In Focus

If you recall, a few weeks ago I was trying to seal my windows in the kitchen, and that started a domino effect...

Well, I was trying to keep quiet about what I was doing because I wanted to surprise my mom who was out of town. What began as a simple project of scraping the chipping paint so the silicone would stick turned into a complete kitchen makeover.

The lower half of my kitchen walls are a tile board that apparently have been painted over several times, including once myself shortly after moving in. I ended up scraping the majority of the paint off the main wall. That made it look terrible. I attempted to tighten up the frame for the doggy door and ended up breaking one of the tiles. Yep, I just made things worse.

Then I remembered Mom bought some tile for the backsplash. This was a great solution to the problem. The tile was plastic, and the stick-on sheet only attached at the edges and the tile sagged. So I ripped off the sheet and glued the tiles to the wall. I did the entire wall and backsplash. I also ordered some stick-on silver trim, to match the silver tiles.

I also disliked our pantries. Most everything was exposed, and one had water damage. I was looking for some affordable solutions. I ended up buying new ones—a new pantry and a new, larger microwave cart. I gained a lot of storage.

While I was at it, I decided to paint the kitchen counter. Not actually paint...it’s called epoxy. There are epoxy kits out there that can make your old countertop look like anything from granite to marble. The only drawback was the drying time. It is much cheaper than replacing the countertop.

So I purchased a white granite kit with a glitter top coat. It took eight hours for the primer to dry. Then I spent hours sponge painting the texture, had to wait at least four hours after that to put on the first layer of top coat, and another four hours before I could give it a second coat. My kit turned out to be a roll-on acrylic versus pouring the epoxy. It worked well for me. I could use the counter after three days, but to fully cure and become inert, I couldn’t put anything heavy on it for two weeks. But I love how it turned out and it was worth all the work.

But I didn’t stop there. With all the new changes, I just had to paint the walls. I touched up the white trim and the ceiling. The pantries are white, the countertop is white, the cabinets are red and the tile is silver. The only great option to make everything pop was to paint the walls black. So I did. I have a black kitchen and I love it.

And, of course, I had to add a few new accessories such as fatigue mats, curtains, garbage can, and a few miscellaneous items. The kitchen is finally done! It took me about two weeks but was entirely worth it!

I also painted the hallway, cleaned the basement, and organized closets. I guess I had the urge to spring clean.

Mom returned home, walked into the kitchen and said “Oh, new garbage can, cool!” Then she realized it had all changed. I’m glad she liked it...I’m not redoing it anytime soon.