Kitchen makeover

We've lived in our house now for almost 4 years and this past year we've been getting the itch....  We have always moved and built or remodeled a new house on average every 1.75 years in our marriage. For those of you keeping score, that's 8 houses in 12 years of marriage. The longest we have ever lived in a house before this current one was 2.2 years. So four years is an eternity!! We've been going back and forth and seriously considering moving and building a new house on a ranch, but I just love our house now and the location, so it would he hard to leave. Plus, with my oldest in school, we would likely have to change schools, if not school districts, to build a house on a ranch. 

Anyway, long story short, my gracious, loving husband has humored me and gone along with making over (albeit small makeovers) our house. Which, I do understand is still a "new" house by most people's standards. This not-so-extreme home makeover includes my kitchen. I've been gnawing at the idea of painting my lower cabinets and redoing the backsplash- it was painful for my husband to watch me tile over (more on that in a minute) our expensive glass tile, but he admits that after I had painted the cabinets, it no longer looked good.  

Here's some before pics of the kitchen. When we built, I had this crazy brown obsession, I guess. 

I ended up painting the lower cabinets Dover Gray from Olympic paints at Lowes. It's the same color as my bedroom, but looks a whole lot lighter in the kitchen bc of all the sunshine. I used an oil based paint because it is so much more durable than the latex. I just rolled it on and it took three days worth of naps- have to do my projects during naptime, of course!

As you can see, the sand colored glass tile just looked flat and clashed against the gray cabinets. So, the only thing left to do is retile the backsplash! Woohoo! I almost went with white subway tile when we built the house, but I decided to do something different and be risky. Problem is, different gets old fast. Especially when you live with it for forever or four years.  And while I realize subway tile is everywhere right now, there's a reason for that- it's classic and goes with anything. To save time and mess and all that not fun stuff, I tiled right over the glass. It probably breaks the heart of purists like those middle aged men on This Old House on pbs, but hey- I operate under the mother of young children's motto: "Ain't nobody got time for that!"  And my friend who is a tile guy told me it was ok bc it's just a backsplash and doesn't see a lot of heavy use like a floor or bathroom shower. So I was good to go!!

Here's the results!! I love them!!

Bye bye, glass tile- you'll always be there, underneath the surface...