My cabinets look like they're tanorexic!

A nice kitchen was high on the priority list for a couple of reasons.  First, our townhouse had the TINIEST kitchen known to man, complete with particle board cabinets (all 4 of them).  Second, my mother's kitchen is gorgeous so I had high expectations. 

Then, I realized something...there is really no such thing as a nice kitchen in our price range.  Okay, let me rephrase that: there is no such thing as a gourmet kitchen that is going to meet my incredibly high (ie spoiled) standards.  The kitchens were nice, they were working.  What I wanted:

1. Size...lots of counter space and cabinets (that were preferably a nice dark walnut, or pretty antiqued white)!
2. Stainless steel appliances
3. Granite countertops (like I said, I am spoiled and naive)

What I got:

Okay, okay, its not "THAT" bad.  It is big and has lots of cabinet/countertop space.  But like I said before, I am spoiled and think that I have to have the best, even though I can't afford it. Plus, the oak cabients were ORANGE...like they've spend time with self-tanner gone wrong! and...Don't even get me started on the green/blue speckled laminet counter top. 

However, the house had way too many great things to pass up: crown molding, high ceilings, a fenced in backyard, nice big bedrooms, hardwood floors!  Plus, it was at the very low end of our budget.  So we decided that we would redo the kitchen. 

I was a lot (ie way too much) HGTV and I would like to know where these people get the extra money to renovate their house as soon as they move in.  We asked about borrowing more money (remember, the house was way below our budget), but were told no, not in this econony.  We both have great jobs, great credit scores, so I have no idea, but all I knew was that my dream kitchen was hardly going to happen.  I also knew that I could not live with those orange cabinets.  So we decided to paint them.  Ourselves. With no experience whatsoever in painting anything wood.

When I say we, I usually really mean "me" and hubs needs convincing.  It took him a lot of convincing.  He thought, we have solid wood cabinets that are in great condition.  Here's how the conversation went:

Me: I hate these cabinets, they are orange!

Hubs: They are not orange, they are real wood.  I don't understand, our last cabinets were particle board.

Me: Yeah, and these cabinets are ours...and I hate them, they are orange!

Hubs: We are not ripping down perfectly good cabinets.

Me: Okay, can we paint them white?

Hubs: That seems like a lot of work, plus I don't like white cabinets!

Me: What?! How can you not like white cabinets. (I am stubborn so now i REALLY want white cabinets)

Hubs: Okay, if you can find me a picture of a seaplane pulling a waterskiier for our house, I will help you paint the cabinets white.

Me: Okay, i'll just be on the internet  (I found the picture, and our first house compromise was born)!

Let's give this a try...

This is my first post.  Welcome.  I absolutely love reading blogs about decorating, remodeling, and the overall joy of owning a house.  My husband (whom I lovingly refer to as hubs, yeah even in real life) and I were married in April of 2009.  Instead of a honeymoon, we decided to use some of that wedding cash to buy our first house.  The timing couldn't be better (who can really pass up such good housing deals, and an $8,000 tax credit to spend!) and we began our house hunt that summer.  We knew we couldn't stay in the area that were in (I love you Westchase!).  The price for houses was just a little bit over our budget (ahem...probably 3x our budget), so we decided to look north.  So the househunt began.

Let me tell you something about searching for houses in a market in which EVERYTHING is a short sale or forclosure...it is FRUSTRATING.  Yeah the prices couldn't be beat, however the houses left a lot to be desired.  Abandoned homes, smelly homes, homes with walls that were missing.   We probably looked at over 100 homes (okay, 99...I couldn't even walk through the front door of one house, it smelled so bad).  Then we found it....it was a short sale, and it was everything we wanted.  There are no other contenders to even show you here. We had heard that we would have to wait a while to hear from the bank, but we heard back the next day!

We closed a couple of weeks later, and the next day flew to San Diego for a friend's wedding, and started our first big project the very day we got back. 

Our first project?  It was a big one...taking the kitchen from this:

To this:  ???? More on that later :)

A couple more things about this blog:

1.  I really like to take pictures but I do not have a fancy camera or photoshop, so all the pictures you see were just taken with my point and shoot and have not been edited at all...yeah, I'm lazy.

2.  I'm pretty vain so you will probably see lots of pictures of me :)

3. I am a teacher and hubs is a pilot, so needless to say, we try to do things on the cheap.  However, I do have a shopping addiction and a love affair with Pottery Barn.

4.  Fixing up our house is not the only thing I enjoy doing, so expect some posts about cooking, traveling, children (not my own)....what can I say, I'm random (which I was once told is my generation's favorite word). 

5. I'm sure there's a lot more you need to know, but I'll save it for further blog posts.  Enjoy!