"New" Kitchen Cabinets at Knottliten Cottage

KNOTTLITEN COTTAGE ~

The kitchen in our 1925 cottage was remodeled in the 80's and it looked like it. Within the first two months we lived here, we added a dishwasher, bought new white appliances, installed white tile floors and counter tops, painted the walls white, changed the light fixtures, and added a large white farmhouse sink with a new silver faucet. We didn't, however, do anything to the 1980's cabinets except clean them profusely with expensive anti-smoke cleaner (the previous inhabitants were heavy smokers) and add cute silver pulls. When we priced cabinets, it would have been more expensive for new (old-fashioned looking) cabinets than the entire rest of the kitchen remodel. We just couldn't afford new cabinets and were resigned to living with the completely out-of-place, 1980's ones.

Three years later, I was reading The Lettered Cottage blog and fell in love with their black cabinets. I asked my husband about painting our cabinets black, but he wasn't sure it would look good. Then we found a picture on the Lettered Cottage of their original cabinets before painting. They were the EXACT same cabinets we had! My husband was totally on board with the painting after that. We had to finish our basement remodel, build a fence and landscape our yard first. But a year after finding the Lettered Cottage cabinets, we finally had time to do our own this past weekend. My folks babysat the twins and it took us two full days and $100 to turn our cabinets from this -

To this ~

We basically added beadboard to the sides, sanded the doors and cabinets, primed them, then painted four coats of glossy black paint with brush rollers. We absolutely love them!

~Janna

PS Linking up to Between Naps on the Porch Metamorphosis Monday and the House in the Roses Show Off Your Cottage and Cottage Instincts Make it for Monday.

Pantry Door

I have had an open space with shelves that I call my pantry since we moved into this house. It always looked messy and I tried to hide it with curtains, etc. One day when my husband and I were in Lowe's looking for something else, we came across the bi-fold doors and I asked him if one of those would fit on our pantry. (A regular door would be too wide to be able to be opened.)He thought it would, we bought it and headed home to cover up this mess!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had installed the door the very next day while I was at work!

Now for some charm and cuteness! I've always wanted a pantry door that said "Pantry", so I printed some large letters with Word, scribbled across the back of them, taped them on the door and traced them onto the wood.

Next, I used my trusty black paint pen to outline the letters and then filled in with craft paint.

But I wanted more - I wanted something down the panels. I didn't know what I wanted, so I started looking in books, on line, etc. and finally found what struck my fancy in my old Betty Crocker Cooky Book.

I loved the little drawings at the top of each page!

Now, here's where the choices come in. You could take these to a copy store and have them enlarged and trace them on (similar to my letters), find some wall paper or decals that you loved and paste them on, decoupage something on, etc. I am fortunate to have a wonderful sister-in-law who is very artistic and she agreed to just draw them on for me freehand!! What a time saver!

Then I helped with the trusty black paint pen - she did some shading and viola!! it transformed those plain white doors. I love going to my pantry (and now I think I'm inspired to clean up the mess inside and make it cute too!! Check back in a couple weeks to see that!)

For more do-it-yourself projects visit A Soft Place to Land

Weekend Project

I decided this weekend that my cupboard handles needed sprucing up. Two years ago when we salvaged these cabinets, they were shiny brass and I painted them platinum. They've held up well, but were starting to show some wear. And I really wanted black now. So out came the screw gun and all 27 handles (2 screws each) came off and were lined up for painting.

Ready - set - paint!

A shiny coat of black spray paint - tops, then turn so one side gets it, then turn again for the other side.

And then getting them all screwed back on!






Finished - for now. Still don't know what to
do with the floor - any ideas? I've thought about painting it - it's linoleum. That way I could "try out" some different looks before we spend the big bucks! I'm flipping between a slate look, wood floors, tile, etc.

For more Do-it-Yourself projects, go to "A Soft Place to Land" by clicking here!

The Kitchen

When we moved into the Enchanted Bungalow six years ago, the kitchen was, ummm "charming", but not really useable. I do not have pictures of what it looked like then, but here it is after I added some color to the cabinets. You will notice the drawers are stuck out - they really didn't work and we could never get them totally shut. After a bit, I added the painted blue and yellow checkered backsplash. We used it that way for four years and then our friends told us their neighbors were going to remodel their kitchen and planned on taking a sledge hammer to their cabinets. EEEEKKK! Those were solid wood - sure the finish was worn and they had a definite 70s feel, but the shelves pulled out and they were solid!! We could have them for FREE if we could get them out of there within two weeks. We gathered our work force (friends are what makes the world go round!) and took them out and to our house in one day. It took us one whole month to dismantle our kitchen and put it back together.

It was amazing how the "new" cabinets fit into our floor plan and how good they looked with a coat (okay - three coats) of white paint on them. Our plan was to get new cabinet doors for them so they would go with our house, but it's been two years and that hasn't happened yet.

We kept the faux brick because we liked it and we kept the upper cabinets. When we moved in there were open shelves on one wall which I liked. However, we found the doors in our basement and I had my clever mister cut out the center panels and we replaced them with glass so that I wouldn't have to dust so much! (I'm a tiny bit lazy when it comes to dusting). The tiles for the backsplash are left overs from a project my husband did for some friends.

Ahhhh - a dishwasher!!

Yes, that is a kitty door you see on the right hand side of the picture. Before we remodeled, that was a big door that opened to a hole so you could throw your tea towels down to the laundry in the basement. I told my husband I would miss that part when we took out the door and drywalled it in. So he, being the clever man that he is, put in this kitty door so I could still throw my towels down to the laundry! So convenient!

Oops - you can see my peach cobbler cooling on the red cart - mmmmm it was delicious!



We are not totally done - we're still trying to decide what to do with the floor and I am constantly changing the counter "decor", but I love it every morning when I go in there!