The tale of a kitchen project

I have been living in my house for 13 years now. In that time, I have slowly painted every single wall in the house (except for the one in our bedroom - I liked the warm, textured amber-wall so much that I kept it) and almost all the doors. Painting used to be a chore I didn't mind much; the before- and after-effect is so dramatic, that I thought it well worth the effort.

However, I have never painted cupboards before. I wanted to change ours for a while (years, to tell the truth), but was intimidated by what everybody described as "SO much work".
So I stayed away from it, giving my yellowed cupboards dirty looks, but trying to ignore them as best as I could.

Until three things happened.

It all started with this photo:

Photo from here

It's a tiny house kitchen that I fell in love with. I've been obsessed with tiny houses for months now, receiving regular updates from Tiny House Swoon,  pinning my favourites to my Pinterest board, and fantasizing with a friend how we will both live in our own tiny houses one day. 

After some reflection on why I'm so taken by the idea, I deduced that a) I had a deep-seated desire to de-clutter, and b) that I was simply craving an update. 

The second push towards my painting project came from the ladies from A Beautiful Mess: Laura, Mandi, and the sisters Elsie and Emma all have bright white kitchens, a look I love. 

The more I looked at them, they more I wanted one too, and this article convinced me to take the plunge by luring me in with the magic words: "It's an easy task".

That was a lie.

Instead of the promised weekend it took me an entire week, cost me lots of tears and swear words, and made me promise myself to never do this again.  

At least, that's what I felt like whilst I was doing it. Now that it's done, I'm pleased as punch and pretty proud of the final result! It's light, bright, and colourful, and makes me want to spend more time in the kitchen again. Yay!

Here is what it looked like before: 

I almost forgot to take before pictures, and had already started taking the handles off when I remembered. For more pictures, you can take a look here.

And this is After:

I'm not really flashing you, but it didn't look very ladylike. You could sort of see - something. Not really my undies, but something. Anyway, I thought it best to PG the photo. 

We currently have a tiny incubator for quail eggs in the kitchen, because we enjoy seeing them hatch. The babies are tiny, like little popcorn shrimp!

We also keep the babies in the kitchen for a few days, until they are old enough to join their relatives outside in the big bird house.  

That's it! I'm beyond happy that it's done, but also really like how fresh it looks. 

Have you ever painted kitchen cupboards or done a home project that made you (almost) despair?

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