The fireplace and the kitchen

Last time we were standing in the kitchen looking towards the left into the living room:

If you were to look straight ahead out of the kitchen you would see this little dining/fireplace area.

It's not horrible, but it's not awesome either.  This fireplace has had us stumped ever since we first saw it.  Do we white wash it?  Do we frame a mantel and shelving over and surrounding it? 
Do we take it out altogether and just have a nice big dining room?

Here's what we're sort of envisioning right now.  I love that stacked tile look and the thick, dark mantel. 

Since that project is still on the list of things to do we just did the bare minimum which was to spray that brassy insert.

Easy stuff.  It only took like 10 minutes.

It's still a work in progress but it's good enough for now..

Before we go into the kitchen stuff I just have to say something about the food situation through all of this.  We had the fridge out in the garage and once a week I would go up and down the prepared food section at Costco and get one or two of everything to stock it up.  Pizza, chicken alfredo, caesar salad, enchiladas, dino nuggets.  As a rule, we don't ever eat that kind of food.  Mostly because it's expensive and also because I really enjoy cooking and most of that stuff doesn't taste as good as mine.  But I was not about to take anymore than 2 minutes in meal prep when were working and plowing through projects.  And because you can only eat so much Taco Bell.

It's not a big deal, I just don't want to forget how crummy my body felt all the time on account of all the fast food.

So, here's the kitchen.  Let me tell you this is not the kitchen of my dreams.  John and I always talked about when we do buy a house that it would have an enormous, gourmet kitchen.  We both love to cook and eat so that was one thing we wanted to splurge on.  This kitchen is not it.  But we have plans in about 5 years to completely remodel it.  Take out all the cabinets, replace all the appliances.  Build an island with a monstrous 6 burner gas stove and a huge stainless steel range hood.

So, with that in mind we didn't want to spend any money in the kitchen.  But once everything else started looking really clean and modern it was clear we were going to have to do something with the kitchen.  The linoleum was the first to go.

Then I decided to stain the cabinets.  John was not necessarily on board with this one so I sort of did it without involving him too much.

I sanded, I stained.

Then stained and stained and stained. 

Then my parents and I stained the rest of the stuff.

I didn't want to spend any money on pulls since I'll just be replacing them down the road so I sprayed the old ones.

Easy.

Then we put all the cabinets back up.

Those dark cabinets made a huge difference.  It also made the kitchen make sense with everything else.

But that brown Formica was a different story.

This part John was REALLY not behind and he couldn't see my vision so I did this while he was gone that week camping.  (he he he)  I researched this on Pinterest and found that if you use this primer and then whatever paint you wanted with a polyacrlic top coat that it would work.

So, even though I was really scared to do it and I couldn't convince my mom or dad to do it for me I just started painting. 

Even after just one coat I liked it a whole lot better. 

Good news: when John got home from camping he absolutely agreed that it had to be white.  Bad news:  the method I had used wouldn't hold up.  He looked into it and made some calls and we decided that this counter top was going to be a nightmare for us since we'd never be able to put any kind of heat on it (it would bubble) or slide anything across it (it would chip).  That's just not an option for our lifestyle. 

So he painstakingly sanded the entire kitchen counter back down to brown.  It took one entire day and was not a great welcome present.  (I'm sorry John)  Then we ordered the 2 part epoxy paint in our favorite color "misty grey."

You have to mix equal parts together and then hurry up and paint with it.  It starts to harden after about 2 hours and cures completely after about 7 days.  But we were using the counter after about 24 hours and it was fine.  It's been a couple months now and we haven't had one issue with it.  It's strong and durable and it holds up to our super messy and crazy life.  So I'd recommend the 2 part epoxy method over those crazy Pinterest methods any day!

So we re rolled it.

Then waited about 12 hours and rolled it again.

So here's what the kitchen looked like before:

Here's the after:

We are planning on getting a built in microwave over the oven there.  Here it is before:

And after:

Here's what the kitchen looks like most of the time though. 

Up next the bedrooms.....