Kitchen Remodel Part 1

We have lived in our house since my son was about 4 months old. He turned 9 this year. With our family growing from 4 to now 6, it has become a bit cramped. Trying to be frugal, we have chosen to stay in our lovely smallish house. Part of the sacrifices of being a stay-at-home- mommy I guess. We painted our living room and kitchen right when we moved in. The kitchen was a nice sunny yellow and the living room and beachy blue. But I have become bored of my kitchen. I spend the majority of my time in my kitchen and I wanted something that made me smile, something brighter and more fun. So with the help from good ol' Pinterest, I got some lovely ideas in my head and put them to the test.

Here is the kitchen before:

Here is what it looked like before. Excuse the cluttered and half-naked kids, just  keeping it real for ya! The walls were a pale yellow and in need of at least a touch up. We had been given the hutch from my mother. I really don't prefer dark wood, but free furniture is free furniture, right? I had a bunch of pieces of white dishes but the were not showcased right there. It also became my drop spot for anything and everything. Since we had the hutch in the corner we didn't have any room for table so it was out in the open. Behind the table you can get a glimpse of the white table from Target that we had the printer on, that will show up in the re-do. The curtains were faded and the brackets were coming off the walls from where the kids twist up in the curtains. I loved my clipboards one for each kids ( I made them before I had 4 kids) and one for chores and school. But they made that wall cluttered. I had hooks below where the kids hung there school bags and lunch boxes, and sweatshirts and coats sometimes. That was just cluttering up my kitchen too much though.

 Another angle (from the doorway you see int he last picture)

Pretty much the standard grade cabinets, nothing fancy.  I have very limiteed counter space and that big microwave takes a good portion of that (still no remedy to that). For the size kitchen we have, there are actually very few cabinets. We put a cheapo cabinet in there and kept cereal and such in it. I had kids artwork on it at one point and you can see where the tape pulled the finish off.

I really didn't get a good shot of this wall. And yes, keeping it real for you for my before shot. That mess is what that poor piece of furniture had to live with. Awhile back we had a chest freexer there, but i didn't use it much because it always got piled with stuff and I couldn't ever open it to get into it. I hated the weird waste of space below the cabinet, it never made sense to me. The fridge is to the right and after that more wasted wall space where we had the "pantry"

Here is some shots of that wall and the pantry. I made a  chalkboard for each of the kids which was fun and cute, but you can see one fell down and is missing from this shot.

Here is a close up of my cabinets. Yes they are dirty and the one above is broken. The one below shows the lovely floral knobs, which were in a weird spot on the door, especially for a short gal :)

And below is a close up of my fuse box, huge and in your face. We painted it like to wall to help it blend in.

So there you have it my very real, lived in, cluttered kitchen. Stay tuned for the afters!!