Ravenstone Kitchen Update

We worked heavily on the kitchen update in the last year while I was away from social media.

When I tell y’all it was not an easy task, I am not kidding. Get ready for a long post.

If you’d like to see more of the kitchen before we remodeled, you can see those here!

We started prepping and hand painting the kitchen cabinet frames and within two days I got COVID.

It knocked me down for two weeks and then right as I started to feel better we tried to continue painting. The kitchen was all pulled apart for two weeks and we were desperate to get it back together. THEN immediately after I got COVID, my husband got it.

This kitchen was spread all over our house – drawers, cabinet doors, knobs…. the whole nine. But folks, the saga continues.

Once we were all recovered (this took an entire month between the two of us), we finished painting the cabinet framing. We realized within a week or so, that the paint didn’t take and it was all chipping off.

Y’all – I had to go through the five stages of grief over this disaster.

Thank the Lord for my husband because he reeled me back in and found a solution. Start over.

The lesson here – FULLY PREP YOUR CABINETS.

I had not sanded well at all. I used a piece of sand paper and ever so slightly “roughed the surface”.

Yeah that didn’t work.

We had to sand off all of the paint I had just applied, clean, and prep the surfaces again. This time, my husband used an orbital sander and we really gave this kitchen a good sanding.

When it was time to paint, he used a sprayer Proclassic semi-gloss paint from Sherwin Williams. It’s expensive but worth it. This is what I used when I hand painted the bases but because I did not prep the surface well enough, it didn’t have anything to adhere to – hence the chipping.

I can happily say that a year later, the paint held up PERFECTLY.

We swapped out the cabinet doors through Barker Door because I wanted a shaker style door. I also wanted windowed cabinets in the main area next to the stove because I wanted my dinnerware to be visible and act as decor instead of closing off the kitchen.

Before we painted the cabinets, we had the old granite removed and replaced with a white, marble looking quartz. It is the first time I have had quartz and holy wow, it’s my favorite. It really wasn’t all that expensive either. For our island, our coffee bar in the butler’s pantry, and the little baking nook, it cost $4500.

Before we replaced the countertops, we ordered a new microwave inset and a new cooktop. Due to COVID supply issues at the time, we didn’t receive those for TWO MONTHS. When it finally arrived, the cooktop was too big in one tiny spot because of a screw that held the whole thing together. My husband DIY’ed it and used a diamond grinder tool and ground a space for the screw in our $4500 quartz. I couldn’t watch.

BUT IT ENDED UP FITTING AND LOOKING AMAZING.

We also tried another hood vent design that I didn’t end up liking. I considered two tone wood and white – super farmhouse style and knew almost immediately that it just wasn’t me. The picture below shows the color before we swapped it all out and refinished it.

We settled on vertical trim to make the vent look more grand.

Paired with the vertical picket tile and the vertical bead board on our island, I think it is perfect.

Lastly, the color of the island.

The color is Sherwin Williams Meadow Sage.

I love this color so much that I just painted an interior door this color (peep our laundry room remodel below). I am considering painting basically everything in my life this color.

It’s a nice neutral green that has greige undertones. Very French farmhouse and to my surprise, strikingly similar to the 2022 SW Color of the year which is Evergreen Fog!

If we are being honest, I am not showing full pics of the island right now because it’s not technically finished. We are buying cabinet faces from Barker Door in the next few weeks and they take 4-6 weeks to arrive.

Once we have those, we will officially paint the island instead of hand paint with a sample (like I am known for) (ALSO how I painted the above door! Only $4!)

Alright, without further ado, here are the pics of the *nearly* completed kitchen!