Oak Cabinets Go White

We have lived in our house for 5 years and there has been one consistent source of discontent!  My UGLY medium oak kitchen cabinets!  I finally decided enough is enough and they MUST BE PAINTED!  The color of choice: WHITE.  After getting roughly 15 quotes, I finally decided on a painter who specialized in painting oak and had the best sample and price.  We had him paint a "cotton" white on our kitchen cabinets, 3 bathroom cabinets, as well as a dark walnut on the stair banister.  I am so thrilled with the result!!!  I have to say....it was definitely money well spent.   

My oak cabinet’s were the ugly duckling they've been transformed into a beautiful swan. 

Below is BEFORE:

Here is AFTER:

One of our contractors recommended adding beadboard to dress up the kitchen.  I really like how it turned out:

Here is a before and after of the stair banister:

And the bathroom before and afters:

I guess what I learned with this project is that ugliness is only temporary…you can find beauty in all things.  Even my horrible oak cabinets.

Design Therapy

It's amazing to me the hobbies people pick up.  My brother has picked up running.  While I enjoy a casual 3-5 mile jaunt, he thinks running 50-100 miles is FUN.  My dad has started an obsession with reclaimed wood in the pursuit of constructing birdhouses.  They're actually quite good, you should check them out on Etsy, his shop is Barnwood Birdhouses.  My point is that we all find things to exercise our creativity and talent and hopefully alleviate some stress while we're at it.

My latest hobby is design therapy. I remember ordering a subscription to House Beautiful magazine in my early teens and carefully cutting out all of my favorite pictures. I've always loved looking at design pictures (thank goodness for Pinterest), wish I would've thought of that idea! I can easily spend hours on Etsy looking for the perfect pillow or on Décor Pad trying to find my inspiration room. I've even utilized the power of technology and downloaded apps to help crop my pictures and create my own little design boards.

To catalog all of my endeavors, I've decided to start a blog for two reasons. One, it'll be fun to see the fruits of my labor and have it in journal format. Two, I'd like to share all of my DIY projects with everyone else who is obsessed with this hobby of design! 

Here's to Inspiration:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover – Mark Twain.

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart,…you'll know when you find it." — Steve Jobs