Kitchen Cabinets BEFORE and AFTER

"The kitchen cabinets' interiors?" Mr. Wonderful had said looking up from his Lucky Luke comic book.

"Yes," I'd said holding a brochure of paint samples.

"Who cares what they look like?" 

"I do."

That's right. I cared then and I still cared now but that's because I did it! Here are some BEFORE and AFTER pictures of sanding and painting the interiors of the kitchen cabinets.

BEFORE: 

The interiors of the kitchen cabinets had been covered in shelf paper, which once removed left a residue of hardened glue on the shelves and showed how ugly the shelves were, thus explaining why the previous owners had used shelf paper in the first place. Shelf paper covers a multitude of cabinet sins.

I also wanted a shelf just for my cutting boards, so during my grueling sanding toil, Mr. Wonderful built a new shelf that hangs down from the upper shelf. This simple concept rivals the Hanging Gardens of Babylon as one of the Seven Wonders of the World! Now it's one of the seven wonders of my kitchen!

DURING: 

I applied three coast of paint to the interior shelves, ceiling and walls. Since the cutting board shelf was virgin wood, I gave it extra coats, like 76.

AFTER: 

Plates, bowls and cutting boards now have a bright place in the cabinet. And they look great! In fact the cabinet interiors look so good I keep opening the cabinet doors just to gaze at the ordered cleanliness. 

Once the paint was dry and I'd put everything back in its place, Mr. Wonderful opened the cabinet doors himself. 

"Not bad," he said with a nod.

"Now do you see why I cared?" He nodded. "You care now, too, right?" He shrugged. I just know deep, deep, deep down he cared about those interiors.

"Hey, I've got another job for you," he said. "It's sanding down--"

"No!" I plugged my ears. "I never want to sand again!" Even with my ear's plugged I could hear him laughing. 

He's so funny. [Said with an ironic tone.] So very funny.

Kitchen BEFORE, AFTER and DURING the Backsplash

BEFORE: Here's a close up view of our Kitchen sink the day we moved in.  The "backsplash" tile is so "1970s bathroom shower stall".  

AFTER: Here's a close up view of our finished Kitchen backsplash.  My husband also deleted the light switch by the sink, which we never used.  

  

DURING: Here's a close up view of the Kitchen backsplash after it had been hung and before it had been grouted.  The tile was affixed to the wall with glue which had squeezed through the tiles so before applying the grout to the backsplash, I had to go over each tile with a toothpick and scrape out the excess glue.  It was like flossing a T. Rex.

In Summary...

BEFORE: Here’s the Kitchen on the day we bought The House, complete with the streaked “Kountry Kitchen” paint job, itty bitty cabinet handles and the lone strip of bathroom (!) tile.

AFTER: Voila!  Here's our Kitchen after we’d painted the cabinets, installed new hardware, bought an oven and oh yeah, hung the porcelain tile backsplash.  Thank you Mr. Wonderful! The kitchen suddenly has a polished, finished, and—to borrow a phrase—a very “now” look to it. I love my Kitchen! I guess this means I have start cooking in it…