Hi, Dear Friends,
How are you? Thank you for stopping in to see what is going on in the kitchen at our little country house.
To see where we have been with this house, check out our Country House Page. You will find links to all of the blog posts in this series. I hope you are enjoying our country home journey.
What do I love in a kitchen?
White cabinets
Anything vintage
Classic Hardware
Custom carpentry touches
European flavor
We're on our way with this kitchen.
I started giving the kitchen my full attention after Christmas.
We removed a row of uppers and the plastic backsplash the first weekend we were in the house.
Bill added new lighting to brighten things up. I added farmhouse inspired accessories.
I painted the window trim. The curtains came from Walmart.
I put up a faux tin backsplash behind the sink as it was necessary. You can get faux tin at Home Depot but I had a piece that I thrifted and one that was left over from my mother in law's kitchen. I white washed it for this kitchen.
I looked at images of kitchens with stained cabinets.
I loved what I saw on Pinterest but our cabinets were not of that caliber.
Bill liked them. I thought I could live with them but the kitchen just wasn't me. It was dark.
I didn't want to paint them because I was sick of painting but I knew it was what needed to be done. I started painting them a few days after Christmas. I was out at the house alone waiting for our bed. It was the perfect time.
I worked for 12 hours on Monday. I touched up and did the toe kicks the next day.
Once the painting was done, the cabinets looked better but they looked unfinished.
They needed pulls and knobs.
Collecting these was a challenge. Our covid numbers in Texas are very high so I don't feel comfortable getting out and about but I made a quick trip to Lowes and Home Depot. I didn't stay long enough at either to pick out exactly what I wanted. What I purchased ended up in Bill's bathroom. I need time to stand, look and mull things over but that's not possible right now.
Hobby Lobby had the cutest vintage inspired knobs but they didn't have enough. They didn't have them on the website either. However, I thought they had that 1930 farmhouse looks so I bought what they had, hoping they would get more. They worked for the large pairs of upper doors and I love them. The pantry got coordinating crystal. The small uppers got a small, white and silver distressed knob. All of them came from Hobby Lobby.
Ebay came to the rescue with a style of pull for the lower doors. Done!
Cup pulls that I ordered for the drawers were a fail. They were too chunky but there were 11 pulls in the guest house. We have 10 big drawers so I raided the guest house. They coordinate well with the door pulls.
It's a mystery why the guest house had pulls and the main house did not.
In all, I was able to get pulls and knobs on every door and drawer. The brushed nickel combined with the crystal have a classic and vintage look. I'm okay that it doesn't all match exactly. There is variation and interest. Don't get me wrong, the placement makes sense.
The tiny junk drawers got some library card catalog inspired pulls that I'd had in my stash but they were oil rubbed bronze. Some silver leaf Rub and Buff took care of the finish. I've had these for years hoping for a place for them.
It took three weekends to get the pulls and knobs completed but it is finally done.
As the project was drawing to a close, Hobby Lobby notified me that they got more knobs in stock.
Ei, Yi, Yi.
It was time to put some crown molding on top of the cabinets. Bill made quick work of that one Saturday afternoon. The crown molding made such a difference. They went from basic cabinets to higher end look.
He also cut some cove molding for the floor at the back of the toe kicks.
I thought that the left side needed a shelf to balance the coffee cabinet on the right. We had the wood left over from something we tore out of my bathroom. The brackets came from Hobby Lobby. For several weeks I'd been thinking about the pendant. It was bugging me. I finally broached the subject with Bill. He didn't like it either. Sometimes it looked like a circle, which we liked. From the other angle it looked like an oval. We didn't like the oval. It was only $7.50 at the Restore so we didn't have a problem picking out something new from Home Depot. The circle/oval fixture is now being used as a garden orb.
Something was still off. The black brackets offered too much contrast so I painted them.
White ironstone decorates the shelf.
With some assistance from Bill, I added some beadboard to the side of the coffee cabinet, the peninsula, and the pantry. Bill overruled my desire for shiplap. The beadboard has the classic, cottage look that we both like.
I wanted to be able to hang something on the side of the pantry. A towel bar wasn't what I had in mind so Bill made me a replica of a vintage hymnal holder.
It will be painted or stained this coming weekend. Isn't he amazing?
Except for one piece of cove molding that got overlooked somehow, we are finished with the kitchen for the time being. Counter tops, a sink and a faucet will be coming at some point. I can't wait. I knew that white cabinets would not coordinate well with the counters but we can live with it until we can get new ones. We'll also be getting a new electric stove so that we can get the propane tank removed.
That is about it for now.
This kitchen has a great layout. It's easy to use and keep clean. We love having the peninsula.
The white paint has really brightened up the space and offered a look that I love.
Bill likes it too. The kitchen looks bigger.
I'll be working on some brighter photos soon once the sun is out.
Thanks so much for stopping by.
Katie
#BuilderBasicKitchen #PaintedCabinets #CountryHouse
