Well, before Anya’s birthday party we finally got it all cleaned up so I could take some pictures. 

Let’s start out by seeing the before shot, shall we?  Lovely well-used oak cabinets, a dingy creamish wallpaper on the wall, cream highly-stainable laminate countertops, a cast iron sink with a scratched cream finish and the beautiful faucet with lime deposits.  Hard to believe we wanted a change, eh?

Now here is the after:

• Walls were painted using Valspar’s Tuscan Finish.  It was pretty easy to do, just took a little time with a basecoat and then a topcoat.  I have a lot left, so I may use it in another room.  On top of each door coming into the room we placed wood reliefs.  They are from Home Depot and were unfinished.  I painted them the brick red color with a gold accent. 
•  The moulding on the soffit was added, which was painted the red color.  The moulding piece on the actual cabinet was there previously.  It just blended in, so I defined it by painting it red.
•  The new quartz counterop, new stainless steel sink (it’s huge!) and new faucet.  We bought countertop height chairs that have a brown vinyl cushioned seat on them.  They are pretty comfortable and very cleanable!  We knew we needed sturdy heavy chairs so the kids could safely climb on them and these fit the bill pretty well.
•  The top cabinets were painted cream, with a red accent.  The bottom cabinet facings were painted blue (5 coats!), with the doors and drawers painted cream with a blue accent.  Painting the accent was not fun.  I taped it off on the doors and then painted in the accent paint.  It feathered out under the tape for all of them.  Then I had to go back over in cream and then in the accent color.  Not fun, but the final result looks nice. 
• There was really no area to paint with the accent color on the drawers, so instead I made a stencil of some of my artwork and put it in the middle.  The just looked far too plain as they were.  I only did it on a few drawers since I didn’t want it to look over the top and comical.  In addition, I knew it would be hard to match them all up so they were exactly in the same spot and level.  The edges were pretty rough from my DIY stencil, so I edged them in a gold paint.  It added a bit of bling and covered up the roughness.
•  The drawers have cup pulls on them and the doors have a regular pull.  I wanted them to be different for each one.  They are in a distressed bronze.  The cup pulls had some issues, so I guess buying the really cheap ones has it’s downfall’s, huh?? 😉
•  The backsplash is made up of tiles I designed and 1×1 tiles of slate.  It was spendier to do it that way, but we now have very original tiles.
•  Our greenhouse windowsill has a different design than the wall tiles.  I love the look of designs that go across different tiles, so we put this one in this spot.  You should have seen it before…they actually wallpapered the windowsill!  Imagine 20+ years of grime and water spots from the sink.  It wasn’t pretty, and it really wasn’t pretty underneath that wallpaper.  Now it is!
•  This artwork was again designed by me.  I got unpainted frames and painted them the cream cabinet color.  They are 12×12’s.

What do you think?  We love how it turned out!  It was quite a bit of painting and a little blood, sweat and swear words, but it is now a beautiful and unique kitchen!  My favorite parts is that I was able to incorporate artwork that I drew into the design.  Brian did a great job in putting up the moulding, doing the plumbing and tile work.  It was a group effort, most definitely.  Now we can enjoy it’s beauty and we have a few dinners planned with friends to show it off. 🙂