supplies would probably cost us as much as it would to hire someone. Our kitchen is not a straightforward layout. If you have two long stretches in a galley kitchen, for example, you might be able to give it a shot. Ours involved cutting six separate pieces, plus the sink.

It wasn’t straightforward and we weren’t confident enough in our woodworking skills to do it ourselves.

Finding someone to install them, however, was way harder than I expected. I think Ryan talked to a dozen different contractors who kept referring him down the line, no one wanting to do it. Finally, a friend of a friend said he’d help us out, as long as we were willing to get our hands dirty and help him out.

Done and done. Let’s do this thing.

The Installation

Here’s how our half-DIY/half-contractor installation went, step by step. We did this installation process over the course of a few days because the glue had to dry overnight.

1. Our contractor took about a million measurements to make sure we were cutting our three large pieces of butcher block into the correct sizes. This alone made me thankful to have him!
2. We started by piecing our countertops together into the U-shape of our kitchen. We started in the garage, connecting some of the smaller pieces together. The contractor used a special saw to cut our butcher block into the six pieces we needed, and then joined everything together using biscuits, glue, and really long clamps. We helped him with this part but wouldn’t have been able to do it on our own without the correct tools.
3. Make sure to wipe up the glue if it’s seeped through — the stain won’t take to the glue very well. Once the glue is dry, you can use an oscillating sander with 120 grit sandpaper to smooth the seams.
4. We brought the butcher block pieces inside and connected it all together using the biscuit and glue method. As you can see from the diagram above, it took quite a few pieces and seams to get our countertops assembled.
5. Once we had our countertops installed, we had our contractor add a piece of maple edging around the whole thing, miter-cut at the corners. Because we had some extra seams, we thought his would help pull everything together. I absolutely love how this looks!
6. Our contractor also cut a hole for our gorgeous stainless steel sink and holes for the faucet and hot water dispenser.
7. Keep sanding until everything is smooth and perfect.

Finishing the Butcher Block Countertops

Using the same method as above, sand, raise the grain, stain, and Waterlox the tops and sides of the countertops! Once that was done, we were able to install our sink and faucets.

We’ve had the counters in for about two month now, and I couldn’t be happier with how they are holding up. I have made it a habit to wipe down the counters around the sink several times a day, and the Waterlox seems to be doing a great job of keeping the counters protected.

Installing butcher block was more of process than I imagined it would be, but seriously, I love them so much. They warm up the cool colors of the cabinets and are absolutely gorgeous. If you have any questions at all about our process, ask away in the comments!

The post How to Install Butcher Block Countertops appeared first on Hey, Let's Make Stuff.

A big thank you to Sherwin Williams for providing the paint and to Homeright for providing a paint sprayer and shelter for our kitchen renovation.

Two weeks ago I talked about preparing cabinets for latex paint, and last week I shared some amazing teal cabinet inspiration to get you thinking. Now your cabinets are clean and ready to be painted and you know what color you’re going to use. Here’s the method I used to get a gorgeous finish on my cabinets.

If you’re looking for tutorials on how to use chalk paint for your cabinets, I’m not your gal. But if you want to use a traditional latex paint, here’s how to do it.

First, prep your cabinets. This is actually the most difficult part of the whole process. Remember, the cleaner they are, the better your paint will adhere!

You can also number you cabinets (especially if you have a lot of them!) where the hinges screw in. Put a piece of masking tape over the number so you can peel it off at the end and know which door is which!

Before you paint, if you are going to add hardware to your cabinets and drawers, drill the holes for your hardware and sand down the holes so no wood splinters are sticking up. We use a template to help us drill the holes.

Supplies

• Primer
• Latex paint (we used Sherwin Williams “Drizzle” on the lower cabinets and “Swiss Coffee” on the upper cabinets)
• Polycrylic finish
• Paint sprayer
• Paint sprayer cleaning kit (optional)
• 220 grit sandpaper
• Paint brushes
• Painter’s Pyramids (optional)
• Spray shelter (optional)

Instructions

The process for painting cabinets is actually very simple. Two coats of primer, two coats of paint, two coats of polycrylic. Sand in between. You might want to take a look at my post about painting mistakes you don’t want to make—there’s some important stuff there!

For the cabinet frames, we decided to paint them by hand because the way our kitchen is attached to the rest of the house (vaulted ceiling) would have made it very difficult to tape off. I used my favorite priming trick to tint the primer — this helped us use fewer coats of actual paint on the cabinets.

Then two coats of paint, and two coats of polycrylic. Make sure to let your coats really dry — wet paint on wet paint is a recipe for disaster.

For the cabinet doors, we used the Homeright FinishMax paint sprayer to paint outside and I can’t say enough good things about it. At a price point of just $60, you sort of wonder if it’s going to do a good job. And lo and behold, it was a powerhouse! My dad and I knocked out all six coats of primer/paint/poly in a couple days — the only thing slowing us down was dry time.

We used painter’s pyramids to raise the cabinet doors off our work surface (a giant cardboard box, because that’s how we roll) and that worked very well.

To use the Homeright FinishMax, you have to water down your paint so it will flow evenly through the nozzle. There’s a guide (basically a funnel) that you can use to test the viscosity of your paint by measuring how long it takes to flow through the funnel. Our measurements were:

• 1/2 cup primer to 1/2 cup water
• 2/3 cup paint to 1/3 cup water
• No water in the polycrylic

But definitely do the test for yourself — every paint is different! The even coverage was still pretty incredible, despite the paint having water in it.

To get the best performance out of the paint sprayer, make sure to hold it mostly upright so that the straw can pull the paint from the reservoir out the nozzle. The nozzle can be turned in three directions, to give you a flat spray (both horizontal and vertical) and a cone spray (like a can of spray paint). We tried all three and found the vertical spray worked best for our needs.

I did a light sanding with 220 grit sandpaper in between all of the coats (except the two coats of poly). On a few of the drawers, particularly we found that I hadn’t sanded down the wood filler as well as I thought I had while prepping the cabinets. Those got a solid sanding with my corner cat and an extra coat of primer.

Once the paint is dry, you can take off the masking tape, reveal your cabinet numbers and re-install the doors!

The difference between our old kitchen and new kitchen is so startling — the teal cabinets really make our kitchen a star!

You can also check out how I installed our GORGEOUS butcher block countertops!

The post How to Paint Cabinets using Latex Paint and a Paint Sprayer appeared first on Hey, Let's Make Stuff.

I originally wanted to paint our lower kitchen cabinets a nice simple shade of gray. But the more I thought about it and looked online, the more I decided I wanted to take a risk. This isn’t our forever kitchen (we plan on putting an addition on the kitchen and dining room someday, which will be a gut-job), so why not do something a little out there. It’s only paint, right? And if we really didn’t like it, we could always paint over it.

I worked alongside Sherwin Williams to come up with the right cabinet paint for the job, and I ended up picking a perfect color called “Drizzle” (which is a little more vibrant than the online swatch). They have so many different shades of teal, you’re sure to find a pretty blue-green that’s perfectly you!

If you’re thinking that teal cabinets are in your future, I rounded up some of my favorite inspiration posts for you to get your mind thinking of all the possibilities!

Please pin from original sources!

We used Sherwin Williams “Drizzle,” which looks a little more subdued on the online swatch than it does in real life. I love how bright and happy this shade makes our kitchen! See our full reveal kitchen reveal.

This was one of my inspiration photos. I love Our Storied Home’s two-tone cabinets. They are slightly more country than my kitchen, but a great choice if you’re going the chalk paint route.

Apartment Therapy featured one of my favorite kitchen makeovers, one that made us start to consider butcher block. I absolutely love the soft teal paint and farmhouse sink Lauren chose!

I absolutely love this before and after from This Old House. The cabinet color is perfect, plus the marble countertops and simple subway backsplash let the cabinets shine.

Choosing a dark and dramatic teal was a bold choice in this kitchen featured in Hooked on Houses, but I think it’s a home run.

If you didn’t think that teal could be lux and elegant, this gorgeous kitchen shared by Decoholic will change your mind. And that range hood! So gorgeous with the bright teal cabinets.

We paired our teal cabinets with wood countertops, but Chip Wade takes it a step further in his kitchen remodel, using actual walnut slices to make one of the prettiest backsplashes I’ve ever seen.

A slightly darker shade of teal works nicely with The Imperfect Homemaker’s darker countertops. She also has tips for repainting cabinets that have a laminate finish.

Teal works with so many styles, too. I love how Pam from Retro Renovation used it in her fun and funky retro kitchen makeover. Teal + red? Retro perfection!

I love the deep teal cabinet color that House of Turquoise features in this kitchen — but the teal window casings have me even more smitten!

If painting the actual cabinets teal is too big of a design step, try painting the interiors of open cabinets, like in this bright kitchen, featured in Coastal Living!

If even that is too much, A Beautiful Mess used a vivid Caribbean teal on the inside of her regular cabinets for a pop of color any time someone goes to grab a dish.

So are you ready to take the leap? I’d love to see how your teal cabinets turn out!

The post Teal Cabinet Paint Colors appeared first on Hey, Let's Make Stuff.

When we moved into our 1989 house, nothing dated it more than the oak cabinets in the kitchen and the bone tile countertops. As part of our kitchen renovation we decided to paint our cabinets — a pretty teal on the bottom, white on the top. We wanted to make sure we did it right the first time, so I spent a lot of time preparing the old cabinets for painting.

Today I’m going to share that process with you, and in two weeks I’ll have a tutorial for the actual painting. A big thank you to Sherwin Williams for providing the paint for our project, and HomeRight for providing me a Finish Max paint sprayer.

I read approximately eleventy million articles about prepping and painting cabinets. Our cabinets are solid oak, so I started there (if yours are veneer, stop reading and find a different tutorial!). There were a lot of people who had “no prep!” solutions, usually involving chalk paint.

After researching, I decided I didn’t want to use chalk paint — it has a tendency to chip a bit, which is great if you like the country chic look, but that’s not my jam. I was also a little worried about sticky little toddler fingers and cooking oils sticking to the surface. I knew if I used a traditional latex cabinet paint and a polycrylic finish, they would be easier to clean.

Plus our cabinets were filthy. Filthy. And since I had to clean them anyway, I figured I might as well prep them for traditional painting. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Krud Kutter
• Clean rags
• Pick (I used my Cricut weeding tool, but a dental pick would work as well)
• Wood filler
• Putty knife
• Electric sander (I love my Ryobi Corner Cat)
• Sanding blocks
• Tack cloth

Cabinet Cleaning

From a distance, I didn’t think our cabinets looked too dirty. But once I took off the doors and got up close and personal with them, oh-my-goodness-so-gross. Years of gunk had built up on them. The fact these cabinets had no handles didn’t help — for example, people had been opening up this cabinet on the upper right corner with their oily hands for…nearly thirty years.

Barf.

Cleaning them took elbow grease, patience, and more than one glass of wine.

For each cabinet door, I labeled the location with a Sharpie where the hinge was and put a piece of masking tape over it. That way, when we painted them, we could peel the masking tape off and the number would be hidden under the hinge. Don’t trust your memory, label your doors!

If you’re keeping your hinges, also label your hinges. We tossed our old hinges — they were beyond rescuing. We found the same style hinges in chrome, and at $45 for all the hinges in our small kitchen, it was a no brainer.

Onward to cleaning!

I filled a bowl with the Krud Kutter (it’s biodegradable and doesn’t smell) and started scrubbing the cabinets down with a clean rag. Though it took some effort, it was actually pretty amazing to see the gunk lift and leave me with clean oak underneath. I am definitely a Krud Kutter fan!

Getting in the corners of our paneled cabinets was difficult with the rag, so I let a little Krud Kutter soak and then used my Cricut weeding tool (you can use any kind of pick) to scrape away the nastiness that had accumulated over the years. Ew.

I tried my best to get the cabinets as clean as humanly possible. The contractor we used to install our butcher block countertops has a saying: start right, end right. Meaning that if you put the work in at the beginning to do it right, you won’t have to spend time fixing it in the end. Dirty cabinets won’t hold paint as well as clean cabinets, so scrub, scrub, scrub.

I also scrubbed the cabinet frames with the Krud Kutter. It took me several nap-times to finish cleaning the cabinets, but I’m glad I put in the effort.

Cabinet Prepping

One thing I’d read often was that porous oak cabinets soak up a LOT of paint. So much that sometimes cabinets might warp, not to mention use up a ton of paint. I also wanted to disguise the very apparent grain on the cabinets — I felt like it really dated the kitchen. So I decided to us a wood filler to fill in the grain on the cabinets.

This was quite the process, but it was more than worth it. I love how the cabinets turned out — the grain that was so apparent on the raw cabinets is now barely visible, creating a clean look for the whole kitchen.

Using a putty knife (I started with plastic but quickly moved to a metal knife), I spread the wood filler on all of the cabinets and pressed it into the grain. To get the edges of the cabinet doors and drawers, I found my finger worked better than anything else.

I did the same on the cabinet frames. Once the first coat dried, I went through and made sure I had everything filled in.

Due to time constraints, I decided not to do the interior sides of the doors. Which gave me a great comparison once I started to prime the cabinets. First, without the filler:

Then with!

Amazing, yes?

Before we primed, however, we gave them a good sanding to smooth everything out. This had two purposes. First, to get rid of any wood filler that wasn’t filling in grain. The second was to rough up the surface so the paint would adhere properly. I started with an overall sanding using my corner cat. Then a light hand sanding wit 120-grit paper.

And right before we got ready to paint, I used a tack cloth to wipe the cabinets down, picking up all the dust and grit (and dog hair, thanks Gunnar).

Whew! Next up is painting our cabinets in two weeks, with a teal cabinet inspiration post next Thursday. I also highly recommend you read this post, which I wrote after we painted our bathroom cabinets, but these tips also apply to this project: Five Mistakes to Avoid When Painting Cabinets

The post How to Prep Solid Oak Cabinets for Painting appeared first on Hey, Let's Make Stuff.

This last weekend we put the finishing touches on our kitchen renovation and I couldn’t be happier to finally share all the details with you today! We took this dated 1989 kitchen and totally refreshed it for around $2,500 (and a lot of elbow grease!). With the average kitchen renovation costing between $15,000 and $20,000, I think we did a fantastic job!

First, let’s recall what the original kitchen looked like:

Dated oak cabinets, the world’s ugliest stained bone tile countertops, a shallow chipped porcelain sink (not even Barkeeper’s Friend could save it), and lighting that was totally not my style. It all had to go!

We decided on teal and white painted cabinets with new chrome hardware, stained walnut butcher block countertops, a deep stainless steel sink and tall chrome faucet, and gorgeous new lighting. I wanted it to be light and bright and colorful, but still warm and inviting. How do you think we did?

I am IN LOVE!

This renovation was backed by some of my favorite companies: Build.com, Sherwin Williams, Floor & Decor, and HomeRight.

I have a TON of tutorials about the different projects we did for the renovation, and I’m excited to share more in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I wanted to give an overview of everything we did to take this kitchen out of the 80s and into today!

We started by sanding, painting, and finishing the cabinets. We chose two bright and happy colors from the ProClassic line at Sherwin Williams  — Swiss Coffee white for the top cabinets, which matches the rest of the trim in our house, and Drizzle, a bright and refreshing teal for the bottom cabinets.

To get such a nice coat we used the HomeRight Finish Max paint sprayer, which is basically my new favorite tool. I wrote a detailed tutorial on how I painted these cabinets — no shortcuts here and a lot of elbow grease, but these cabinets will be beautiful for a long time to come!

We added gorgeous new chrome hardware from Build.com that really makes the cabinets easier to use and adds a modern flair. Honestly, I was shocked at the heft of these handles — they are really high quality for such a reasonable price. We also replaced the hinges on the cabinets to match (the old bronze hinges were beyond saving).

(We won’t talk about how I basically built my twin toddlers a ladder to the counter. Whoops.)

The lighting was updated from the original builder lighting, but wasn’t my style so it had to go. We started by taking the “chandelier” that was in front of the stove and replacing it with a simple can light. Just that one small change opened up the room and made it feel bigger.

I wanted to keep that open feeling, so we took out the bronze pendant lights and replaced them with a pair of modern chrome and glass pendants. They are significantly larger than the old lights, but because they are almost entirely glass, they don’t create any separation between the kitchen and our living room. I turned the lights off for one photo so you can see just how light and airy they are.

Then we come to the countertops. We decided to give butcher block a shot, mostly because we knew we could do it inexpensively compared to other countertop options, and Floor & Decor didn’t disappoint.

While the big box retailers and even IKEA didn’t have the butcher block we needed available, Floor & Decor had exactly what we wanted. Installing and staining it was a process, which I will write about in its own post, as well as how we care for them. Even though it was definitely a lot of work, I could not be happier with how they turned out. They are GORGEOUS.

To go with the countertops, we decided on a deep Kraus stainless steel sink and chrome Kohler faucet, along with an instant hot water dispenser. The old sink was so shallow and the short faucet didn’t help.

We also switched the garbage disposal to the side of the sink closer to our dishwasher, so we’re not dripping dirty dishes across the clean dishes drying in the other side of the sink. Now it’s so easy to do the dishes and keep our kitchen cleaner! The wire racks in the bottom of the sink came with the sink and help protect the bottom of the sink from scratches.

For the backsplash, we went with the most beautiful bargain tile. It was less than $4 a square foot, also from Floor & Decor! With grout and tools and everything, the backsplash came to less than $150. What a deal! And it’s so beautiful — the arabesque style is trendy and classic at the same time, and adds some movement to the square lines of the kitchen.

We decided to grout it in white, since this was the first time we did grout ourselves and we wanted to hide any mistakes. Thankfully, we did a pretty good job and it looks great!

We also decided to case the kitchen window in wood. This helped make the tile installation easier and made the window a focal point instead of an afterthought. Another tutorial, coming up soon!

A lot of hard work, but what a transformation. We did all of the work ourselves, with the exception of the countertop — we hired a friend of a friend to help us with the installation. But we were there every step of the way, working with him on the install (to save the cost of him hiring someone to help). I have learned so much during this renovation, and, I’m not sure if I’ve said it yet…

I LOVE IT SO MUCH!

Cost Breakdown:

• Cabinet Paint: $120
• Cabinet Hardware: $125
• Butcher Block Countertops: $830
• Countertop Installation: $400
• Lighting: $300
• Sink: $260
• Faucet: $168
• Backsplash: $175
• Miscellaneous: $200

We also were able to beg, borrow, steal (and win — thank you Ryobi!) all the tools we needed for this project. I’ll go into these tools more in the individual tutorial posts.

And that’s it! We’re totally done and totally happy with how it’s turned out. Hope you find it inspiring to make changes in your own home!

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