Kitchen Cabinets

We knew as soon as we looked at the house there was so much work we wanted to do in the kitchen. First of all, the cabinets. Where were the two missing cabinets? We thought it looked kind of funny that to the right of the window and left of the fridge had no cabinets. Also, the color. We weren't a fan of the oak color. We knew we wanted to either paint them white or stain them a dark brown.

I found a tag inside one of the cupboard doors of a custom cabinet place these must have come from. I didn't even try contacting them for fear of what the price would be to get one small and one large cabinet added on. We also knew we wanted to add an island in the big empty middle space (it's my dream to have my kids come home from school and sit at the island eating warm chocolate chip cookies while they tell me about their day...Dane and I discussed this while we were dating and he knew I really wanted an island someday). 

The miracle occurred a few months after we moved in. My grandpa was getting ready to move into an assisted living center. We were in their basement looking at furniture one day and noticed an entire kitchen cabinet set disassembled. Just sitting there. It had been there for years and I had never thought twice about it. We asked he and his sweet wife what they would be doing with that entire kitchen cabinet set just sitting there in their basement and they said please take it away!! At first, I was just planning on taking a piece for each empty spot (one small, one large, and one for the island), but I sent Dane to get them and he came home with all of them. :)

They don't match exactly (the curve is a little off) but no one can tell until we point it out. We knew we wanted to change the colors of ours anyway, so it didn't matter that the color didn't match! Seriously, it saved is some major bucks and we were very happy about that!!

After Dane hung the wall cabinets, the fun began. We took off all the doors and washed them down. We were so scared of having to sand every piece that we decided to use the gel stain we had leftover from our kitchen table and chairs Dane had done the previous year. We still had quite a bit left and we loved the dark brown, so we got started!

It ended up taking two coats of stain on all of the light oak (our original cabinets) and one stain on my grandpa's kitchen set. Then it took 3 coats of the wax on top to seal it really good. We did have to buy more stain and wax, but I didn't feel as bad buying that when I didn't have to sand OR buy the cabinets!

Here is the before and after together. I LOVE my new cabinets AND my island. I am so excited for our kids to get a little older and sit at the island to snack while I cook (or help me cook). It is the gathering place in our home!

Next step is to figure out what to do above the fridge...