The Galley Gallery

The original galley kitchen in our cottage was less than spectacular. I don't know how it ever really functioned as a kitchen. It was dark and dank, and lacked an effective work triangle. When we set out to redesign the layout, we had no preconceptions of what we wanted...we only knew what we didn't like. We didn't like our kitchen. We also had no second thoughts about ripping out the old kitchen. There was nothing original there, in fact the current kitchen was added sometime in the 1980's. The original kitchen was in what is now our living room. We started by removing the old sink basin, which covered half of the window, something that just seemed very odd to me. I thought about re-doing the kitchen in that configuration, but nothing I put on paper seemed to work. We took the drastic step of simply measuring out the exterior walls and starting with a blank slate. That helped tremendously, since we were able to let our imagination have go at it. What we ended up with was a very functional kitchen that we enjoy every day. It just works very well. We relocated the laundry to the former kitchen area, and removed the existing laundry room to create the kitchen and eat in island. We built the entire space from scratch, well mostly. The kitchen cabinets were off-the shelf unfinished oak from Lowe's. We wanted the painted and distressed french country Kraft-Maid versions, but our budget just simply would not allow for the $16 thousand dollar investment. We experimented with a paint treatment and what we came up with was very convincing. They look amazing. With the embellishments and crown mouldings, they look remarkably similar to their $16 thousand dollar cousins, but with a $2000 dollar price tag.


Before...

and After...


I'll post the entire series of pictures from demolition to reconstruction. A quick note, the paint finish was a three step process. The cabinets were first slightly distressed. Then, a base coat layer of white primer was applied to seal the bare wood. In the next step, a confederate grey-blue color was applied. The finish coat was a french country butter cream color. After the units had fully dried we sanded the top coat down slightly in the areas where one might normally find extensive wear over time...around the pulls, the door edges, etc. To add to the aged appearance, the entire cabinet was wiped down with a colonial American stain, which enhances the sanded areas and distressed points, which in our case were generally "worm holes" that we added with a nail punch. The worm hole effect turned out very nicely once stained. The stain also added a very convincing glow, which is what drew us to the original Kraft-Maids. After a week or so dry time, two coats of clear satin acrylic finished off the doors and facing. We took a smaller door to Lowe's to compare it to the more expensive variety...The verdict? Side by side comparison proved that the finish applied in a controlled environment was better, but not $14 thousand dollars better. Even the kitchen and bath associates were impressed with the level of detail we were able to achieve. Of all the projects to date, the kitchen was the most rewarding, and the one we're most proud of. Let the photos tell the story (I took some with my phone, so you'll have to excuse the poor quality)