The Plan for the Kitchen and Laundry Room

I’ve been thinking a lot about the kitchen since we last talked about it. In case you missed it, in this post, I explained how my laundry room project is starting to become a whole-kitchen project. Because I’m painting the trim in the laundry room white – like the trim in the rest of the house except the kitchen – I’m going to paint the trim in the kitchen. The trim is the same color as the cabinets, which leads to whether I should repaint the cabinets…but the cabinets really need replacing…

What you all said – confirming what I knew – is that I should just replace the kitchen cabinets rather than paint them. They don’t close properly, they aren’t in good shape, and they aren’t going to be any better with another coat of paint on ’em. Because I only will need four lower cabinets, it’s a pretty economical fix that will make the kitchen function better and thus make me happy. I can save the cabinets and use them in my shed or donate them to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

With that decision made – thank you! – I sat down and wrote up the plan for the kitchen and laundry room. I’m combining them because the projects will be combined – for example, when I paint the trim in the laundry room, I’ll do the kitchen trim at the same time. Here’s the plan:

• Clear out laundry room
• Clear off shelves in kitchen and remove from walls (why? Because I’m going to paint the walls and ceiling, too, while I’m at it.)
• Take down pantry sliding door (required to paint door frame) and patch pantry door frame (from where old doors were).
• Sand trim in kitchen and laundry room.
• Sand chalkboard paint. I know – I like the chalkboard paint backsplash! But I’m going for a lighter look in the kitchen, so I’m going to cover the dark chalkboard paint. I have plenty of chalkboards elsewhere, honest.

This is currently hanging above the cabinet in the breakfast room, minus the Christmas note.

• Prime trim and chalkboard paint on wall.
• Paint the kitchen ceiling. Why? Because the ceiling is darker where the upper cabinets used to be and I want it to look clean and even.
• Paint trim – Ultra White semi-gloss by Behr.
• Paint walls –
  • Laundry room: Violet Sparkle by Ben Moore
  • Kitchen: Choose a paint color. I’ve narrowed it down to either a pale blue, a pale gray, or a pale yellow (note a theme?). It has to go with the rug already in the kitchen because I love it and it’s staying.
• Finish laundry room:
  • Install countertop above machines.
  • Install tile backsplash on back wall behind machines.
  • Put it all back together.
• Replace kitchen cabinets:
  • Install four base cabinets.
  • Right now, I’m leaning toward keeping the open shelves and not installing new wall cabinets. I’m on the fence on this. Stay tuned. If I added new upper cabinets, I would need three – one for the area to the left of the window and two for the wall above the stove.

• Add tile backsplash to kitchen? Maybe. I do not want to put glass tile in a kitchen in a 1929 house, but I don’t love subway tile in a kitchen. I might change my mind on that – I’m going to see how I feel once the kitchen is painted.
• Replace light over sink with pendant.

Whew.

A lot still undecided, but a lot decided, too. I’m going to use this as a master list and cross things off as they (hopefully) get done.

The first step is to clear out both rooms – that’s on tap for tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain (again) all day, so seems like the perfect day to stay inside and unload shelves.

Thanks for stopping by!