Painted kitchen window

If you can't replace it, paint it!

This has become my motto...well, one of them anyway! :)

When we first moved into our fixer-upper home eight years ago, we immediately brought out the paint brushes. As many of you know, paint is truly one of the most affordable ways to update an old, neglected home, second only to a complete scrubbing! :) I have come to believe that there is very little that cannot be painted! Walls, floors, fireplaces, windows...yes, windows. Think very ugly, old aluminum windows.

Windows like this:

This was our sad garden window, last fall. We realized we weren't going to be able to replace it as soon as we'd hoped.

As you can see, I was in the process of putting the bead board up, and I knew with all of that painted white, that dark window frame would stick out like a sore thumb!

See what I mean? It was driving me crazy! BUT...when my husband half-jokingly suggested I paint it, I gave it some serious thought...and decided why not? I had never heard of doing it before, but that didn't mean it couldn't be done successfully, right? At least, that's what I hoped...

So I started with the bottom "shelf" of the garden window, figuring it it started going badly, I could stop with that and it wouldn't look too strange! :) I primed it twice and painted it, and all went well. So I taped around the window frame so I wouldn't get paint on the glass, and primed and painted until it looked like this...

I was pleased with the results, after all was said and done!

Now, a few weeks ago, I noticed there were some spots on the window that I needed to touch up. And one thing led to another, and I kind of ended up touching up the whole thing...

{But if you are thinking of trying this, don't worry, you won't have to repaint it every year! That is just me being a total perfectionist!}

{In this picture, versus the previous one, you can see the window and cabinets are trimmed out now.}

But now I am DONE. For real. And to celebrate, I even sewed a curtain valance!

And it turned out almost how I'd imagined. I didn't want a seam on the bottom, but I couldn't figure out a way to avoid it, so there it is. And this I am not touching up! ;)

{The ribbons are easy enough to remove if I want a different color at some point.}

Now I am almost done with this project...this one I have had half done since January! (This is a picture from then.)

I hope to show you the "after" picture next week! I think it's a success, but this was much more tricky than the window, so I am going to breathe a sigh of relief when it's done!

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful day and a great weekend!

Blessings,

Jenni

Linking to the following blog parties:

Shabby Nest

Under the Table & Dreaming
Domestically Speaking
Tatertots and Jello
Perfectly Imperfect