All Good Things Must Come to an End

Over the past couple years we transformed our house from "I can't sleep here" to "I will live here, but no one can come over" to "Please, come hang out at our house!".  The blog updates were short lived as we realized this house was a never-ending project and we weren't moving fast enough to have "big reveals" every week.  I have grown to love our house more than I thought I would.  We listed our house for sale last week with a mix of excitement for the future and sadness to leave so much work behind.  So over the next couple weeks I hope to post several before and after pictures as a tribute to what we have been doing.  I will admit, I was a little shocked when I looked at the before and after pictures side by side.  It's amazing what a little hard work (or money) can get you.  Today I will focus on the kitchen:

Before:

After:

What changed?
- Retro laminate flooring updated to wood laminate
- New dishwasher (mainly because the old one stopped working)
- Painted all the cabinets "Cottage White"
- Painted the trim and bead-board to match the cabinets
- Replaced the light fixture with a decorative light from Pottery Barn
- New tier drapes above the sink.  We skipped the valance to let in more natural light.


The kitchen went from feeling dark and cramped to feeling bright and airy.  It's amazing what paint and flooring can do!  We originally wanted to try and tackle removing the wall paper, but were surprised how much of a difference just painting the cabinets made.  It was a full weekend of sanding, priming, and painting, but well worth the effort.  We even ended up keeping the original hardware so it was a pretty cheap update to make.  This is probably the room with the biggest bang for your buck in updates.