The travel clinic: Accommodation edition

Originally posted on On the Luce:
Welcome to the first of a new series on On the Luce – the travel clinic! After years worth of planning trips all around the world I’ve picked up plenty of tricks that I…

a single girl’s kitchen reno

So when I moved into my place about four years ago I LOVED my kitchen… and well as time has gone by, things have changed, as they do, to the point that  – I LOATHED my kitchen! All I could see were the wipe marks and scratches on in the dark wood, along with piles of dents and an abundance of ginger cat hair from Ted’s adventures to the top of by cupboards to keep an eye on everything.. None were desirable or attractive in any way, shape, or form.

The Before

So I decided that I would refinish my cupboards and have a fresh white country kitchen, which would go much better with the whole beachy white style I have in the rest of my place. This didn’t seem like a crazy thing to do… but slowly as I investigated things it became slightly daunting – mostly because when I told people I was going to do it by myself, I would find myself looking at someone who was looking at me as though I was insane! But I trudged on…

One of the other things I hated about my kitchen was the hardware – as you can see in the pictures above it was long and modern – totally not me! I found the most adorable new hardware on Esty – of which I could spend all my time and money on there’s SO much cute stuff!! I messaged the shop – Simple Finds Co – and was easily able to order the 28 knobs I needed from Texas! They came nice and quick and I found myself instantly more excited about the whole project – mostly as the knobs were so stinking adorable!

I then finally decided on the paint I was going to use – Chalk Paint – and tracked down a shop that carried it and I was on my way! The fantastic thing about this paint is that it requires NO – yes I will repeat that NO – prep work! You don’t have to sand off the old finish or make sure that everything is super clean – indeed pretty much the best thing to ever happen to me.

Now, almost immediately I had regrets in beginning this project – has anyone else ever removed a kitchen and two bathrooms worth of cupboards and drawers? Oh hell! What a job! But once I start something I finish it – so I was off and running… and my kitchen looked like this… Next on the list was filling the holes from the old hardware which took a while and then sanding off the excess filler – not too bad of a job.

Once those two nasty jobs were done I had to get down to painting! It took a few coats but I could see the progress being made so it wasn’t so bad, though my back was not a fan of me! I could see things were coming together!

After all the painting and the couple coats of clear, I drilled (well I got my Dad to drill – the only help I had to enlist for this project) the new hardware holes and then hauled my cupboards back home to reassemble my kitchen! I couldn’t wait!

But has anyone put cupboards and drawers back together? NOT FUN! Nothing fits back together the way it should, but between a flurry of curse words and growls I managed to get it all together and honestly I couldn’t be happier – and a wee bit proud of myself for taking on and completing such a big project all my myself! Power to the single girls who make shit happen 🙂

The Final Product!