Shabby (un)Chic

The only thing I didn’t like about my house when we bought it was the kitchen. I had big plans and an agreement with the then boyfriend that after 5 years I would gut it and put in brand new everything.

Ahh, don’t you just love those big plans?

When we reached the 5 year mark I simply didn’t want to cough up 20 grand to re-do the kitchen. I’d rather use the money to put towards the mortgage (so worth it – we’ve already paid it off), buy new clothes, go on vacations, get a newer used car. You know, all of the other things that money is better spent on.

Over the past 3 years, sometimes against my better judgement and usually before a big party, I have made changes to the kitchen.

In fact, the huz will tell you that one night he innocently came home from work to unhappily find a wall missing. You see, my wonderful old house has terrible plaster walls. I hate love the plaster and all of its charm and when it cracks, crumbles and deteriorates it’s not my favorite thing to fix.

But this particular wall in our kitchen was just begging me to rip it down… at 10pm on a Friday night.

So down it came.

And of course, I had no idea what I was doing and didn’t think too far ahead about how I was going to fix the big disastrous, dusty mess that I was creating  so I did what any other stupid silly girl would do.

I called my Dad.

And whined.

And cried.

I begged, bribed and convinced him that he should feel sorry for my predicament and come help me rebuild a wall.

The next morning my super hero dad came up to my house with saws and levels and tools.

Lots. of. tools.

Over the next two weekends he did all of the work helped me turn the terrible mess I made back into a wall, minus the holes and cracks. He also helped me remove the plain trim that didn’t match the rest of the house and an out of place panel that was glued to another wall.

When he left my house the last weekend of our project there was no more missing wall but it was a far cry from complete and my poor, sad kitchen sat in disaray… for a year and a half, without trim, only half way painted and way worse looking than it did with the 3 inch hole in it.

Really, this is how I roll?

Sigh. Again.. admitting flaws.

Of course, I hated the kitchen but instead of completing the wall work I decided it was the floors fault. Said floor was terrible parquet that was scratched, dented, water stained and basically destroyed. It was impossible to clean because it wasn’t sealed correctly (or ever) and I suddenly decided that it was a bad idea to have (un-original to the house) hardwood in a busy kitchen.

Now, if the previous home owners had left the original oak I would have just refinished them but they didn’t so that wasn’t an option.  Plus, if you haven’t noticed by now, I love big messy projects.

So, (three days before hosting a large Thanksgiving dinner) I had the wreck of unsalvagable flooring ripped out.

Wisely, I didn’t take this project on by myself because well, I’m not that stupid; I hired the pros and they replaced it with simple easy to clean tile. They also finished all of the trim work that was left over from the wall escapade 18 months before and put smooth set on the wall that the paneling was removed from.

Sweet Mary, all of the pieces were in place.

And there sat my kitchen, complete with four walls, all of the trim work and wonderful tile floor.

I still wasn’t happy though.

The cabinets were dingy.

I avoided painting them for quite a long time because after all of my other failed attempts at projects I thought it would just lead to another disaster.

Then one day back in February (this year thank you very much) after repainting the bead board backsplash I decided I couldn’t take it anymore and that I would attempt to get the cabinets done.

Naturally, in proper Ginger form, I only finished some of the cabinets and let the kitchen sit for a good month before I  tackled the rest of them.

Finally, they are done and they look great!

I even painted the hardware to save myself a couple hundred bucks and I love the way everything turned out.

Of course I wouldn’t be me without saying the kitchen is not complete.

Now I am thinking I should paint the insides of the cabinets, too. They will look really good painted and with new contact paper (when they are open).

And aside from re-doing the insides of the cabinets I still need to repaint the window frames, the door, get new fabric for the windows and maybe even re-paint the refrigerator (or get a new one).

I  am also thinking of replacing the faucet, adding under the cabinet lighting, buying a new trash receptacle and I’m continuing my Craigslist stalking for a new used kitchen table.

I would really love to add bead board to the rest of the walls because I love the red but it feels very unbalanced in there. If I don’t add the bead board I will be re-painting it a lighter color creme but I think I’d much rather add the bead boarding.

Unfortunately, I have NO idea how to operate a saw and no one seems too interested in helping me. (Yes… I’ve asked just about everyone I know.)

I have to say though, after hating on my kitchen so much, for soooo long, I finally love, Love, LOve, LOVe how it is coming along.