House Project #1: Kitchen Cupboards, Part I

I meant to post this back in September, but forgot. . . and then remembered when I started working on the rest of the kitchen today, so here it is!

House Project #1: Kitchen Cupboards, Part I

I was lucky to be able to move into my house before it was really mine. The first thing I did was to paint the inside of the kitchen cupboards. They weren't in terrible shape, but vacuuming and wiping them down didn't seem like quite enough to rid them of that "four years of renting" feeling that the house was emitting when I first moved in.

The interiors were a mustardy yellow, and had 80s-vintage contact paper on most of the shelves - some flowered, some yellow. Not terribly ugly, but not the décor I'm going for here. I had pulled the contact paper out of the cupboards on the right side of the kitchen before I took the pictures, then realized I needed to capture its awesomeness before taking it all out.

cupboard above the fridge

cupboard above the stove

left side of corner cupboard.
note the lovely flowered contact paper.

right side of corner cupboard.
note the lovely yellow contact paper

left cupboard from right side of kitchen

right cupboard from right side of kitchen

I used the same NatureSecret paint from the bookshelf - a neutral cream color. I'm planning to leave the cupboards where I store my dishes open (and eventually might replace them), so having a neutral color is important.

yay for recycled paint!
and a sneak preview of the wall paper
and yellow countertops. . .

So much better - and I actually wanted to put away my dishes.


dish cupboards, right side of kitchen.
next up: painting the exterior and the walls!

cupboard over the stove.
mostly I just want to show off my fabulous snowflake pyrex punchbowl set.

I neglected to take "before" shots of the lower cupboards, although these got a bit different treatment. They were a bit water stained due to some leaks that have since been fixed, so I went to town with some Killz. I decided that three coats of that would do it, and I don't currently plan on painting them with anything else.

under-sink cupboards, sans doors for the moment.