Distracted by bright shiny objects...

Oh man!  Am I easily distracted?  

Yeah... I am...

I finished the nook.  It took me longer than expected and more is coming on that one. But first...

My kitchen is a work in progress.  It was seriously horrible. Old oak cabinets, faux brick paneling... And possibly worst of all... No dishwasher!!! I have three kids. That had to happen first thing. Which we did. It isn't dry walled, but has flat paneling.  It's going to take several steps to get it in ship shape condition. 

So, as I said, we installed a dishwasher and painted the horrible paneling and bright orange paint that was on the walls...  Here's what she used to look like.  (Sorry for the horrible before pictures.  I was in such a hurry to paint, I didn't take any.)

The next step was to paint the cabinets.  That's a whole other post.  I thought it would be no big deal.  Wrong.  It's a LOT of work to do it right. 

I'm almost done and last week I got distracted from my nook project by bright shiny objects...

Hardware!  

Oh man... There is so much beautiful hardware out there!  I had a hard time. I want a vintage, cottage-y (that's probably not a word) feel.  I knew I wanted faux crystal knobs.  (I LOVE the look of them. They are just so pretty!) And I knew I wanted bin pulls. But I didn't want them to be bright, shiny and new looking. Most antique or antique look hardware is pretty expensive and, remember, we are on a budget. But eBay came through for me in the end and I am one happy mama!

I ordered the bin pulls immediately because they were soooo perfect. But I wasn't sold on the knobs (they looked a little too grey) so I just ordered one to see what they looked like in real life. Once they got here they totally won me over. I have been working on installing them. I was worried about the bin pulls because I wanted to get the holes just right every time. Since there were no pulls on the drawers before I had to drill new ones and I'm not going to lie... I was a little scared to do it. To remedy this, I made a paper and wood template to help me get it right every time. 

Worked like a charm and here is what it looks like so far.