Grandma's Kitchen

Before he passed away, my grandfather asked if I would paint his kitchen. (He also asked about his porch but I was REAL busy this summer. We'll do that in the spring.) And he asked awhile before he passed away. A remodeled kitchen wasn't his dying wish.

I took a day off work and hoped to have it done. But it turned into a bigger project than I expected.

So anyways here's some before shots:

It was painted this drab blue. Actually I'm sure at one time it wasn't drab but it faded into a drab blue. Grandma also had this ugly wallpaper that looked like fake white bricks to cover the sizable cracks in her wall. She also had this paneling that looked like blue tiles behind her counter that began to wear from years of washing.

This is an in-between shot. You can see the new paneling behind the counter and the damage left from ripping off the old. (That's my favorite tool the Stanley FuBar lying on the counter. If you're tearing stuff up you need one.)

Here you can see the new paint and section I later covered with paneling. BTW the cupboards are nowhere close to being straight or level so cutting pieces around it was quite a bear. You can also see Grandma's newly white ceiling. She didn't want me to paint it white, because it would take too long. I'm glad I did because it really brightens it up. She was nervous because I told her I was painting it pink. Glidden makes a paint that goes on pink and dries white. Although I was also using a spackling that goes on pink and dries white and when you paint over that with the pink/white paint, it gets REAL pink. So I was nervous. I would've never heard the end of it if there was a pink spot on Grandma's ceiling. But it dried nicely.

Here's the finished product. We even found a place for a lot of Grandma's blue collectibles.

This wall was covered in the white brick wallpaper and has a huge crack in the corner that's covered by the new paneling. The wall with the bulletin board also had a huge crack that I was able to patch pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Here's Grandma's brand new doorbell. I also replaced the outlet over the sink with a GFCI so it'll trip there in case something happens. Oh, and we replaced the switches on the wall with new ones that LIGHT UP, so she can find them in the dark. Going to Lowe's and Home Depot with Grandma is pretty funny. I put a new lock on her side door and she wouldn't let me get the one with the gold finish b/c she thought someone would steal it or think she had lots of money.

It was a pretty big project but I had help from Mom, Mary, Mariella, Kristen and Grandma picked up a brush a couple of times - so it wasn't TOO bad.