So Long Cupboards

When we first bought our house, the kitchen felt very tiny and rather cramped. It really is a small kitchen, but I didn't think that the dark wood cabinets helped. So, our first order of business was to paint the cabinets a creamy white.This definitely helped, but our view into the dining room was still blocked by the bulky upper cabinets to the right of the sink. Here is kitchen in it's original state...

And here it is after we painted...

This is the view from the other side.

Like I said, it felt much improved, but there was still the upper cupboards blocking our view. When we first moved in we had the idea to remove the upper cupboards, but we didn't want to lose the storage. However, after some time, I had the idea to take down the upper cupboards and put them in the dining area as a type of sideboard. This way we wouldn't lose storage but could really open up the room. I thought it would fit really well on the wall opposite the table with the built-in shelf. 

With that plan in mind, we went ahead one weekend and took those suckers down. They came down really easily. They were only held up by some screws, but they were super heavy. Here is how the room looked immediately after...

And here is the cupboards in there new location. Obviously needing some work, but we already loved the change!

It didn't take us too long to start patching up where the cupboards had been. Pat used drywall mud to smooth out the wall and the bulkhead. Here is the space in that stage...

You can also see that we added a top to the 'sideboard', but I'll tell you all about that in the next post. I will leave the kitchen here for now! It really took us a long time to finally paint the wall, but I am happy to say that it is done now. We're so happy with the room now. It feels so much more open and it is a lot easier to communicate between the rooms.