This is the beginning of a several week project
I love this artists work her name is Tracy Flickinger. This is the journey of my ugly duckling kitchen becoming a beautiful swan of a kitchen. I had to change it but didn't have gazillions of dollars to spend on it, so as they say "necessity is the mother of invention". I did it myself. And all because of the color black and this apron.
I have a tiny kitchen that had horrible orangey stained cabinets. I wanted to do something out of the ordinary and decided that black was the color. I was very nervous about and wanted to search the web to look at some kitchens with black cabinets before taking the plunge. I couldn't find any. I found dark brown but no black so what to do, just do it that's what its only paint after all. Anyway I had my husband apply bead board to the inset parts of the doors on the bottom and around the breakfast bar and set about turning my kitchen black and we added crown molding to the top of the cabinets to give them a custom look, turned out great. I was going for a Tuscany, victoriany oldy worldy sort of feel. Something that looked like it had been there for a long time. I sanded and primed them first and set about painting them. I loved it but it was very dark and I wanted to add some sparkle to it to brighten it up so I came up with tin back splash and ceiling. YES! that is just what I was looking for. But wait it needs some more bling. I had this apron that was hanging in my kitchen with waiters on it by artist Tracy Flickinger and I thought they are just the thing to finish off my tiny kitchen. I had six long cabinets and there where six waiters. I made sure that waiters all were the same size including what they were holding so even the little fat guy was as tall as the big guy if you take in to account the serving dish he was holding. I drew them freehand on to the cupboard doors then painted them, it was so much fun to see them come together one by one.I had to do some additional artwork for the four little cupboards. As I live in wine country I decided to add some old wine bottles and a basket of bread, garlic and grapes, yummy. I wanted to add some architectural features to the underside of the breakfast bar but after checking them out at the local hardware store I couldn't believe the price of them, they were $50 each. I searched for alternatives and found two very inexpensive shelves with grapes on them but they were a yucky grey color so of course I painted them black. I added a silver polish to the edges of the cabinets to make them look as if the were worn by time and added it to the little shelves as well. I also decided to do something with the builders yucky orange peel plaster finish on the walls and ceiling. I plastered the walls and ceiling in drywall mud and painted them. I am so happy with my little kitchen and hope this helps all of you out there looking for a black kitchen like I was. Be brave it is so worth it.
