Sue’s Antiqued and Refinished Kitchen

I’ve been gone again for a while I know.  I appreciate you waiting patiently anyway though (I write with hopefulness that anyone actually eagerly awaits my new posts).  It is not because I don’t love my blog or crafting, its just because I have been keeping 2 crazy little boys alive, editing about a billion photos from various photo shoots, and entertaining family, among other things like the usual relentless laundry, dishes, shopping, etc.  Anyway, enough excuses.  I’m not going to promise to be better because I’ll just end up feeling guilty for not being better.  I will be hopeful though that I will find the time to post more often.  I always have a million ideas and projects in mind to share.

Anyway, I thought I’d quickly share the before and after pics from Sue’s kitchen.  I came up with a game plan for this kitchen after the owners had a “gel stain” emergency and helped them paint and antique their cabinets for a beautiful updated french-country look.  To see the how-to on that click here.

Sorry, the pics aren’t great since they were taken with my phone but even still you can see how much improved the kitchen is.

This is the kitchen before.  The owners tried to update the honey oak cabinets with a dark espresso gel stain.

The gel stain didn’t adhere to the cabinets and went on splotchy and quickly began chipping off.  Although you can’t really tell in the pics.

Here are the cabinets once they were sanded back to the bare wood.

And here they are with just the white paint (dark paint on the island) before the antiquing.

Here is a pic of the cabinets when I began the antiquing.  You can see what a difference it makes and how much it brings out the detail in the cabinet fronts.

Here are some pics of the finished cabinets.

I think they turned out pretty good and the owners seem to LOVE them!  All they need now are some nice handles and knobs and they’ll look fantastic!