Refreshing the Kitchen

So I took a couple days vacation in hopes of doing some yard work - naturally its rained all weekend and just let up about 3 hours ago. Sigh. Good thing I've already planned to take a day next week as well so I can get some projects finished up before the summer heat arrives.

This happened to me last year as well, so this time I had a back-up plan in place. I've considered making some changed to my kitchen for quite a while. Its a small space and I love to cook, but my counter space is horrendously limited (which makes bread baking pretty exciting). One corner was totally underutilized - it held a rollout dishwasher when I bought my home, which i immediately removed (quite impractical for one person).

I knew for sure I wanted to remove the doors from the upper cabinets - kept banging my head on them and they only added to the tightness of the space. I started painting the cabinets white, intending to paint them yellow in a final stage, but I ended up really liking the bright white. The light coming in the windows bounces off and makes the room feel quite fresh. Some yellow shelf liner added a pop of color and I love the open look.

I received a kitchen island from my Grandmother last year, but discovered after I got it home that it was just slightly too short and slightly too long to fit in the old dishwasher space. As I pondered solutions, I realized that adding wheels would give the needed height and take care of the issues. I'm already loving the extra work space and storage areas - rolling dough on this space will be a dream!

The walls also received a fresh coat of Bavarian Oak, and the windows received some fresh white too. I'll attack Phase 2 (lower cabinets) on the next rainy day.