Kitchen Update

So here's a few shots of the kitchen these days. I can't believe how much more we still have to get finished.

But nearly everything is painted.  We went with my favorite paint, Benjamin Moore.  They have a paint that's perfect for cabinets, really durable but soft to the touch.  I scrub at it and it stays strong.
Reasons I painted:
1)They had already been painted.  I didn't dislike the paint color, but I didn't love it either.  I figured that if I was going through all the effort to fix up the kitchen, I'm not going to fix up paint I don't love.
2)It was really tough to get every bit of paint out of the deep wood-grain so I simply could not have stained and varnished them.
3)Don't forget the scrolled-in design that I also didn't love.  I spent HOURS using wood filler to fill in that crazy line.  My high school shop teacher wouldn't be pleased with the 32+oz. of wood filler I used.  Sorry Mr. Barbone. 

Also, the Craig's List microwave is now in place. 

And while my mom was here she created a floor cloth.  From some of the older posts you can see the hole in the vinyl flooring.  I can't seem to decide on which new vinyl flooring, so I happily put this decision off by covering it up!

Here's how she created the floor cloth:

Mom bought a couple of yards of tan denim from the fabric store, washed and dried. 

She primed it with just normal wall paint primer

Hemmed the sides

Painted her design  

The last step is covering the whole thing with some clear polyurethane.   

I have lots of wall paint, primer and poly from other projects and from the former owners.  

Every time I got my camera out, the kiddos jumped in the shot.  Things look better with them anyway. 

Greg and I struggled to get this crazy cupboard up. It's one from the garage (long ago a family that lived in this home moved it out there).  After all the work we did, we realized that it sticks out into the kitchen about 1/4 inch more then the cabinet right next to it.  It had been a pass through cabinet (doors on both sides) and was mounted above the breakfast bar, so it's built a little differently and therefore bigger.  Shesh...

More to come...