Why haven’t I posted about my fabulous low-budget paint-only kitchen makeover? Because a week after I painted my cabinets green I started to… [face in palms] hate them. Oh the shame! I was supposed to transform my kitchen into something like the inspiration photo of this Parisian flat.
I felt like a failure.
And remember those 30-year-old GE ovens I raved about? Spoke too soon. Minutes after I published that post a gasket caught alight and rendered one unusable for Thanksgiving. I contacted GE. Naturally, they do not make replacement gaskets for ancient artifacts.
Oh, yeah, and our dishwasher, washing machine and clothes dryer? All kaput within the same week.
We got a new dishwasher (thanks, mom and dad), and bought a new washing machine and dryer. That’s all we’re getting for now. The oven can still be used for warming purposes. Not ideal, but at least we have the other oven for real cooking.
But guess what? I love the green cabinets again. Who has home on the range green cabinets? I DO!
So I continued with the makeover. And I busted out the Degreaser.
No, it’s not a long lost Pixies track, it’s just something you have to use when decades of the previous owner’s chicken fat have accumulated on something you’d like to paint. Degreasing is actually quite satisfying in that way that cleaning can sometimes be. You really see results instantly— just like in the infomercials.
I used high-heat appliance spray paint from a fireplace equipment store. I thought it would look like brushed steel when painted “pewter”. Wrong. It looked like, well, pewter. It had a weird blue tint. Like a steel-colored plastic toy hood. Huge disappointment.
I couldn’t reattach this. But I wasn’t going to buy a new hood fan just because this one was ugly. SO I went back to the paint store and bought brown.
I like it. The room is starting to become its own thing. I didn’t expect to go retro, but that’s what’s happening. And in our 1959 ranch, it works.
Next up is backsplash. I’m obsessed with Heath tiles, but I can’t afford them. Certainly not for a wall I intend to tear down within 5 years. So I’ve decided to paint a tile pattern with paint samples I’ve accumulated. Constantly telling myself that “we’re going to tear down the walls one day and remodel anyway” has given me a sense of freedom to experiment.
Wish me luck. What I’m about to do just might push us one step closer to the sledgehammer!
