Kitchen Island Update

Happy Monday everyone!  So I finally finished a project that has been in the works for awhile! 

A few months after we moved into our house, I added a few things to the kitchen.  Since then my mom has wanted the same thing in her kitchen, and I'm happy to report that we finished!

I will start with a quick explanation of what we did to OUR kitchen first:

Ok, I added a bead board backsplash.  

Then I liked it so much I wanted bead board on the island:

For the island I used bead board wallpaper, and painted it blue to give my kitchen a pop of color!

Now, on to my parent's kitchen!  

My dad is very conservative and it took me many weeks to finally convince him to let me do what we did!  He didn't want us using an accent color, and he didn't want us to paint ALL the cabinets...just the island.  So we respected his wishes! 

This is what their island looked like before:

First, we added bead board to the sides and back of the island, along with trim around the bottom (there was nothing before....ugly!)  We used the pre-cut packs of bead board from Home Depot.  To put it up, we used small nails, but also liquid nails for extra reinforcement.

Before we painted, I took the cabinet doors and drawer faces off and sanded them down.  I then applied a primer.  I used a semi gloss white latex paint.

Here's the back:

SO pretty, don't you think?!  It definitely brightened up their kitchen!

 Then we moved on to the backsplash.  We also continued it across the wall, and finished with chair rail trim.  We painted it white to match the island, then painted above it with 

Martha Stewart's Spanish Moss

My mom loves it, and even my dad was pleased.....which makes me happy (considering I was the one that pressured him into it! haha)

Party Links:
Remodelaholic
DIY Showoff: That DIY Party

Thrifty Decor Chick

Laundry Room Fix

When we moved, the laundry room became the dumping ground for leftover decor that I either didn't care for anymore, couldn't find a spot for, or something that came with the hubs that I felt obligated to keep.  

After a while I got over the feelings of obligation, and starting the decorating process for my laundry room.  

This is what it looked like for FAR too long:

 I did manage to paint the walls prior to move-in, but my choice was NOT good!  I thought an accent color might be nice on the plain wall.  I was going for a grayish color, but it turned out more purple than anything!  

FYI when picking paint colors:  ALWAYS choose a paint color from the Neutral categories!  

Here is my NEW Laundry Room:

There are still some things I did not change.  But the biggest thing was the wall on the left.  I HATED it.  So here's what I did:

I repainted.  All one color.  No accent wall like I tried before!  I used Valspar's Jekyl Grand Dining Sea Mist (one of my FAV's)

I went to Lowe's and got a few supplies.  I love the look of bead board, but it is not easy and not cheap.  So I opted for the bead board wallpaper.  I am a big fan!  It is SO easy!  When I finished the wallpaper I added some flat trim above it.  I used liquid nails to glue it down, but I also used actual nails for added support.  Then I painted with a semi-gloss white, and added hooks directly onto the trim.  

Be careful on this part!!!  Drill holes into the trim before you screw the hooks on!  If you don't you will  tear the trim off the wall!! And, yes, I learned this the hard way!

 I wanted to keep it simple, so I made a pallet sign to fit the space above.  I saw this saying on pinterest one day and thought it was hilarious because in our house full of boys....its SO true!

(I will tell you more about my pallet sign in a later post!)

Pantry Door Make-Over

When I saw this blog post found here, I fell in love with the door and knew that I HAD to do that in our house.  So I finally got around to it!

Here is the result (once again, sorry I'm not a photographer!)

This is how I did it:

I didn't have a nice fancy door.  Mine was just a plain 2-panel door.  So the first thing I did was add wallpaper to the panels.  Yep, thats right.....WALLPAPER!!  I took a little trip to Lowes and grabbed some of that bead board wallpaper.  I followed the directions and it took about 20 minutes! I only did the front of the door.

The next day I took some black paint and went over the areas I knew I wanted to distress.  When that was dry, I took vaseline and rubbed it on the black paint.  Then I painted the entire door, front and back.  I waited another day to distress it because I wanted the paint to be good and dry!

  I was extremely careful when I was distressing on the wallpaper because I didn't want to scrape off the wallpaper.  When that was finished I took a brown glaze and rubbed the entire door with it.  I did a little bit at a time and wiped off each area with a wet cloth.

This is a picture from the inside of my pantry and the back side of the door.  Here you can see how it looks without the wallpaper and without the distressing because I did neither on this side.  All I did on this side was paint and glaze.

And here is the front after it was all done!

 My mom then fell in love with MY pantry door, so she asked me to do hers.  But because her and my dad are a little more conservative, they didn't want the wallpaper or heavy distressing.  So I just painted and glazed their door.  It looks amazing too!  And she got an added bonus:  I made her a pretty wreath to hang on it (since she had been wanting one of those too)!