The Kitchen Sneak Peek!

When we moved into the house, the movers came and I was left with boxes upon boxes.

Upon boxes.

I don't know how many of you have had someone move you before or how many have moved from overseas. The movers do what they can to consolidate everything into one small shipment.

They packed my entire house into 6 crates.

For perspective, when Mat and I moved to Germany 3 years ago, it was just two of us and we had 6 crates. We since had 2 kids and our weight nearly doubled and they still got it all packed into two crates.

This consolidating meant that stuff was just packed where it fit. A good example is in one box, it was labeled kitchen & toys. When I opened the box, out fell two kitchen chairs and toys from the playroom.

I was up until almost 1am just trying to find my bedding.

The labeling was nightmare.

I quickly lost my motivation to get anything done. I sat in the house for a week with just furniture arranged and boxes still piled up. (Mat was still in Germany, it was just me and the twins!)

My motivation to unpack our stuff and put it where it goes was lacking and my motivation to cook in my kitchen was lacking even worse.

Part of our final offer was that the seller had to have someone come in and do a move-out clean because this house was seriously nasty. There was food splattered on the wall, the appliances were gross, the cabinets were nasty on the inside.

It was bad.

By closing, it hadn't been done but I was assured it would be done before I actually moved in a week later.

Fast forward to a week later and I walk in and hardly anything had been done. They swept, mopped, vacuumed, cleaned the appliances and the bathrooms.

It was NOT a moveout clean.

I did eventually get the kitchen unpacked. The one room in the house that Mat gave me strict instructions as where all of his requirements were to be met was the kitchen so I wanted him to see it.

This is the first photo I sent him! (And it's also your before picture!)

He approved!

I went to Home Depot (thanks Grandma for the gift card!) and picked out the color I wanted for the kitchen and bought the paint and supplies,but something still kept me from actually painting it. I just couldn't bring myself to find the motivation to get it done. I was just depressed with the state of the house.

So one day, I decided to fill the holes in the kitchen and go from there. I made a goal that I would fill the holes and see about painting a wall and just see what that did.

So I started!


Look at all of the holes that were in just one wall!

(And please pardon the crappy cell phone pictures. It took me almost a month to pull out my camera!)

How is that even possible?

Every thing you see is a hole.

And that's just the top half.

Once I got that done, I decided that I couldn't stand looking at all of the white plaster on the walls so I decided to paint.

I started to color the hideous hunter green color because I wanted to see how well it covered and estimate how many coats it was going to take.. I used Glidden's paint and primer in one with satin finish and it covered that dark color in one coat. I was impressed! (No, Glidden is not paying me, but I'm forever a fan of their paint and primer.)


I was so excited that I decided to knock out the entire kitchen. My friend (and newly minted deployment sistah (and also known as Amanda from Germany!) came over with her kids and dog, we ordered pizza, kicked the kids and dog outside and knocked out the kitchen!

After a very long day, we were finished and I was seriously so happy with the finished look!

Since we felt good about the paint job we had done, we decided to do the cabinets. They had now become an eyesore. I knew I wanted dark, but I wasn't set on painting the cabinets. My kitchen table legs are a dark mahogany and I really liked the way they looked so I decided to try and recreate it!

Yup. No.

It was horrible.

At this point, I had just found out Mat was delayed on his flight home, I hated the color and just let it go. I told Amanda that I would just wait and let Mat look at it and decide what to do.

Mat decided that he really wanted the cabinets to be painted a dark gray and I agreed. This time, we loaded up and went down to WalMart. They had the Glidden paint that I liked for less (this time, I didn't have a gift card) and we picked a dark, smoky gray. If anyone wants to know the paint color, i will be happy to look it up but I can't remember the name of it right now.

We got it home and started putting it on. It wasn't quite as dark as I liked but it was dark enough.

I am incredibly happy with how the kitchen is going. The only thing I really have left is a few nick knacks, changing the lighting over the island, adding the bark in the window opening and adding a light above the bar!

And I love that I have the perfect spot for all of the plates we accumulated during our travels in Europe!