Kitchen Progress

Hello, friends! Whew! What a couple of months it has been. 

"Full steam ahead" has been our MO - and thankfully, that steam is finally starting to slow down, and we are able to breathe at a normal pace, and enjoy everyday living again! Still a TON to do here at Ingleside, but all of the big projects and must-dos are checked off our list. And the rest can now wait until we're good and ready... 

Thought I'd kick this return to blogging off with a few "before" and "progress" pictures of our kitchen. I don't want this to turn into a home improvement blog, nor do I enjoy posts with 300 pictures of nearly the same thing. So hopefully we'll keep things tame-yet-informative around here as I begin the process of sharing what we've been up to the past few months.

Firstly, the kitchen was not in bad shape. It had been remodeled about 13 years ago, and things were still holding up ok.- The walls were a sage green, and really, were what was dating the space the most. A quick coat of paint solved that problem! In the first picture you can see the beginnings of the cut-in of the new color...sort of a soft mushroom/bisque color to go with the old world pitted floor tile.

 And here is the "after" once the full coat of paint was complete. Already, much better! This picture also highlights the bottom cabinets which were in rough shape. The top were passable (though a cherry finish is not my favorite) so we decided to leave them and focus on the lowers: lightly sanding and using a de-glosser before giving it a few coats of paint.

 Also note in these pre-lower-cabinet-paint frames, the color of the granite. Though unique, I was not a fan.

Ok, I confess, I actually HATED it. It looked like good old Virginia clay had been smeared all over the counters...just so. much. terracotta. ICK. So when we were considering what color to paint the cabinets, I suggested we find a color in the granite we actually liked (a light grayish-quartz) and try to match the cabinets to that to down play the orange-y red (which the cherry cabinets highlighted) and highlight the gray veins of the stone instead.

 And you know what?!! It actually worked!!! *praise hands* While I would still never choose this granite, I don't mind it at all anymore. The lighter neutral color really toned down the original mud-look, and you (well, I) barely notice how very "dirt-y" it is. WIN!

So, quandary: I can't decide whether to paint the toe-kick. At our last home, we painted it a matte black, and added legs/braces to make the cabinets look more like furniture, which I loved. BUT, I feel like these simple shaker design fronts wouldn't really lend themselves to that... So, what would you do? Paint it to match the cabinet fronts? Leave it? Paint it black?