I just love saying “reno”, it’s so HGTV!

This summer, I wanted to do something to update our home. Something not-very-expensive. Paint is always the cheapest means with which to improve your home, so I wanted to paint something. In late June, my husband and I were talking about how horrid our kitchen cabinets were (they were chipped and didn’t match the backsplash that the previous owners had installed), about how chipped the paint had become on the walls and how dark the room was. And then, there was that disgusting baseboard, well, really it was tile! “Base-tile”?!

We decided that we would work like dogs to re-do it this summer. We picked a few days that we thought wouldn’t be as busy and got started. My husband put in long hours of back-breaking work. I helped as much as I could and also served as the “supervisor” (wink).

Our goal was to have it all completed before my mom’s visit in late July. We made it…by the hair of our chinny-chin-chin. I didn’t share photos of it because I wanted her to be surprised.

We knew this would be a big job;  we also knew we would never want to do it again, so we bought the best quality paint we could find. It is supposed to be as hard as rock after drying. We’re hoping it’s actually as hard as granite. We don’t *think* our kids can destroy granite, but then, who knows? Of course, rock-hard paint isn’t cheap. The blessing was that it was on sale! Here are some before photos:

This light fixture was cute, but it didn’t shine very brightly.

This half of the kitchen was always dark.

 

Now, the after photos!

Terry pulled off the dark paneling, scraped off our popcorn ceiling and textured both the ceiling and walls. He then put in new light fixtures – we added one to the dark half of the room and changed the old one to match the new one. We then painted the walls and cabinets a beige color that we *hoped* would coordinate with the backsplash. We also painted a dark color along the top of the cabinets to break up all of the beige, but that also would still match with the backsplash. He then put in all new baseboards (not base-tile!) and installed new door handles and drawer-pulls. I bought new curtains. 🙂 We also painted the laundry area white and we painted the door, which leads to our garage, beige.

This is where we used to have dark paneling. It’s gone! Terry did the texturing, I did the painting, he did the baseboards.

Our new light fixture!

We now have even lighting across the whole room! (Please excuse the clutter.)

My laundry area is straight ahead in this photo. This is the door we painted.

New baseboards! Hooray!

Closeup of new door handles and paint. It’s not perfect, but it is certainly an improvement!

As we were doing all of this hard labor, I couldn’t help but think of the Christian life. The Bible says that “reform” isn’t the answer. (Luke 11: 24-26) Anything we do to improve ourselves is only temporary change. Christ can make us brand new, and with no effort on our part. It is all by His amazing, saving grace! Praise the Lord for His permanent transformation!

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17

With love,