When we first moved into this house, I tried to get window treatments for every room without breaking the bank.  I ended up with curtains I liked fine, but didn’t love.  In order to work with what I had, I decided to add some fabric to the bottoms of my living room curtains and line them to give them more impact and so that I could hang them high and wide.

Before:

I purchased some dark green fabric on clearance and thermal lining from JoAnn’s.  My mom (master seamstress)  flipped the curtains over for me to make them rod pocket instead of tab-top, and took them from 84″ to about 90″ long.

She warned me that they were much heavier now with the lining, so I ended up buying more substantial curtain rods to hold the extra weight.  I raised the rod height and combined two rods to make one long rod across the room.

Now, we can close the curtains on super hot and super cold days to keep our energy costs down.

After:

Now that I have had a chance to put everything away and clean the counters, I have my (almost) final kitchen pictures!  I say almost because I still haven’t done anything about the wires hanging above the sink window and because Bradley will be buying and installing a new faucet for me as an anniversary gift:)  (He is trying to speak my ‘service’ love language with my gift and I am all over it!)  Here is what I have decided on after a little research:

Delta Leland One Handle Pull Down Kitchen Faucet with magnetic dock and soap dispenser

Just a reminder of what the kitchen looked like before:

And now my newly-painted cabinets with new brushed nickel hardware:

To see more about the process and progress posts, click here, here, and here.

A close-up of the new hardware:

The new tip-out trays under the sink:

The story behind the new hardware and tip-out trays can be found here.

Update:  Click to see the faucet install and the light installs!

Update July 2012:
I am still really pleased with the finish I received by using Sherwin Williams Adhesion Primer and ProClassic Latex Enamel.  All of the cabinet, door, and drawer finishes have held up really well.  I never applied a clear coat finish, because we kind of liked the matte finish.  I am able to easily wipe them clean.  At times I have to lightly scrub spots of dried splatters from inevitable kitchen messes and at first I was a little worried about it pulling off some paint, but that has never happened.  The paint really did dry hard.  I would definitely recommend these paints for this type of application.

The process has been long and tedious, but I finally have all of our kitchen cabinets painted and reinstalled with new hardware.  The painting process went smoothly with no hiccups, but my new additions were full of disappointments.  In an effort to not have to patch holes and re-drill for new hardware, I made sure to order hardware that would fit the width of the existing holes.

That worked fine for the knobs, but the new pulls came up much higher above the screws than the old ones, so they hung partially above the top of the drawer.  So I ordered new, more modern looking pulls.  Even though I have always liked this look, I wasn’t sure how well they would fit in with the style of our kitchen.

They have grown on me now that I can see them all on.  Of course the person that originally drilled the holes was a little crooked on one of the drawers, which wasn’t obvious on the old pull, but totally wonky-looking with the new.  I didn’t have much wiggle room, but I drilled down a little on one side to help level it out without showing any of the hole.

The only other big issue I have had was installing tip-out trays to the faux drawers under the sink.  I think ideally you would install these during construction, before the sink is installed.  Because it is like trying to herd cats to screw in hinges through a tiny slit between the drawer panel and the underside of a sink.  Much less do it level.  I finally got it installed only to find out that I had placed the screws for the tray too high.  Once the tray was installed it hit the sink and wouldn’t completely close.  Trying to get the screws lowered to the exact height for the tray to clear the cabinet frame underneath and the sink above without being able to see or drill pilot holes was a nightmare.

Live and learn on the first one, and do the second one right.  It went in SO much easier than the first.  I’m not gonna lie and say I wasn’t cursing myself at the time for removing the faux drawer panels in the first place rather than just painting them as is.  Now that it’s finished it is worth it though.  No more sponges in the sink.  I haven’t decided yet if I want to add pulls to these panels.  I bought two extras in case.

I will post pictures of the completed project soon (once I get everything cleaned up).  The only thing left is figuring out what to do with the wires sticking out of the wall above the sink.  I haven’t found a light fixture that would work there yet, so I may just need to cover them for now since we don’t have to have a light there to be able to see.

The top section of our kitchen cabinets are painted and the doors are re-hung with new hardware.  I purchased all of my brushed nickel knobs and pulls from ebay after finding their selection to be better and prices to be much lower than Home Depot.  At this point, it is hard to know how I feel about the new paint without being able to see the completed picture, but no matter what I ultimately think, it will be better than the honey Oak and there is no way I will be repainting.  I enjoy the results, but not the process!

Yesterday’s post was getting wordy, so I thought I would detail the rest of my weekend projects  today.

The first was re-installing one of Bradley’s closet shelves that was pulling away from the wall.  Hopefully, it will stay put for many years to come.  I can just imagine being scared to death in the middle of the night by an avalanche of shirts coming down in our closet:(

On a more fun note, I decided to switch out the curtains in our bathroom and closet for a matching set of roman shades.  The swag curtain over the toilet was a left-over from my college days that I no longer liked, and the closet curtain was a cheap fix from Ross that I didn’t love either.  The closet window gets full afternoon sun, so the room is like a sauna in the summer.  The new shades have thermal backing so we can lower them to keep out the heat (or the cold in the winter).

My last project was a new landing strip for Bradley.  Since he got his own garage door opener, he comes in the house that way instead of the front door so now the tray on the foyer table is not the most convenient spot for his keys and other items.  I have been on a search for a small shelf of some sort that wouldn’t be in the way on the wall next to the garage door to replace the key hook I was using.  I found this little holder at Goodwill and it seemed like a perfect fit.  Not the most beautiful thing, but with a coat of the wall color, I am hoping it will somewhat blend in an not be very noticeable.  I put a few hooks under it for our keys.  Function over form this time.