Kitchen make-over in progress, Heldt-style

I've talked before about how when we moved to Denver, we left our new-construction-when-we-bought-it-in-2003 home for a built-in-1912-and-poorly-added-onto-in-the-1970s brick bungalow. We wanted to live in Denver, in this neighborhood in particular, and this house had 5 bedrooms, and was a good size, so we bought it, even though it needed some work.

We've been here a little over two years now and have gotten a lot accomplished. Kevin has gotten a lot accomplished, I should say. Part of buying an older home that needs some love is making lots...and lots...of decisions. During the home inspection, the inspector stood there and said, "I wouldn't run away from this house. The kitchen's he--, but I wouldn't run away from it..." Ha! He was right.

{THE ABOVE PHOTO IS OF THE KITCHEN BEFORE WE BOUGHT IT. That's not our furniture, we have since painted, and it already looks much, much different than that. But those are the cabinets, and the counters.}

We have since replaced all the yucky, barely-working, decades-old appliances, leaving behind cabinets and counters that, quite frankly, drive me NUTS. The cabinets are old, they don't close, the type of wood annoys me. The countertops were okay, although they have grout--why anyone would put grout in their kitchen is beyond me. Yes, tile looks nice. But who wants to clean the grout??? But here is the real kicker when it comes to the countertops: they hide crumbs. Why is that a problem, you ask? Well, because I can't see the crumbs to clean them off! It freaks me out! I'll think I've cleaned them properly, then I'll be sitting at the table and from a certain angle I can see a ton of stuff I missed. Creepy!

SO. We have been having "the kitchen discussion" off and on for 2+ years now. Do we...

resurface the cabinets?

paint the cabinets?

rip out the cabinets altogether and have someone else redo them?

rip out the cabinets AND the countertops AND the backsplash and have them redone?

You get the picture.

And, we Heldts have this issue with spending a lot of money on things like remodels. And when you take one thing out, you start taking other things out. It all pretty much snowballs. We really, really want to live simply. We want to be free to pursue adoptions. And so in the end, we just could not justify a total kitchen remodel.

Instead, we're painting our cabinets black. Getting special magnets so they'll stay closed. They randomly DID have some nice hardware on them so we don't have to buy new. For the cost of a gallon of paint and some magnets, our kitchen is getting a makeover.

And, guess what? Our countertops look super nice against the black wood! I'm realizing that they just did not go well with the previous color. Sure, I still can't see the crumbs too well, but I'll deal with it.

Anyway, I'm so excited about our happy little kitchen! I spend a lot of time there, as you can imagine. Kevin is painting as I write this, so I don't have any "after" pictures yet.

I'm not good at home decorating. I see things that I like other places (peoples' homes, catalogues, etc.), but I'm horrible at putting stuff together myself. Plus, I don't like spending a ton of money on it. BUT I must confess that I'm pretty excited about my cabinets!!!

Even though we've invested a lot of time and effort into our home, we're happy to live here. Our neighborhood is great, and it's been a really valuable experience doing home repairs and such. Eventually I might like to own a home whose washer and dryer vent somewhere BESIDES the downstairs area...but for now...in spite of the humidity, I'm really excited about those cabinets. :)