The Ugliest Kitchen.......

With the guest room project done, I have been reinvigorated to start getting more of the half-finished projects in our home completed.  Everywhere I look, there's something that was started and then stopped because something else reared its ugly head and needed immediate attention.  Usually by the time we had remediated whatever calamity had occurred, we were tired and were in need of a break.  Since we've now been in our home 3 years this past July, and our house is still full of half-finished projects, we may have taken a wee bit too many breaks.

So, the best way to get a hard-headed redhead motivated is for there to be a deadline........... with photographic evidence that a mission has been accomplished.  Cue the theme to "Mission Impossible"............ no wait!  Let's cue the theme to "Rocky" because once you see the before pictures of our kitchen, you're going to understand why I may go 12 rounds with this renovation.

In case you're wondering: 
1) No.  I have no idea whatsoever the previous homeowner's theme was.  Every cabinet door you open in the kitchen and living areas of the house have (had) the slaughterhouse red paint, including any plumbing fixtures or pipes which may be in the cabinet.

2) Yes, only select cabinet drawer/door hardware was taken when the previous homeowner left.  I guess she only took the pieces from her most favorite drawers/doors?

3) No, we can't just paint over the poopy-diaper brown color because:
a) they didn't use a quality paint and as a result, the brown paint peels off;
b) they painted with carefree abandon...... i.e. lots of weird paint brush swirls in the paint........ not to mention pieces of the paint brushes themselves.

4) Yes, we are having to strip every cabinet door and cabinet base and then sand.  Sadly, they had painted the cabinets the slaughterhouse red color first and did not prime prior to painting the original beautiful maple cabinets.  As a result, the red paint permanently soaked into the wood and cannot be removed, so painting the cabinets is our only option.

5) Yes, a store obviously had a fantastic sale on brick.  And no, I'm not keeping the brick countertops.  They were laid incorrectly and the only way to clean them with the depth and width of the grout line is to vacuum them.  Not exactly sanitary........

So, without further ado, here are the "before" pictures of our kitchen.  You may want to prepare yourself..........

The house in its original "foreclosed" condition

Yeah, that red jumps out and grabs you

You can see the pantry (behind the open utility room door) which is a set of 6 cabinet doors.
It has nowhere near the amount of storage space that it looks like here.  It's tiny.

If you touch it, it will peel........ and you can see the lovely
swirl pattern in the paint here too! 

EEK!  This will wake you up in the morning.  Are you
impressed I found a bucket to match???

Nearly every hinge has been stripped.
Sassafrassing, grumble, snarl......

Now that you've seen the degree of ugly we are tackling...... let the renovation begin!  What's your best guess on how long it'll take us?  I'm figuring 2 months because I have to pick out a new sink and there's so many to choose from it's boggling my mind.  Any tips or hints you can share??

And as a PS:  A very big THANK YOU! to all of you who have prayed for my dad and my family this past month.  My dad's health has returned, albeit he still is regaining energy.  And if the health emergency wasn't enough, some thieves acquired his banking account information and stole a lot of money from them.  We are very pleased with the response from Bank of America and their fraud department.  They are hot on their trail, along with the corporations who were also defrauded of money through this theft, and we hope they are soon brought to justice so no other families have to experience this situation.  Your well-wishes, thoughts and prayers have meant a lot to me during this time and I greatly appreciate it!  May God bless you all!

Christie Bielss