painting cabinets

first of all, this happened today [sorry - icky, had-to-snap-as-soon-as-i-saw-them iphone photos]:

omg, you guys. you wouldn't believe the difference new windows make. it's like a whole new room. and in case you forgot where we came from:

and from the outside...

 starting with this:

we are pretty pumped. this will be, by far, our favorite room.

okay, now for the kitchen cabinets.

we started with some real lookers. maroon and peach, peeling and dirty. something had to happen. and quickly. this transformation was definitely in the top ten must dos within the first two weeks of moving in. here's what happened.

we my brother removed all of the doors and hardware. we then sent them to humphrey to be sanded and prepped by my parents [have i mentioned our families are little dreams?]. 

we were advised to sand them well and then wipe them down with a deglosser. this seemed to be the most important part of the process. it got rid of all the gunk and allowed for a nice surface to paint.

 ^^this is what we were dealing with^^

needless to say, we had to scrub and paint these babies a couple of times. yuck.

after the sanding and deglossing, we started to apply a very thin layer of paint with a sprayer. number two piece of advice: borrow a sprayer or invest in one. holy amazing. it cut the work time in half and allowed for a nice, even paint job.

covering the maroon required about four good coats of regular, indoor white paint. the whole process was approximately eight good hours of work. and suddenly we went from this:

to these:

 we ordered the pulls from ikea. they were a cinch to install and arrived quickly.

overall, we think the painting procedure made a huge difference. the kitchen appears to be bigger, brighter, and more welcoming [can't wait to share a whole room photo when the floors and countertops are in!]. it helped us to realize our vision even further and update the space without spending a ton of money. 
speaking of money, the paint was left over from the interior walls and the pulls were $3.99 a piece. i'll take it. 
it's amazing how a little elbow grease and a paint sprayer can change everything. that's the name of the game here: love, labor, and a lot of paint. 

oh and these babies arrived last week along with a microwave, washer, and dryer.
we decided to go with all white after hearing negative reviews with stainless. i'm pretty sure the constant cleaning and fingerprints would have driven me crazy! we think the white is timeless and will fit in nicely with the rest of the scheme.  

floors come monday. countertops in the next couple of weeks. life is good!