Fowler Cottage: June 2016

My husband and I kickstarted our crazy busy summer with a kitchen makeover on a very low budget. When we moved in to this house I wanted to renovate everything and we even picked out a brand new kitchen from Lowes, cabinets, countertops, the works! Then life happened. We ended up having to spend the money we set aside for a $10,000 kitchen elsewhere and the project got put on hold for well over a year. I painted the cabinets last summer, a creamy country white that I ended up hating! It was my second time painting cabinets and I definitely learned from my mistakes. We bought a paint sprayer when we painted the dinning room and the most beautiful gray paint I ever laid eyes on. Valspar Signature, Woodlawn Colonial Gray. I am still obsessed with that color, so much so that I decided to use it on our "orangey" oak cabinets I already "primed" with a crappy country white. The color turned out beautiful and I love it even more. With that said, the paint for the cabinets didn't cost a dime because it was left over paint from the dinning room. We then had to decide what to do with the countertops.

In our dinning room we have a fireplace mantel I built in my early 20's that I turned into a chalkboard with salvaged slate. The mantel is painted white and distressed. The gray with the white and "black" chalkboard gave me inspiration for our whole kitchen. I fell in love with soapstone countertops but loathed the price tag. We have a mortgage, four kids, a dog (soon to be two!), two car payments, the list goes on... We definitely didn't want to fork up the money for the real deal but both agreed that black countertops were the way to go but painting them with regular paint seemed like a dumb idea and I really didn't want to try any of those faux granite treatments. So we decided to do something risky, and probably nuts but its another thing I have love for and the root of my inspiration anyways so chalkboard paint it was! And it worked great! The countertops were originally white with 80's pastel specks, just ugly! I covered them with adhesive laminate a year ago which worked great for the year we had it but was not easy getting off. We learned that using a hairdryer to "melt" the glue made the process much easier. Just a tip to throw out there!

While painting the countertops with chalkboard paint, be sure to use a smooth roller, it will make all the difference. More than one coat also does as well. They had to be touched up the next day from the backsplash installation, but they ended up looking great. My husband wants to do a clear coat on top just to lock in the paint, but we haven't had the chance to do it yet. I personally don't think they need it but will do it to ease his mind haha! Speaking of the backsplash, I finally got my white subway tiles!! I also went with a silver grout to go with the cabinet color. I painted the kitchen walls from a buttercream color the "flipper" used to a very faint gray, that sometimes even looks white. I just love those neutrals! I think it turned out great and so did our guests for a graduation party that was being thrown at our house just two days after we started the project! Yep, we are crazy but we got it done and completely by ourselves, just my husband and I. For two people who have never installed backsplash tile or even cut tile with a wet saw before, I think we did a pretty good job! Even though they're not perfect, we have so many new memories and laughter to go with it:) Plus I finally have a kitchen I love! Only thing I need next is a new kitchen floor, I already picked that out but thats a new project for a much later date. Altogether, our kitchen makeover cost us $545.00!! That also includes the wet saw and other tools we had to buy. I'd say thats pretty cheap to completely change the look and feel of a kitchen.

Before...