Our Kitchen Counter Makeover!

Hello there on this beautiful spring afternoon! You got it, my baby is taking his afternoon nap and I've got that special 2nd cup of coffee in my hand taking in my daily personal time. =) This particular afternoon I thought that I would take a few minutes to share the Make over that Emil and I recently did to our kitchen counter tops! As you will see very quickly, our counters were not in good shape and were pretty ugly looking. Emil and I have hopes to reno the kitchen here in a few years, changing up the flow of the kitchen as well as replacing all the cabinets and countertops. We are *very* excited about this and have decided to take the next 2ish years to save! Save! Save! Kitchen projects are no joke and we don't want to be caught right in the middle tight on funds. So we are spending the next few years planning and dreaming, making sure we know exactly what we want. I can't wait to sink our hands into that project! 

In the mean time however, our counter tops looked like this... When the house was foreclosed on (previous owners) a quick fix was made of the counter tops, previously painted blue (BLUE! I kid you not). The Bank, who now owned the house, decided when they were painting the rest of the house, to just paint the counter tops as well. Which would have been fine... except they weren't sealed properly, and literally it was like wall paint on our counters. Within the first week of us living here the counter top began to chip. We dealt with it for about a year. And then my husband, my amazing, loving, absolutely caring husband told me that we should strip them and repaint them correctly as a cheap, quick fix while we saved for the actual kitchen reno. This made me SO excited! 

The project took us about a full week to complete, and then another week to make sure the counter was completely dry and no longer sticky at all. Cooking and dish washing was very interesting for those 2 weeks... 

I've tried to find a couple pictures that we had of the kithen in its original state... I thought that I had better ones taken before we started... Its kind of crazy, the picture to the left here was just over 1 year ago. Emil and I had *just* found out we were pregnant and this is my little sister, Alexis, that I'm holding... =) I can't wait for Liam and his Aunt Alexis to grow up together playing and getting into who knows what! What a fun family dynamic for the 2 of them! 

And the work begins!... 

I went out to Menards and bought paint stripper. That stuff is strong! I got a drip on my hand a few times and boy did it burn! Thankfully we were able to get some fans going and some windows open to help with the chemical smell. :P 

yuck. You can kind of see the dark blue that the counter had been... 

Yes, I was absolutely thrilled! 

We put the paint stripped on and then waited about 20 minutes. Emil and I went and played Mario Kart Wii in the other room... Where I'm pretty sure I creamed him ;) Okay, so we're pretty even competition. 

And voila! After some scrubbing, scraping, cleaning, and more cleaning we got the counter down to its original tile! 

Much better! You can see in the back ground all of our kitchen utensils and counter top things on the dining room table. It was not so fun going without our kitchen and table for 2 weeks, but we worked around it and it kept us going and motivated to finish. 

We started with a primer meant especially for tile. This helps the paint stick to the counter. I put on a good 2 layers on the counter and up the tiling on the wall.

Looking better!

And then all at once, it was finished! We put a good 2 coats of grey paint on and then sealed it really really good with some counter safe Polyurethane. Now they are nice and shiny and easy to clean as well as look a LOT better. They aren't a perfect fix, but boy do they make me so much happier! My husband sure does love me! <3 Here are several pictures of our kitchen, back in use! =) 

A nice Farm sink is on the kitchen reno list... ;) 

What is a kitchen photo shoot without some coffee?? 

We decided to paint all the way up the tile on the wall as well. There wasn't really a good way to do a backsplash look because of how integrated the wall is with the counter.... But I did paint the electric outlet covers white, which I thought helped a little with breaking up al the grey. 

And my little red accents don't hurt to give some color pops! 

I love everything looking so nice and clean... =) 

And empty sink is a happy sink in my book. It means the dishes are done! ;)

And now I can dive into some fresh french press coffee with whipped topping, and caramel and chocolate drizzle. :) 

And my little stinker... He is officially sitting and continues to steal my heart. I love sitting on the floor playing with him. And now that we got a beautiful new rug for our living room, sitting on the hard wood isn't so uncomfortable! 

He's growing up so fast! Emil and I are trying to soak up every second! <3 We love our little boy so much.