Well, the kitchen is complete! It took a whole lot longer than anyone would have guessed, but that’s usually how those things go.  It took over a day to remove the wallpaper. The flowery stuff came off pretty easily, but the blue gingham stuff on the bulkhead was the devil incarnate. And I am no longer friends with the previous owners thanks to this little surprise.

That is wallpaper above the sink. It was not only impossible to get to thanks to its location above the sink and behind a board, it was impossible to get off. I probably spent 3 hours working on that and my mom had to finish it. I think my neck is still broken due to the horrible acrobatics necessary to reach it.

Two of the other obstacles are visible in this photo:

The first obstacle was the wall to the right of the stove. That lovely green stuff is a skim coat of plaster that was chipping off in giant sheets. Painting over it would have been a horrible idea, so my MIL chipped off everything that would come off (and it was a lot) and then had to spackle the entire wall. Then it had to dry and be sanded down before we could paint there. That took more than a day for all those steps. The second obstacle might not be that easy to spot so let me zoom in a little for you…

Ahhh, this little electrical box was just wallpapered right over so imagine my surprise when I finally got the devil wallpaper down and found that. The wiring inside looks ancient so I’m sure wallpapering right over it wasn’t the safest thing. I’m calling this an OHS. Old house surprise. And I’m sure there will be plenty more.

So here are some in-progress shots of the kitchen…

Ahhhhh. It was so nice having that wallpaper off the walls. I felt like I could finally breathe in there. I was almost happy enough to just leave it like that.  Haha. Just kidding.

Now the good stuff. The afters. In just 3.5 days with a few gallons of paint and a lot of elbow grease, we were able to turn my kitchen into this:

I am truly in love. The teal cabinets might not be everyone’s cup of tea but they are everything I ever wanted and I don’t think I could possibly love them any more than I do!

Now for funsies, a quick before/after:

Looking at the befores I feel like I am suffocating. (Also don’t mind the lack of switch plates, we need to switch out the light switches and outlets because not only are they almond they are super duper grimey/nasty. So those will be replaced and then covered with some fresh white plates.)

I have to give a lot of thanks to both my mom and my mother-in-law. Without them, I would probably still be up there scraping wallpaper. They were a huge huge huge help and it was also a lot of fun to work with them! Love ya both!

And I feel as sleepy as Daisy looks so I’m calling it a night.