Makeover part 2 -The Kitchen!

Here we go! This room I think we are the most proud of. In our eyes it needed a complete overhaul. The only thing we left were the cabinets & floor. Over the last nine months we have replaced all the appliances, lighting, painted plus all the trim & we tiled the entire backsplash including behind the range. That was fun! Seriously it was. It was also easy and quite inexpensive. I will get more into that later but here are the before photos.

First of all let me clear something up. I have great respect for other people and their current style. Even if they lack it. You know some do, admit it. It is your decision to decorate the way that suits your family's lifestyle. I won't judge another's paint color -even if they had a purple kitchen. We live in a free country for the most part and I think it's great that you can decorate any which way you desire. So with that said this kitchen in it's former state probably worked for the previous owner. That is fine with me. But this kitchen belongs to me now & quite simply put it didn't work. We had to change it. I am very proud of it even if you look at it and say "dang they should have left it". Here we go and just like the previous post we had a "bad photographer". lol
"Befores"

Here is the Mason Kitchen:

Here is a close up of the tile behind the range. We opted not to put up another microwave. We wanted more light & more room to flip foods baby. So we went with a nice range hood. Ps. we also tiled under the cabinets on the opposite wall. You can see behind my mixer & Keurig.
"Before"

And how about that classy box of wine huh? Yep you caught us!
"After"

Hey hey Rachel Ray!

Here is the skinny on the tile. Just in case some of you are looking into saving money (a ton of money) doing this project on your own. We had a company come out and do an estimate. Before materials $1500. No, I'm not kidding. We priced out the materials and we were looking at less than $600 before an inexpensive tile saw. We put our plan together by measuring the space & then we went to Home Depot (where else?) and bought bits and pieces of all kinds of tiles & mosaics, bars, etc. We widdled our way down to what you see here. Turns out the hardest part of the job was deciding what to use. They have so much available that it can be overstimulating & you tend to over think it.

What made this job so easy for us was the cut to size peel and stick tile adhesive paper. Yes you heard me right. Or read me right. ha. This product is called SimpleMat. It is amazing! Inexpensive & easy to use! Check it out Here. There is a product demo video as well to show you just how easy it is. And I mean it's easy. We used 1 and a half boxes to do our tile job. Yes, it's very very strong but easy to cut! I can't say anything bad about this product. The entire job took us 3 days. No we didn't work morning to night. We actually did it two nights for a couple hours after dinner then a Saturday. We had to cut tiles of course but it wasn't that hard and the saw only cost $150 & now we have it for future use. Grouting really stinks! But the Mosaic piece was so intricate that it took patience. Did I mention I have none? Right!

So there you have it. The Mason Kitchen. If you are wondering the color we chose is called Magnetitte by none other than Martha Stewart herself. That She Devil has made her way into Home Depot & has her own line of paint & colors. I still used Behr Ultra paint though. Primer & Paint all in one. Two coats baby. Hey Martha get with the program. Put the Primer in your Paint and someone might buy it too!

I would love your feedback. Only if it's good. Ha-Ha. Time to rest. 3 rooms down.
Tracey
Ps. Click on any photo to zoom in big time! If you have any questions even if it's what's on the menu tonight, I would love to answer them!