Iron Chef: Renton

Kitchen remodels are expensive. REALLY expensive. So, we won't be doing that for at least a couple years. However, that doesn't mean we can't give the kitchen a makeover!

After starting on the front yard a couple weeks ago, "winter" finally hit us and it's been raining buckets for about two weeks now. Since working in the yard in the wind and rain is pretty miserable, I decided to turn my attention to the kitchen for a couple weekends. If you recall, our kitchen was pretty darn ugly. Usable and in good condition, but outdated and ugly nonetheless. At least the dishwasher, refigerator, oven/stove and microwave are new though, so we didn't have to worry about those.

Here we have the kitchen in its "before" glory:
To get the party started, I removed all the doors and drawers from the cabinets and cleaned everything really well with Simple Green cleaner. I then gave them a light sanding and re-cleaned them with the Simple Green. Once they were dried out I gave everything a coat of primer.

Looking better already:

Once the primer was cured it was time to add some color. We decided on a color called "Vessel Gray" which is steel gray color. It's a nice neutral color that adds a bit of modern look to the kitchen.

Finding a place to lay out all the doors and drawers to dry was a bit of challenge.
Once I was done with the cabinets, I turned my attention to the counter top. It's just a plain-jane laminate counter top, but it had yellowed/discolored a bit over the years and had a lame pattern printed on it. It was in good condition otherwise, though. I found a new paint made by Rustoleum that is designed specifically for painting old laminate counter tops. It's a Xylene-based paint and is supposed to cure to an epoxy-like finish and also wear as well as a regular laminate counter top. With that said, I was pretty excited to try it out.

For anyone reading who has seen this stuff and has been wanting to try this with their old counter tops: DON'T. This stuff sucks. First of all, the stuff smells REALLY bad. The whole house smelled like a chemical plant for three days after I applied it. Just being in the house for more than 10 minutes gave me a headache. Also, the stuff is really difficult to work with. It dried quick and gets tacky really fast and it drips easily too when you're painting verticle parts of the counter. It's supposed to "self-level" to even out any imperfections in the paint... it doesn't. Once cured it's supposed to resist staining and chipping... it doesn't. Hell, even putting something heavy on the counter for an hour or so results in a divot forming in it.

Long story short, the counter looks better than it did before, but I'm far from impressed with the stuff. It looks good from afar, but far from good I guess you could say. Sarah says she likes it though, so maybe I'm just being too much of a perfectionist.

Me high as a kite from the Xylene fumes while painting this crap on.
Once the counter top fiasco was completed, I finished off the kitchen by putting all the cabinet doors back on with new hardware, adding a new sink and a new faucet. I also ran a water line to the refrigerator so the ice machine works and I also added a garbage disposal while I was installing the new sink.

Before I show the "after" pictures, one last look at the "before":
And now the moment we've all been waiting for...


The "after":Looks like a whole new kitchen, huh? Once I can tear out the ugly linoleum that's in there now and install the new hardwood floors (hopefully next month), it will really bring it all together.

Oh yeah, I also added some under-cabinet lighting to brighten things up a bit and give a nice ambiance to the kitchen when it's not in use.
Not bad for $400, huh?

Overall, I'm really happy with the transformation. It will definitely do for the next year or two until we can do a proper remodel on it.