Kitchen Counters

I've had quite a few different ideas of what I wanted to do to fix our counters. I sort of love butcher block and wanted to go that route for a long time. Ikea has a pretty great price for butcher block, but our counter has a weird section that made it so their's wouldn't be wide enough in just one spot. Plus, I was hoping for a little bit cheaper...

Then I came across this post about Ardex concrete. And I was super excited about it! I thought concrete would look great and this seemed cheap as well. As I started looking into it, there was only one store that sells this and its about half an hour away from me and is open only a few days a week and at odd times...hmmm, okay I still think I can make it work...right?

Then I researched it some more and saw more reviews on it and while I still think it could be great, it seemed to be a LOT of work, and a LOT of mess and maybe not as cheap as I was thinking.

SOOOOoooooooo, then I saw this post about spray painting your counters. And I decided this was the way to go.

Overall, this cost me maybe $50 for entirely "new" countertops. Do they look like concrete? Maybe in pictures but in real life it looks like we just got new formica or laminate tops. Which I'm okay with. :)

Also, because I had control over this, I did one side of our kitchen at a time. That meant that my entire kitchen didn't have to be a complete disaster zone and out of commission. Which was good because my family likes to eat ya know??

Anyway, on to the pictures! This is what it started out like:

                                               crappy yellow-y tan counters from the 80's...

                      ...and it was NOT me. It was the old owners, I feel bad things towards them.

                                                                    also NOT from me.

Here's the materials I used- only the one can of primer, and I ended up using about four cans of the stone texture spray paint:

I sanded it down really quickly (I wasn't too worried about it since it was old and a lot of the shine had worn off already) and then taped everything off.

Here's what it looked like before I started spraying, I wanted to be sure the overspray from the spray paint wouldn't get everywhere.

This is after the primer went on, its still wet here. I only did one coat and wasn't worried about it being even or consistent.

This is after one coat of the textured spray paint:

After I got it all spray painted and evenly coated, I started on with the polyurethane. I read to use a water based one, because it won't yellow over time. I did like eight coats of this, you have to wait two hours between coats, so it took me about two days to do this. Nice thin even coats, not too hard just have to wait in between. I made everyone stay away from it and not use it hardly at all for about a week. My husband was not happy about this...he kept saying "WHATS THE POINT OF HAVING COUNTERS IF WE CAN'T USE THEM??" He's a little dramatic.

Here's the other side all finished:

I love the texture that the stone spray paint brings, and the poly really makes it look like nicer laminate.
hint: Do you see my new SINK?!? Its MINT!! I will do a post on that next! Yay!

Linking up at Tatertots and Jello

So I just wanted to give a little update/tip things: I had a friend who wanted to do this and we ran into a few snags. She was trying to get it done really quickly before she left on a trip (so then they would be off the counters the time they were gone), so we were rushing a bit. When we went to put our first coat of poly on it started streaking in spots because the stone spray paint wasn't completely dry. So PLEASE make sure its dried all the way. Also, if you don't have time and need to rush--don't do this project. :) So, I guess the only other tip I have is that you need to be a careful painter. If you have no experience with spray paint, practice on something else. You have to know how to evenly spray and not get drips and too heavy in spots. If you don't feel confident in your spray painting skills--ask someone else to spray for you okay? And just make sure you really make the poly coats thin and even. Hope that covers it, if you have any questions please ask in the comments! I'm happy to answer anything you might think of. :)

Lumberjack Glam!

For my birthday this year I really wanted to throw a fun dress up party! I LOOOVE themed parties, last year for my 30th birthday we did a Great Gatsby theme--so much fun!

My sister and I ;)

                            My sweet friend who looked so dang cute!

I had a tutorial going to teach us the Charleston

So this year, after seeing the awesome pictures from the Glam Lumberjack Jam in Utah I decided I HAD to do it too! Just too much fun!

We had themed food to go along with it, things like sausage and flap jacks and bacon maple cupcakes--and of course lots and lots of treats!

We played games like this one--you have to pick the box up with your mouth without touching the ground with her hands or anything else, the box gets progressively shorter--very funny!

 We also had a campfire outside to roast marshmallows, I love fun parties!!

What about you? Are you a dress up kind of gal or do you hate it?! :)

Little Details

I think the little details are what make decorating special and all yours. I love collections and just happen to have a few kitchen related collections! For about five years now I've collected antique rolling pins, I LOVE them! I finally decided on how to display them and looked high and low for a wine rack that would work. I could not find ANYTHING! So I finally ended up ordering a towel rack off of Amazon for around $35. More than I wanted to pay but it was exactly what I wanted.

The only two pins that aren't antiques are the top two little ones, they're just children's pins and I got them especially to fit on the rack. :)

I also was given by my grandma her spoon collection. I have such great memories of playing with these spoons and admiring them when I was young, and now my kids do the same! Its too fun! I decided to keep the original wood on the display rack as opposed to painting it because there is so little wood left around my house, most things get painted! So I wanted to keep some wood tones around.

I also love to collect cake plates, pitchers and candy dishes--my mom gave me a cute curio cabinet to store them in:

These things make my home personal to me and so much more special, I can't tell you how often I stand by those spoons looking at them and re-arranging them and admiring them! haha (My husband thinks I'm weird...)

Whats personal in your home? Do you collect anything?

Glazing Kitchen Cabinets

Glazing the cabinets wasn't hard, just time consuming. VERY time consuming. The glaze I used was given to me, but its Valspar antiquing glaze in 'Asphaltum.' It was a little dark for me so I just added some brown acrylic paint until I got the color I wanted. To do ALL of the cabinets took very little glaze. I put it in a little styrofoam cup and it was maybe halfway full, thats it.

I do have to say that I'm pretty sure you could do the same thing with just acrylic craft paint watered down a bit.

I ended up painting it on the spots I wanted, and going over it with a damp rag, I had two rags that I switched back and forth with so I didn't have to rinse out a rag as often.

This is what it looked like when I was painting the glaze on:

I just used a small craft paint brush. By the time I got done adding the glaze it was dry enough to wipe off. If I didn't let it dry for a minute or so, it would just wipe completely off. Which was frustrating.

Here's a comparison of glazed vs. unglazed:

After I went over all of them and added to or messed with it until it was where I wanted it, I did go back over some of the cabinet with the original white, just to tone it down or to make some of it look smoother.

I also very lightly did some glazing to the red, it doesn't show up as well, but it does make a difference in person.

In the pictures it looks a lot more... dirty? than it does in person. It also picks up the colors weirdly in pictures, it almost looks like the top cabinets are kind of pinkish, which they're obviously not. But I actually really like the glaze and how much depth it adds to the cabinets and the bead board.

So what do you think? Have you used glaze before? Would you paint your cabinets?

Painting Kitchen Cabinets

I decided awhile ago that I was going to paint my cabinets. After searching and researching and finally settling, I decided to go for a two toned cabinet. Our local Sherwin Williams store was having a sale and so I went in and told the guy what I wanted to do, and he suggested a semi-gloss interior/exterior acrylic paint. I got it in Stolen Kiss (7586), and the upper cabinets I used the same as my wall color which is Olympic satin Love Bird (c30-3)--it kind of tickles me that both colors are all cutesy lovey, makes me happy!

Before I painted the cabinets I decided I wanted to put some bead board wallpaper inside the inserts. I really could have been more precise with cutting the squares but its a messy process and I was just wanting to get it done. After I put the paper in and it had dried for 24 hours, I went back in and caulked the edges to fix any edges that weren't even and also to make sure it wasn't going to come up EVER. :)

Then I started with the red paint, it was going on the bottom cabinets and up one side where they weren't separated.

Then I got started with the white up top:

  The range hood looks ridiculous now up against the white--don't worry I'm going to take care of that!

                  A better shot of the bead board:

After I finished painting, I decided I wanted to glaze them and lucky for me my cousin had some leftover glaze she wasn't using. Next update will be that!

linked up at Tatertots & Jello