Mini Kitchen Makeover

The kitchen is hands down my favorite room in our home. Not just because that’s where the food is (although that does play a part) but mainly because we have poured loved into this space.

When we first moved in the kitchen was hideous. There is simply no other way to put it. Sponged on mustard yellow paint, standard wood cabinets, and a built-in desk. This built-in desk to be exact.

The built-in desk wouldn’t have been so bad if our countertop space wasn’t already limited. The counter height of the cabinet was different from the counter height of the desk, as you can see in the photo, which made this space almost unusable. So it became our catch-all for miscellaneous items. Paperclips, mail, coats, craft supplies, etc.

I actually told my hubby that I wanted to take the desk out a couple of years ago, but it kept getting pushed to the bottom of my project to-do-list, until recently.

I literally came home one night and decided rip out the built-in desk.

I am impulsive like that. Something I should work on. 😬 But now that it’s done, I am SO HAPPY I was impulsive and finally did it. I will say my hubby was a HUGE help! He actually did about 70% of it. He is not big on DIY so having him help and ultimately take over was a pleasant surprise. Plus we got some extra QT. But don’t get it twisted, I am still in charge of the decorating. 😂

This is what it looked like after we removed the cabinet & desk. Not a pleasant surprise that the floor underneath was not tiled, but we worked around that.

After we gutted it, I patched the 1.2 million holes in the wall, sanded, and painted. We used the same color as the rest of the kitchen, Gallery White by Behr.

Look at my hubby hard at work. 😍😍

One week later…

Looks like a different kitchen, right?

We repurposed the cabinets that were mounted on the wall above the desk and secured them to a base that my hubby built. I just moved the knobs to the top of the cabinets and used wood filler to patch the holes where the knobs originally were.

For the countertop, we bought 3 wood planks and used a Kreg Jig to secure them together. Once the countertop was secured, I applied 3 coats of butcher block seal and finish allowing 6 hours drying time in between the coats. Then let the final coat set for 3 days before using it.

Can you believe this makeover cost under $125 total! 😳 The brackets were the biggest expense at almost $13 each. But oh so worth it! These babies are crazy sturdy and give that rustic/modern/industrial look that fit perfectly with the rest of the kitchen.

Details on the brackets is HERE. They are from Home Depot and the brand is Crate & Pallet. The brackets come in 4 sizes. We purchased the 12” brackets, which actually fits 11.25” shelves.

Tip: I’ve been doing DIY for several years and one thing I’ve learned is that the dimensions shown on the tag are usually wrong. The actual dimensions are usually on the price tag but below the initial dimension and in smaller print. Look at the photo below as an example.

Moving on…

With the update, we have enough space to put out all the glass jars that houses a lot of my baking necessities, which also cleared out an entire shelf in our pantry where the extra jars were.

I also bought new spice jars and labels, both from Michael’s. The jars were only $1.50 each!