doors.

Finally, FINALLY!  We finally have kitchen cabinet doors.  You didn't already have them, you ask?  Why no, no we didn't.  It's a long story...here goes!

Well, maybe not so long.  Basically, we moved into this house-our first home we bought together!-in January of 2010.  It was the end of the month, I was pregnant and couldn't paint.  Our kitchen was rocking a MAJOR 70s vibe, I am 100% certain that it was the original kitchen that the home was built with.  The cabinets themselves were in great shape.  I am sure that they were custom built, solid wood, and with a wood trim around them that didn't look all that bad, if it weren't a natural wood color, that is!  Check it out.

These were taken the day we toured the house...yeah 70s, but we could see potential!

So, we knew that we couldn't do a total kitchen rehaul, it simply was not in the budget, nor am I sure if it will ever be.  But we could paint.  Or so we thought.  I ended up being pregnant, then not pregnant, then pregnant again.  In between those times life was busy.  The problem was, we took off all of the cabinet doors when we moved in, and my father-in-law started the painting.  He filled all the holes and sanded it down, as well as priming most of the cabinets and doing a first coat of paint on some of them.  He worked hard, and we so appreciated it.

We finally got the chance this past weekend to finish the painting...or rather I did.  I laid the cabinets all out on the lawn, and rolled on some satin finish latex paint.  It rolled on very nicely, and looked great.  My biggest problem was hoping that the paint dried before bugs tried to get into it.  After some drying time I did another coat on the fronts and one on the back and they were DONE!

We had to wait a good amount of time to let them dry really well.  We had tried to hang some of them shortly after painting them previously and they got dinged up, so I decided to be patient this time and waited FIVE WHOLE DAYS.  It was worth it.  This time when we hung them, no problemo!  They were great!

One of the best things that we did was to find hinges that almost exactly matched the former old hinges.  It made hanging a breeze!  No filling old holes or drilling new ones.  We just put the hinges right on where the previous hinges were, and hung them in the same exact spot they were hung! 

After that, it was time for the new hardware.  We chose knobs and handles in brushed nickel, and they look fantastic.  We invested in an awesome $2 template from IKEA that helps you make sure that you drill the hole for the knob in the same place each time, and it was so slick!  It made the job a lot easier. 

I am so thrilled with the results.  After a year and a half with no cabinet doors it feels like a completely new kitchen!  I feel more organized and less chaotic just because I can't see the stuff in my cabinets.  They were organized-they had to be, everyone could see them!-but I could still see everything in them.  It is so wonderful to have them all hidden away!

There are still so many things I would love to do to the kitchen.  I would love to put in a new countertop, a backsplash, even a tile floor, but I really don't see any of that happening any time soon.  I am just thankful to have these cabinets done.  They look so much better, I love them!