Congrats on your DH being home! Enjoy the time!

It sounds like you have your priorities straight...family first!

Rearranging your kitchen will probably make a big difference - if nothing else, it will give you a chance to "clean house" to see what you need/don't need. It's something that should be done prior to remodeling anyway - so you're taking a step in the right direction.

Paint and new floor should also give it a "new" look & feel.

Good luck!

You could also look at some organization solutions from Rev-a-Shelf to update your current kitchen. We got one of their pullouts and installed it ourselves without a problem.

For organizing drawers, check out Wood Hollow Cabinets. They offer several different organizers that they will custom size for you at a reasonable cost. We got one of their cutlery inserts and are very happy with it.

So glad to hear all is going well for your husband and that he is able to be home again!

Yay! I'm glad he's back home, too. This has been a long haul, hasn't it?

You know, I did organize my current kitchen as best I could using my GW learnin' and it made a difference.

Only thing is now I'm painfully aware of how I SHOULD have remodeled my current kitchen but I didn't know anything back then... oh well..

Some good cleaning and a few spruce-ups should be wonderful...

I'm so glad for you and your husband!!!

I find rearranging things doesn't last as long as an entire overhaul of the contents.

Critique EVERYTHING you have in your kitchen now. Determine how often you use items, and if only a few times a year, could it be stored somewhere else so you don't have to dig through things so much to get at the items you use daily or weekly.

I think kitchen stuff is a lot like goldfish...it grows to the size you have (and then some). Imagine you live in New York City and you need to downsize down. We'd all likely get rid of a lot that we think we must have.

Once you determine what absolutely must stay, you can look for better alternatives to storing them.

Painting a fun color that you've always wanted is in order. I can't wait to see what you end up with.

We used peel and stick tiles on a house we were selling. Cheap but effectively changes a room tremendously.

Have fun.

and Did I mention, I'm really happy for you and your husband!

Alton Brown (tv chef/host) wrote a book about kitchen tool essentials. His method was to take EVERYTHING out of the kitchen (remove to a room you don't use often) and only bring it back in as you use it. Then, store in a place convenient to where you used the item. After 6 months, anything not used was either gotten rid of, or specialty items that you wanted to keep on hand (for holidays, entertaining, once a year canning) should be stored elsewhere.

I didn't do this, LOL, but I remember reading about it and very strong considering it.

Congrats on having your DH home Lavender. Things will really start to get better now.

Control- That's what I was thinking of doing, but I don't think I can have the kitchen that out of sorts, at least now right now :)

Aloha- Thank you! I do want to paint a different color...the color I have now (kind of a peachy gold) looks good with the cabinets, but I'd like to make them a little darker and bring in more of the gold, green, cranberry and a bit of purple...the last two colors more for accents.

Deedles- I would love to make a few changes...mainly replacing the cooktop with a range, to get a second oven. But then I'd lose even more storage. It's always a compromise! LOL

Mary lu- Thank you, it's so wonderful to have him back home. He's doing so much better!

Gpraceman- That's such a good idea. I'll have to look for some drawer organizers, especially.

Buehl- That's what I was thinking. If I can get more organized, it will be better for now and help with any future remodeling plans!

I didn't want to start a new thread, but I was thinking about trying coffee to stain a few of the cabinets that have gotten sun bleached. This isn't great wood, in fact, I think it's some kind of particle board with a wood wrap, but I figured coffee couldn't hurt. Has anyone tried this? If I still drank coffee, I probably already would have, but I'll have to get some from my mom :)

Congrats on your husband being home, lavender, that's fantastic. :) Organizing your kitchen and sprucing it up sounds Iike a great plan.

Just wanted to say I used a very similar method to controlfreakecs several years back before the move to our new house. I thought i read it in a martha stewart tip thing but that might be wrong. Anyway it recommended putting every utensil you weren't sure about in a separate container in a lower kitchen cabinet. Then if you did need the utensil it was accessible to use and when done you put it back in the drawer. After one year anything still in the container could be tossed. In our move, I threw out a boatload of old doodads that I just didn't use anymore and now 4 years later I haven't missed a single one of them. The clutter-free life is pretty freeing. :)

Congrats again on your hubby's progress.

Coffee makes a poor stain unless you have raw, porous solid wood. It's for mommy blogger/crafters

It might lift the veneer off because you have to really soak the wood to get much pigment.

If you have sun-bleached veneer, try General Finishes gel stain in a color close to the original color.

So glad to hear that your DH is home! That's the most important thing, by far.

Kitchen remodels can wait, for sure. I think it's a great idea to go through and reorganize to make the most of the space you have.

Can't comment one way or the other on staining the cabinets - it's nothing that I've done. The only thing that I stained with a drink (on purpose) was a tea stain for a hand towel that had some stains on it and I really liked the towel, so I did the tea stain thing on it...it really needed to be drenched and in there for a while, so I don't know if coffee staining cabinets would work.

So glad to hear that your DH is home! That's the most important thing, by far.

Kitchen remodels can wait, for sure. I think it's a great idea to go through and reorganize to make the most of the space you have.

Can't comment one way or the other on staining the cabinets - it's nothing that I've done. The only thing that I stained with a drink (on purpose) was a tea stain for a hand towel that had some stains on it and I really liked the towel, so I did the tea stain thing on it...it really needed to be drenched and in there for a while, so I don't know if coffee staining cabinets would work.

LL, I can see your kitchen with the doors off the cabinets, and the backs painted or tiled that blue of Laura Calder's kitchen, with the edges covered in some cute trim or moulding. Nobody will ever know they are not open shelves. It might look cool-ly provencal with thw yellow gold color!!!

All my best to you and DH!!

Nancy

Taggie- I'm definitely going to do that...although I think I'll have a bag going to Goodwill, as soon as I start sorting :)

Lazygardens- Thank you...I think the gel might be easier and I hadn't thought about the wood getting too soaked. I guess I thought it was a wipe on, wipe off.

Andrea- If tea takes that long, coffee would probably not work either. I think the gel would be a better idea.

Nancy- I don't want to paint the cabinets (at least not in this kitchen) because everything in the house is a faux 80s oak. Sounds terrible, I know...but it's not that bad, probably because I have a LOT of green. The blue kitchen was the plan, if we remodel the farmhouse.

Instead of painting the wood, I'm going to try the same colors I put in the bedroom. Greens, a bit of gold, cranberry and purple. It's not a bright purple, but more of a blackberry color...very nice with the green and wood. To keep it from looking too much like a cabin, I used some brocades as accents, leaf prints (rather than solid green) and lots of soft fabrics. Very 'fairy tale'...I got the idea from watching Once Upon A Time :) {{!gwi}}From Snow White album

Here's a picture of the reading corner, in our bedroom. I need to take pictures of the bed, but plan to paint first. We're not changing the color (soft beige) but this used to be my husband's office/man cave...and when I took down the posters, it peeled off half the paint!
{{!gwi}}From Home pictures

If your cabinets actually are bare wood (easy to do with nontoxic, non-stinky, non-evil Citristrip) you can stain with coffee colored stain. Coffee cleans up leaving things looking a bit dirty. Stain just ... stains.

I am stripping 15 antique doors. This Citristrip takes off old finishes right down to bare wood. I'm letting mind dry out, then using a wood conditioner first (to avoid blotchiness) I'm staining gray, then beating the crap out of them for antiquing, then a Provincial stain over that. They're coming out GORGEOUS. I'm wiping on polyacrylic finish. Polyacrylic doesn't yellow (back to old oak!) and cleans up with water.

So it can be a lot of work to do on cabinets, but the result is great.

If you don't want to do any of that, go with a gelstain. That's essentially paint.

Anyway, I'm glad your DH is back with you. I'm positive he's glad to be home, too!! :)

Lavender_lass, your reading corner looks truly magical, colors are fabulous! Hooray for DH being home, but that's no excuse for not posting a layout and dimensions and possible a picture or two.... :)
(I'm sure you have before and I'm too lazy to go search for them).

You may count on me for any photo-shopping you might like; feel free to PM me pictures and ideas. Best, oldbat2be