Kitchen Cabinets Come Down

Give me a day off and the kids at school, and things get a little crazy at my house. 

For the last month, we've been living with the doors off the cabinets on the wall above the sink in the kitchen -- to see if we liked the open-ness. Which we DID. Loved it, in fact. 

So we knew pulling down the cabinets and installing simple shelves would be a good idea ... as I predicted when we FIRST saw the house and how dark the kitchen was. I said "I can pull down those cabinets, it will open things up." 

Want to see it? 

Ok, first, we need to see what we started with: 

Let's ignore the sink and messy counter and address those cabinets! And that soffit! And the color? And the random shelf on the end? It's all bad.

I bought the shelf brackets MONTHS ago and don't remember how much I spent. Maybe $50. Then spent $60 on pine shelving and water-based poly to go on top.

And here's the PROGRESS shot ... 

We got lucky because the wall and ceiling weren't in bad shape. (I had contingency plans in case whole pieces of drywall were missing.) So two coats of white paint did the trick. 

And hanging the shelves was well in my wheelhouse -- remember the open shelf I added in our old kitchen or the office project? The best part of these DIY projects is they just start to build on each other. Hanging shelves I can do! 

And here you go ... 

And you know I'll spend the next four months rearranging items on these shelves. Maybe I'll buy all matching drinking glasses, retire more coffee mugs or switch in my white tableware, giving my Fiestaware a much-needed break. WHO KNOWS!?

How ever I end up using these shelves, they have completely opened up our dark kitchen and they bring me oh so much joy to see them. 

Another kitchen project in the books!