"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.

There is Nothing New under the Sun

One nice day in March, I was headed out on some errands and saw that wonderful sight - Yard Sale! I immediately braked and followed the signs! And here's what I found:

two child-size Pottery Barn chairs - perfect shape - $10.00 each. I happened to have a $20.00 bill in my purse, so I snatched them up and took them home. That is usually more than I spend - even on big people chairs, but I had been looking for sturdy, little wooden chairs for some time and these needed NO WORK!

Immediately my head started seeing a cute little table to go with those chairs - painted white with a chalkboard top. Of course, I'd never seen a chalkboard top and was quite proud of myself for thinking up something "new". So I started the search - and it was not until about 5 weeks later that I found the table. I promptly brought it home (Salvation Army store - $12.50) and set it aside knowing I wouldn't have time to work on it for several weeks.

The little cuties I was making it for were coming to stay for 6 days! This Grandma would get no painting done!

When I was cruising some blogs that evening, what should I see, but Centsational Girl's table and chair set with CHALKBOARD top! Hmmm, I guess I didn't think of something "new".
Anyway, mine is now done and here she is in all her glory!

Of course, I forgot to take before pictures, and during pictures, but it was just a cute little brown table (boys are sitting at it in picture above) and I did the usual sand, prime, paint, add chalkboard paint to top). I even sanded down the legs a bit so they'd show some wear and "match" the Pottery Barn chairs.

Now I can't wait for the little cuties to come back and stay for awhile so they can draw me some pictures!!

I'm linking up to SNS at Donna's And Met Monday at BTNOP

Grandson Weekend

This week must have been "grandson" week. On Friday, I got to have my 22 month old twin grandsons. They helped with this project by posing for "no shoes" pictures (they'd have been very happy to pose for "no clothes" pictures too, but I didn't have a use for those at this point).

Then on Saturday, my 12 year old grandson came over and helped pretty much finished up the project and a couple others. For a great tutorial on the "remove your shoes" project go to How Does She . . Alison does a great job explaining the steps!

We my grandson mod podged on the paper, stuck on the shoe stickers, mod podged over it all and let it dry ( sort of - I'm not one that has much patience for that part of a project). Then came my part - I put the pictures in, drilled the holes and put the string through.

He also mod podged a picture of him, his sister and the twins onto a little canvas that I had.

I had a picture of my mom taken when she was about 16. I do not know why, but it was "torn" out and I've always wanted to do something with it. At the Dollar store the other day, I found a funky shaped plate that said "tractor picture" to me, so he took care of that little project for me too.

Then we moved to the messy stuff. I had purchased these topiaries at an after Christmas sale for 1.00 each.

We protected the bottoms with bags, sprayed them with spray adhesive and stated putting on the moss.

It got very messy

but I think they look good!

All in all, I'd say it was a good day's work! (So we went out to lunch!)

Linking up with: Met Monday

Make it for Monday

And DIY Day

Bathroom Mini Makeover

One day I walked into my guest bathroom and thought "hmmm - BORING! Not really put together". It wasn't horrible, just a little tired and mismatched looking!

So . . . .

Out came the Almond Satin (very close to Heirloom White) and the basket and the magazine rack got a new coat of paint.



I sanded the edges with my CoW (Chunk of Wood) block sander and wiped some gray stain over them.





Added some contact paper left over from another project to the magazine rack -






And made a few little changes . .

And viola - not much of a change, but enough to make it fun to go in there again!

Sorry about the lighting - I live in the Northwest - we don't have very long days!

Linking up to Between Naps on the Porch Metamorphosis Monday and Cottage Instinct and A Soft Place to Land.

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