Customizing a track home...part 1 { Kitchen & Laundry}

I realized last week that I never posted the makeover we did on our last house. I didn't start blogging for a year and a half later...guess that's why. Still though, it's quite the transformation and something you may enjoy seeing and hopefully get some ideas and tips from.

We'll start with the kitchen today...

The only bummer is that I didn't do before photo's...again, with the "not a blogger mindset back then", so you'll just have to imagine white walls, your very basic lenolium flooring and builder basic oak cabinets and lighting.

Because our builder didn't offer any custom work, we decided to pick the cheapest flooring, etc. and then put in higher grade products on our own. As for the kitchen cabinets, they didn't offer white or off white so I chose the cheapest basic cabinets and then changed them up...

This was a big kitchen with a lot of cabinets so I hired it out.

Here's how they did it....

#1 Took off doors
#2 Applied a really good primer
#3 Painted on two coats of off white paint
#4 Used a brown glaze, applying about 8" at a time then wiping off with a rag

It really would have been simple to do myself, but there was a lot of cabinets!! Including the laundry and downstairs bath.

Actually the VERY first step was to add a chunky moulding to the top of cabinets...then the painting began.
It really added a nicer look.

After the paint/glaze, I ordered some bronze knobs Online. They were a great addition and seriously a must with white cabinets!!

We also added 5 or 6" baseboards.

For the first year or so, I went without anything on my back windows (after spending loads of money on plantation shutters for the front), but my dad came into town and took me to Home Depot. I had no idea they'd custom cut wood blinds right there for you. How awesome...plus paid for them & hung them all for me! :) Such a great dad...oh and the baseboards? He painted them when I was out of town. So great!

The valance was from Linens n' Things...obviously before I discovered the Nester and her "mistreatments".

To add a little something to the cabinets, I ordered two glass display doors from Lowe's and had the painter include them when painting.

We ripped up the linoleum flooring and installed hand scraped maple wood. They were gorgeous but dark floors show everything! It only took about an hour before I regretted them. I got tons of compliments on them but I'm not gonna lie...they were a pain in the tush!

Dear Kimball switched out all the lighting (in the entire house)! I didn't go w/ any super expensive lights but we got the look we wanted without spending a fortune by upgrading through the builder.

Of course the walls were originally white, so we had them painted and went with a two toned...darker color on the walls (a dark tan, almost looked kahki at times) Benjamin Moore Paints, but I don't remember the color. We had the ceilings a lighter color "Garden Herb" by Benjamin Moore.

We added this beautiful chiseled edge French country tile. I LOVED it.

That's it for this post! Hopefully you got some ideas for ways to spruce up your place. The great thing about it is you can do baby steps...no need to do it all at once and all of this can be done without hiring help. If I'd have it to do all over again, we would have done more of the work ourselves. Even though we saved a lot by contracting it out (rather than pay our home builder), we could have saved even more by going slow and practicing patience.

Here's a recap of the master bathroom makeover.

Have a fabulous week!!