Kitchen Mini-Makeover: Reveal

I will warn you that you may be a bit underwhelmed by our kitchen mini-makeover. Let's just say that we gave our kitchen a few botox injections instead of a full face life. You know what I'm sayin'?

BEFORE:

In its original state, our kitchen screamed BLAH. It was a horrible combination of cream/white/yellow. I especially hated the white Formica countertops. Hated. Them. So with some help from our trusted handyman (not the husbo), we upgraded to classic butcher block countertops (courtesy of Ikea)...

We opted to seal them with a product called Waterlox to make them extra durable. We also invested in a new electric range hood. The original one was crusty, rusty and just plain gross. Oh, and that vintage brown eggs sign is courtesy of my parents. They had that in their kitchen in our childhood home. Love it! And check out that awesome curtain that was custom made by my talented Mom. THANKS MOM!

We had our 1960's metal cabinet doors (don't be jealous!)freshly painted white. Ahhh.

The new wall color is light gray. It's Martha Stewart's "cumulus cloud" (we chose to have the color matched in Benjamin Moore paint - per our handyman's suggestion). The ceiling and all the trim were also freshly painted. I can't stop staring, can you? Ha.

Yup, that's it folks. What do you think?

AFTER:

So much better than the BLAH before, right?!

Vintage Pedestal Plate Makeover

A little paint and elbow grease go a long way. This vintage pedestal plate (is that what you would call it?)didn't look this great when I bought it...

 
I found it a few weekends ago at a store I like to call el-cheapo storo (aka Goodwill). I went hunting for furniture and picture frames to revamp and walked out with this instead.

I figured I could do something with it. It has a few dark spots (stains?) on the top of the plate part. I thought these could be removed with some polish, unfortunately this wasn't the case. They were permanent. My backup plan was to paint it a glossy white. I figured this vintage find could serve many functions...so I opted to rough up the brass a bit with a sanding block.

Then I got to work spraying it with a few coats of this white gloss
 Rust-Oleum spray paint.

  

3 coats of spray paint later...this vintage find 

had a brand new look!

I grabbed the first thing I could find to fill the plate for these photos - some faux pears. I think it turned out great! 

 

  A simple makeover to such a versatile piece!