Cabinet Makeover - Better Late Than Never

Background: Jas and I had a kitchen island in our house in Colorado...and I loved it.

When we first saw our current house last year, I thought the kitchen looked wide enough that I would be able to put an island in there...woohoo!  I pinned all kinds of DIY ideas on pinterest...looked at ready-made islands in some stores...and then...


As we took out part of the wall between the kitchen and the family room (so I would be able to see what is going on in there!)...the kitchen went from this...




...to this...

to finally this:

I just ran into the kitchen and took this pic.  I didn't even try to clean anything up
and make it look like my kitchen doesn't always have 100 projects going.  You're welcome.

As Jas used the sawzall and hacked into the cabinets that were coming out...

...he set a very nice specimen down on the kitchen floor, and my mom and I immediately said, "THERE is the island!"

Except, well...it wasn't.  It was just too wide to be an island in this kitchen.  

But it was a great cabinet....so we still kept it and put it to use.

For the next couple of months as we worked (and worked) on the house, the children played with (in/on) the cabinet, out in the sunroom:

And once we finally moved in May 2013, we put the cabinet in the eat-in section of the kitchen, as a sort of improvised "welcome" entry area.  

I have no before pictures...it wasn't anything to look at...still half wood/half white.  Thankfully, we did have a proper counter top made for it....after it had been sitting in the kitchen for 6 months.  We're quick around here, I tell ya!

But as we (finally) began Operation Cabinet Rescue and Redo recently, I remembered to take some in-process pictures.

We'd already taken the doors back off, and primed it here.

And here - only 18 months after we cut it out of the kitchen wall - is the new and improved cabinet, as it now greets those who walk into our kitchen:

I love it.

I love the bright, cheery "Cranberry" color. (My friend Amy told me it was "Cranberry"...I like that better than the "Bright Red" I was calling it in my head.)

It bothers Noah that it doesn't match the rest of the cabinets.  I told him he was just going to have to deal with it.

Elisabeth, ever ready to hop in a picture, saw me and jumped in there.

Besides, being pretty and welcoming, this is why I couldn't bear to part with this cabinet once it came down from the wall:

It has tons of storage space.  Storage space that we need.  The left side holds cookie sheets, trays, baking stones, cooling racks, and our world map placemat that we use multiple times a week (as we do school at the kitchen table now...not in the schoolroom...because that makes too much sense.)

The right side holds books and more books that we use daily.

I'm not showing anything above the cabinet, as I have another project "in the works" for that area...

...and maybe it will be done in about another 18 months.