MISSION: chocolate.

MISSION: chocolate.

One of this small house's biggest transformations involved the kitchen.

The DAY we moved in it was a WHITE-wash, fluorescent light, ANGRY orange combo:

One WEEK after we moved in the fluorescent was replaced by oil-rubbed bronze track lighting (from Lowe's, thanks Ryan!!), the 50's light above the sink was replaced by an Allen & Roth Mission Bronze Island Pendant light (also from Lowe's, thanks Ryan again!!) but the cabinets were still, WHITE-wash (slight progress):

WHITE-wash simply isn't in my preferred color pallet--unless it involves a crisp spring shirt, polo, or cardigan.  On a side note, as I'm going on about not liking white, we did choose to paint our kitchen Benjamin Moore's Elmira White, but only for the sake of contrast.

Our NON-white cabinet options included: buying new cabinets, painting old cabinets, or trying Rust-oleum:

We went for Rust-oleum and chose CHOCOLATE:

It was exciting, but totally nerve-wracking... What if we ruined our cabinets? Buying new cabinets was not in the BUDGET.

The hardest part was taking down the cabinet doors, removing the hardware, and keeping all of the small screws straight.

But the end result was well worth it:

(to the observant reader, you may have noticed our appliances changed from the beginning to the end of this post--but that story is for another day)

We then replaced the old silver hardware with simple oil-rubbed bronze hardware.  This pulled in the Allen & Roth Pendant light fixture and track lighting:

After all was said and done, the kitchen cabinets reminded me of my Gramsiebaby.  Gramps and her awesome abode--tucked in the woods off of New Holland Street--had DARK cabinets and it was home.

Here she is (and Gramps, too):

Yesterday was her birthday and a reminder of what a gift from God she is to this world.  She is funny--as in Betty White funny--theatrical, loving, and one of the best gift-givers I know.

We love you, Gramsiebaby!!!  Thanks for teaching me how to transform a small house into our home.