Before and After Kitchen Makeover

After

After

Before

If you know me, you know I have been dreaming of a white kitchen as long as I can remember.  As soon as we moved into this house we began the process of redoing the kitchen, which I will post another time on the process of getting my dream kitchen.  It was a LOT of work, we did it all ourselves, but so worth it.  It feels like a totally new kitchen to me.  I just love it!  So here are the pictures.  There are a few minor things I need to finish, but overall, it is finished!

 Removed the micro hood and added a hood vent.

 Trimmed the windows

All new maple shaker doors painted White Dove by Benjamin Moore using Advance Paint.

All new hardware. 

Merry Christmas!!!

Jason's New Business Office

We moved to Arizona 3 years ago because Jason bought his Allstate Insurance Agency in Chandler after selling his agency in Washington.  As his lease was getting ready to expire he wanted to change locations.  After we searched for months, he found the perfect location in Gilbert that he was able to buy.  It's a few miles more east, closer to home, and walking distance to Cafe Rio (Yum!).

His new office didn't need much work done to it, but we always find a project to work on to make our lives just a little bit more stressful and hectic.  Here some of the before and after pictures of the few projects we worked on before he moved in.

The Front Reception Area 

Before:

We built his reception desk.  He really likes the industrial look and this desk was fairly simple to make, just time consuming.  We used different woods stained in the same color and had the steel counter-top custom made to fit.  He had the Allstate sign custom made in the nook that I painted.  I used the Sherwin Williams color Foggy Day that we had also used in our home office.

After:

 

The Front Office Space

Before: 

 This is a big office space, too big for one person, so Jason had the idea of building a wall to make two separate work stations. 

After:

 

The next room is Jason's office.  The only thing I did was paint the accent wall.  We will probably put something on that wall since it looks pretty bare.

 That's all we did for projects!  There is also a conference room, an open area for his file cabinets, a small office, and a kitchen area that we left as it was.  If you live in Arizona give Jason a call, he's the best insurance agent, I know because I married him : ).

Home Office Makeover

One of the house projects we had on our to do list when we first moved into our house almost 3 years ago, was to update the home office room.  Since I get to decorate most of the house to my liking, Jason claimed the office for himself, and he wanted it to look more masculine.  I like light and bright rooms, but he wanted this room to have dark walls and dark wood.  So here is our process of updating our office.

 Here is a picture of the office before we bought the house:

 We had replaced the fake wood floors with engineered wood floors when we first moved in, so that was already done. 

First thing was sanding.  Boy did I sand and sand and sand and probably should have sanded some more.  After sanding the built-ins, cabinet doors and shelves, Jason said "what if we just painted it?", I said "WHAT?  After all this sanding I just did?", at this point painting was no longer an option!

I first put on a coat of Mini-wax oil stain, 1/2 Walnut and 1/2 Ebony mix.  Some parts absorbed the stain better than other parts, probably from lack of sanding good enough.  So I debated whether to use General Finishes Gel Stain, but if I did that we wouldn't be able to see the wood grain, it would make it more of a solid paint like look, so I decided to use Mini-wax Poly-shades (a polyurethane with stain color in it) over the stain to help even it out.

 You can see the difference on the photo above with me putting the Poly-shades over the stain on the shelves.  And below you can see how uneven the doors took the stain, so I had to put on thicker coats of the Poly-shades to even it out.

 Next, we decided to get rid of the current desk and start over with a newly built one, about a foot longer.  We used plywood and casing molding around the edges.  Then we stained it just like everything else.

I really liked the X pedestal legs I've been seeing on Blog-land and decided that it would be a nice modern touch to the room and something that we could build ourselves.

 Next, choosing a paint color.  I just kept thinking of a slate blue and I couldn't imagine anything else.  I found the perfect color called Foggy Day by Sherwin Williams.  We all really like it and Jason is really happy with it, and since he's my client, his opinion mattered the most!

.

 We put everything back together.  Almost all done but a couple things left to do, we want to put up trim around the window and get new office chairs and I need to put black and white photos in the new frames on the wall.  So here are the after pictures before we installed the computer and printer onto the desk.

 I hope you like it too!