Kitchen Makeover Part 1

Okay, so a LOT of things have been going on in my household as of late! Springtime is always a busy time of year, with new projects, spring cleaning and of course oodles of yard work! A few months ago I started on what I thought was going to be a quick little kitchen makeover project... I admit, with three little boys in tow, no project is ever "quick" nor easy. So I'm sure I was being overly optimistic when I began this "quick" project.
My kitchen is on the small side, but it does face East, and I have a lot of windows on that side of the house, so in the morning I get a lot of very nice natural light. But by mid day my small kitchen was so dark it was cave-like. Seriously! Cooking dinner, for me, is depressing enough without the environment being dark and gloomy to boot! I had originally wanted to do some major renovations, but seeing that we didn't have the budget for much, I had to find other means of making over my kitchen. Here is the before shot...

I know... nothing special, builder grade cabinets, hollow core wood veneer cabinet doors and drawers, laminate countertops... ugh!
I had some primer and white paint left over from my little bathroom makeover so I set to work on painting the cabinets. Boy, what a job that was!! Don't let anyone fool you, painting kitchen cabinets is A LOT OF WORK!!!! After about 4 weeks I think I finally got the majority of my cabinets painted and primed!

This was midway through the painting, even at this stage, it was amazing how much brighter and lighter the kitchen became!
Did I mention my cabinets were base grade builder cabinets??? And did I also mention that when they laid out the kitchen cabinets they put cabinets that were meant to run up against other cabinets or walls and used them as end cabinets?? So I had plain 1/8" wood finishing off my end cabinets. Unbelievable! Not only did it look odd, but one chair falling against it, pushed by one little boy, was enough to break a nice 2 inch section of the thin wood. It was harder to notice the break in the wood when the cabinets were dark, but once they were nice and bright and white, the break was very obvious!
I had a few pieces of bead board left over from my bathroom project and so I decided that I'd install beadboard on the sides of my cabinets. I'm SO GLAD I did! What a difference!

I think the cabinets actually look finished now. And the best part... it was cheap! $20 to install beadboard to the sides and back of 3 cabinets!
Stay tuned!! Tomorrow I'll share my Mother's Day present and the rest of the kitchen makeover!!
Blessedness!
Linda