Coloring the Kitchen

We've lived in our white walled little home for almost 17 years. Going to our beautiful pine paneled walls will be a huge change for us. So I got the idea to add some color with the kitchen. This is one of the reasons I decided to pickle the cabinets white and paint the insides white. Now that gives us wood and white, still no color. I began looking at counter tops years ago when we first thought about possibly building a house. I had chosen black. Still no color. Then I realized, black counter tops would darken the kitchen that we have worked so hard to lighten a bit.

Back to the stores! In store, online, I've looked at so many counter tops! This stone, that stone, concrete, metal, laminate...oh my! Holy smokes! Have any of you priced this stuff lately? We do have a tiny budget and the kitchen remodel isn't part of that budget. So the updates that are being made are a cash deal. That means no stone, concrete, or metal. Honestly, that is completely fine with me.

That leads to laminate. How many laminate choices could there be? HA! There is a point where all the choices begin to look the same. Until I found this one.

This is Jeweled Opal by Wilsonart. I fell in love with it!  The picture really doesn't show the jewel tones that are on the sample I can hold in my hand. When I found this, the color scheme of the kitchen just feel into place.

While walking through a home improvement store looking for floor tile, I had my little sample of laminate in my hand. I walked by a really pretty piece of mixed stone back splash tile. It was a perfect match!

This is Bliss Smokey Mica. It's a mix material tile of glass and slate. Never had I planned on a back splash. I was able to find this on a discount online store. It's ordered and on the way. Thanks for my birthday present for 2014 and 2015 Mom and Dad!

Finally the floor. Honestly this part was easy. We knew where to look and what we wanted. We have a store here in our little town that carries "seconds." They have the color that is really close to what we wanted.

Now if I just had some lights, I could finish those cabinets to get ready for counter tops and back splash. I'm so excited the way it has all come together and can't wait to post pictures of my finished kitchen!!!

Deb

Better pictures

Here are some better quality pictures of the kitchen and a shot of the brick Deb cleaned this weekend.  Still have a couple of spots to clean on the brick but overall we think it is looking great.

 

 

 



Working in the dark.

The electricians are still working on rewiring the house and we still only have one hot outlet in the house.  But we pressed on this weekend anyway.  It's really hard to get anything done while there isn't a good way to light the place up.  I guess we are kind of spoiled to this whole power and light thing...

Deb has been chomping at the bit to stain her kitchen cabinets.  Since we have a different plan for the cabinet above the sink that will not use doors she did a little test run on one of those doors.  We decided a while back that anything we can do to lighten the room without painting the beautiful wood will be the route we want to take.  So we are going to use a pickling (or whitewash) stain on the cabinets.  The door on the left has been pickled.

 

 

Saturday morning I finished taking the door frame and cross bar out that was left of the old partition wall between the living room and kitchen/dining room.

 

Before (old picture)

 

 

After

 

I told my dad and Deb's dad that while we appreciate and want to hear any input they have, they can't get mad if we don't take ALL of the advice offered.  That said, I was showing a friend pictures and she said... What if you were to move that bar over by the stove?  I ran it by Deb and we decided that would be a good idea so Sunday's project was to remove the bar and see how we liked it by the stove.

 

Before

 

 

Bar removed

 

 

 

Bar squared up and temporarily in place on top of saw horses.  Deb thinks using the half doors (that were part of the partition wall) under the bar will be a good idea.

 

 

I forgot and left the Nikon at work Friday when I left so you'll have to excuse the cell phone pictures.  I will stop by this afternoon (if I don't forget the camera again) and take some better shots.

Cleaning and Waiting

Last weekend while Deb was priming the insides of the cabinets, I continued working on deep cleaning the beams throughout the house.  I say "deep" cleaning only because the transformation is incredible and instantaneous.  Aunt Mary always kept a wonderfully clean house.  When we pulled up the carpet there really wasn't any thing under it except disintegrated padding.  However, 55 years of gas log soot, cigarette smoke, and greasy steam from cooking had built up on the wood work in the house in places that I don't think anyone thinks to clean.

After experimenting with several products I have found one that really "outshines" the rest.  I tried Murphy's wood soap, Amish Wood milk and Simple Green but they all have their drawbacks.  The wood soap does a good job but takes a good deal of scrubbing.  The wood milk is in a 12 oz bottle with button spray pump on top and takes a lot of pumping to cover a small area and it is really expensive.  The simple green does a good job, but runs off too quickly.

The product of choice..... Gunk Automotive No Streak aerosol glass cleaner with Ammonia.  Spray it on, and it foams up and sticks.  Let it sit 15 or 20 seconds and wipe it off.  The only draw back is the foam is pretty thick so I've been using a lot of paper towels.  But, hey, I do work for a forestry equipment dealership after all, so I am contributing to my job security.
 

Here is a during and after picture of a beam.

 

During
 

 

After

 

Every little swipe brightens the room a little more.

 

 

Here is a spot Samantha did in the hallway behind the fireplace.

 

 

As the title says, that was the cleaning part.  And here comes the waiting part.  We only have one outlet right now since the electricians are rewiring the whole house to prepare it for another 50 years of living.  And to handle the power loads families these days require.

 

 

I've been joking that our walls are vomiting copper.

 

New 200A breaker box will be hidden behind the master bedroom door.

 

Deb's first post

Cabinets have ruled my part of the renovation so far. I think I may have been a little "in trouble" for starting this project. I knew that there was beauty to be found and I just couldn't wait. I had no idea this project would be as time consuming as it has become. Progress is being made and I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The base cabinets and cabinet doors have been stripped and sanded. We will be using a "pickled white" stain that will help keep the brightness of the pine.

Painting the insides of the cabinets white. Process began with Kilz...

 ...in all the nooks and crannies.

Cabinets are now ready for paint.

As you can read, I am not the story teller of the blog. Corey is much better at this!

We won't be able to do much this week. Our electrician will begin with the re-wiring Monday. Our jobs this week is picking out new lighting and fixtures! (Time to do some shopping!)

Treasures

We see it on TV from time to time.  Someone was remodeling a house and when they tore the walls off look what they found!  Old movie posters for insulation, a long thought lost, rare piece of artwork, money, etc... I was taking out a wall here at work one time and found a perfectly preserved tin, pull tab, Coca-Cola can. 

 

Deb actually found an outlet hidden in one of the kitchen cabinets yesterday. But none of that is better than the treasure we found yesterday behind the wall we were removing to make our master closet.

 

Grandaddy helped build our house and autographed it for us.  We knew Grandaddy helped build this house since it was his brother's house.  But finding this makes it even more special.

 

March 8, 2015

We had another cool, rainy day yesterday but at least we haven't gotten any more snow.  Deb continued working on her kitchen cabinets today.  She finished sanding the doors and drawer fronts and got started pulling up the contact paper in preparation of refinishing the cabinet interiors.

 

 

While Deb was working on the cabinets, I started taking down the pine paneling from the walls which will be the new master closet.  The paneling will get reused in the sewing room which is the other part of the room that is being split to create the master closet.

 

Here is the room we are converting to two rooms.  We are going to replace the window with one half the size and wall up the opening on the left side.  The closet will be 6 feet deep and 11 1/2 feet wide.  That will leave Deb's sewing room at roughly 7' x 11 1/2'.

 

In order to remove the paneling and window I first had to remove all the trim from the window and the walls that had to have the paneling removed.  This was a rather tedious process because we intend to reuse as much of the original wood as can be salvaged.  I used a cypress wedge to pry against to keep from damaging the paneling during trim removal.

 

 

This was my starting point for paneling removal.  I knew I was going to have to destroy one board to get it started.  Just so happened there was one over the window that already had a nice crack running the length of it.

 

 

It took me a pretty long while to get to this point.  I was being entirely too careful. I realized no matter what I did, some of the nails were going to pull through the paneling when I pried on them.  I will just do the fire blocks on the new partition wall a little different so I can nail through the boards in a different spot.

 

 

The rest of the wall came off considerably faster.  Maybe because I decided to stop trying to pull all the nails out of each panel as soon as I got it off the wall.

 

 

As you can see, I have plenty to do after work this week.  All those boards have nails in them still.

 

 

We intended to take the paneling off the wall on the left side of the room as well, but then I ran into this.

 

 

It's kind of hard to tell what is going on here from the picture.  The boards in the top of the picture are on the ceiling and the board on the bottom left of the picture is the last wall board.  The last two boards on the long wall as well as the wall to the left were tucked behind the ceiling boards.  We had intended on sheet rocking the entire closet, but decided not to take the chance of destroying any more paneling and leave the wall on the left in tact.  We'll do shelves or something of that nature to highlight that wall.



March 5, 2015 Snow Day

We got one and a half bonus work days this week. (We were both off and working on the house Thursday, but I had to work Friday so 1 1/2, not 2.)  We got a pretty heavy sleet and snow Wednesday night so my work decided to close Thursday.  Deb went back to work on the cabinets and I got started getting the floors ready where the new master bath will go.

 

The door on the right is to be removed as is the fireplace. I wanted the fireplace to stay in the master bedroom.  Deb wanted it gone.  The fireplace and chimney have started pulling away from the house and a construction friend told us we would have a hard time keeping it sealed IF we could get it to stand back up straight so Deb won this battle.  We plan to put an exterior door where the fire place is and add a deck onto the back of the master bedroom.

 

 

Cole helped remove the cabinet doors and hardware over the weekend.

 

 

 

I really wish it was warm enough to do all the stripping and sanding outside, but until then Deb has been working in the dining room.

 

Deb made good headway the last two days and has gotten all the cabinet doors stripped and sanded with 60 grit paper.

 

 

 

Coming up next time....  Removal of the pine wall boards in the master bath and closet to prepare for the floor plan changes.

Now off we go to Monticello for a soccer tournament as soon as I hit publish!

Busy week

Well, it's been a busy week for us.  Soccer practice and games and a full laundry basket have hampered our progress.  After getting heavy sleet and snow last night school and work were both canceled today so we were able to get some work done.  I will try to post up some pictures tomorrow.

Day Two. (Yep, I titled it by the day number. The days haven't started running together just yet.)

Our goals for Day two.... Remove the wall of doors separating the living room and dining room.  Strip the kitchen cabinets.  And clean the brick in living room and kitchen.  Turns out we may have been a little over zealous in the making of our list.  I got most of the wall removed but hit a snag and ran out of energy.  I have been fighting a sinus infection all weekend.  Deb and Cole got all the cabinet doors removed and Deb got a good start stripping them.  I think I remember seeing Deb with a can of oven cleaner heading towards the brick, but for all practical purposes none of the brick got cleaned yesterday.

 

So here is the wall of doors.  The story is they came out of a funeral home in town that my Great Uncle Herbert tore down in the early 60's.  As best as we can tell, the house they came out of was built around 1908.  And no, we most definitely are not getting rid of the doors, we just haven't quite decided exactly how we want to repurpose them yet.

 

 

I polished up a couple of the panels on one door with Orange Glo just to see how pretty they are.

 

This is the dining room side.

 

One gone...

 

Two gone...

 

Three gone...

 

All gone.

 

What a difference!  It made the house look even better than we anticipated.  The space seems to have more than doubled in size and it actually brightened up the room considerably.  One of our thoughts was to strip and refinish the walls, but after opening the room up, the light really started playing around and the walls now seem lighter.

 

Surprise, I didn't think I got any pictures of Deb working on the cabinets but looky here!

 

I still have to remove the door frame and I will do that as soon as I figure out what to do with the electrical stuff that is there.  And then we have to cleanup the cap on the bottom of the beam that the doors and trim were nailed to.