Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by!
We are two house-loving DIYers now onto our second house. One of us has vision...and one has actual skills.
Design and working on our home are our major hobbies, whenever we have a few moments of free time not devoted to our daughter or jobs. We are hoping to share our ideas, triumphs and mistakes to help other DIYers and get new ideas from all of you!

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Before pictures have been found!

I knew that Brent had taken these - now you will have a point of reference as we continue to put the kitchen back together. Wasn't it lovely???
You can see the wall that WILL have pantry cabinets and the breakfast bar, as well as the terribly placed window we replaced.

Toward the mudroom - see that crazy window on the left?? Sooo not helpful.

Our fridge/sink wall.  The fridge will stay the same, in the same place.  New dishwasher, sink and faucet, however...

Continuing down the long wall of cabinets

The nook.  It used to house our dishes above and microwave.  We are shortening the upper cabinet so that we will have more height on the counter.  Our coffee maker and toaster will live in there.

The nook from another angle.  Where the calendar is we are going to install a very shallow message board cabinet.

The stove wall.  It's not an ideal spot, but in keeping with our budget, it will remain where it is with a microwave/vent hood above it, a new base cabinet and upper to the right.

Looking toward the basement door and hallway
Can you see why we are SO excited for our new space????

Cabinet refinishing in progress



Our new cabinets will have a simple, full overlay, shaker style door.



The base cabinets we currently have will be staying, but with new doors and a coat of lacquer tinted Behr's Graceful Gray.  You can see the color in the walls of the picture below - also, I totally want to steal that stencil idea for somewhere! Perhaps the dining room...
http://www.craftaholicsanonymous.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/craft-room5.jpg

So far the base cabients have been sanded once after preliminary hole filling. More to come on this project!

OK - 9:12 PM, Tuesday:

Today's after work work session started with Brent sanding the cabinets. Next, we taped off the insides.


Then the primer was sprayed.
Filling/sanding, then another coat of primer.  Then the same steps were followed for two coats of our light gray.

With the paper still behind the cabinets, and only painter's lights for illumination, it's not very easy to see the color, but it looked pretty great next to the countertop and floor samples!
It was a long afternoon/evening, but now we can, at the very least, install the flooring this weekend!

Monday, July 30, 2012

Electrical and Fixin Stuff

Today was a full day of electrical work.  Peter the electrician is thisclose to having the rough in done and ready for inspection.  It's really great to see the new outlets and new lights being fitted in place...now if we only had walls and ceiling around them!!



There was a downside to today...Home Depot did deliver our materials today as they said they would...however the delivered the wrong boards for our bead board ceiling - flat boards does not a BEAD board ceiling make! Brent called them and they will be back tomorrow afternoon/evening to pick up the wrong boards and deliver the right ones...but that meant we had to babysit 26 16' boards...and therefor move them into the backyard from the driveway...not fun. But teamwork makes everything better.

The two limiting factors at the moment are inspections (need electrical so we can insulate, then get inspected again and then FINALLY drywall) and our tinted lacquer for the base cabinets we are keeping and spraying a light gray. Because the tinting is done by hand, by one guy at the shop, it takes time, but I definitely did not think it would take more than a week. Hopefully the lacquer will be ready in the next day or so!  We really want to spray BEFORE we install the new hardwood, but the flooring is the only things we can do that we don't need an inspection for...sooo...fingers crossed.

While I was out celebrating my friend's birthday tonight, Brent took care of a few projects.  He added 1/2" strips of wood to a part of the wall that needed to be evened out with the other side that had been made deeper to accomodate a pipe.  He also tackled his first masonry project.  There are two holes in our chimney from a prior stove and vent fan.







Everyone send us good vibes for inspection schedules to work out and lacquer to be ready!  We need cabinets sprayed, drywall up, and the ceiling installed so we can put in our cabinets!!!!!!!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Weekend #2 - Windows

Even when setting up our kitchen two years ago when we moved in, the window IN the corner of the room that looked out onto the back steps was a challenge.  We ended up just plopping our open shelving in front of it and moving on to rooms we could actually improve upon for the time being. 


When we started seriously thinking about the kitchen, we couldn't really come up with a plan for the adjacent wall without dealing with the window...options:


1. Bump the wall back into Brent's office a foot (WAY too pricey!)
2. Close it up all together (tried putting cardboard over it for a week and it was very noticeably missing)
3. Replace the window with a smaller one farther away from the wall. (At first we thought this option would also be too pricey, but it turns out custom-sized windows are not that much!  We got both of our custom windows for under $250.  Of course, installing them yourself is also a huge savings...)


Knowing that we would be losing light from the smaller window, we tried to strategize how we could get more light in from that side.  We decided to change out the solid door to the mudroom for a glass paned one, and to install a high window in the mudroom to add more light.
The framing for the new window on the back porch was framed in on Friday night, and the window was installed on Saturday morning.  Today, we have been working on the second window.  First, the old window was removed (along with a chunk of siding).
 Next, the window was removed, leaving a nice big hole on a very gray day!

 Underneath the window framing, we found these newspapers from 1922
 Yeah field hockey!
 Removing the rest of the framing that had to come out required the BIG crowbar.
 Then, new studs went in!
 Next, the new window was framed.
 The mismosh of old and new opening and framing.
We were able to use old lumber we found in the garage and basement to patch the hole without having to buy any more wood.
 The new window in place!
 It's kind of neat how you can see where the old window was thanks to our green planks.
I'm definitely glad that we maintained some light coming from that wall, but now our wall of cabinets will fit in quite nicely on the left.

In other news, we apparently have expensive taste when it comes to under cabinet lighting.  We want it to be dimmable over the long counter, where it will be installed under the high cabinets above the windows.  We want LED because it is very low temperature.  We also need under cabinet lighting in the appliance nook, and on the breakfast bar.  Brent and I both prefer the look of puck lights as opposed to a bar.  Apparently all of these wishes left us with some limited options.... We decided to splurge on the lights that will be above the windows, since we think we will use those most often.  (But in white).
The other two locations will get different lights.  Now we will probably go with a more budget-friendly pendant...
We actually decided to go with this bar light under the appliance nook, since it is very deep, and about two feet wide.

Also, I had suggested that Brent write this post, since he had more technical knowledge of the window replacement process.  He said that I could interview him instead...stay tuned.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Lights are coming!

Since the ELECTRICIAN is HERE RIGHT NOW!!!! I cannot help but think again about lights.  Brent and I mapped out our lighting very carefully on Tuesday night, and, with a smaller island, we decided that we can indeed have one light of interest(score!)!  So, I must continue the quest for the perfect light.  That is what I will do instead of curriculum work....


I am becoming increasingly into the idea of either a clear fixture or one with mercury glass.  These options will have less visual weight, even if they do hang down over the island.  Plus, they will add a little sparkle, but not be TOO formal for our kitchen.  Of course, I'm torn, and the other options are of the heavier antiqued bronze variety (to tie into the dining room light fixture...).




Jamie Young seems to be everywhere and has a couple of options I really like.  I think they would be interesting enough to be on their own (since we would only have ONE fixture over our mini 3-ft island).  All of his designs come in mercury OR seeded clear glass :)




Modern Kitchen Lighting And Cabinet Lighting design by Lighting Fixtures Lamps Plus




I really enjoy the clear, seeded glass.  It also comes in mercury glass
 (http://www.lampsplus.com/products/jamie-young-lafitte-clear-glass-10-inch-wide-pendant-chandelier__m9966.html)

Home Depot













West Elm

Pottery Barn


Lowes

I also like the idea of adding some green touches to the room.  This is an allen + roth from lowes.com











Rustic look: 
http://www.cabelas.com/grand-river-lodge-fishermans-pendant-light.shtml?WT.tsrc=CSE&WT.mc_id=GoogleBaseUSA&WT.z_mc_id1=1170804&rid=40&mr:trackingCode=87AB962F-6E2E-E011-8E88-001B21631C34&mr:referralID=NA
I REALLY want to hear some opinions - so please comment! (here or on fb)

This will most likely be the LAST purchase we make for the kitchen (well except for maybe the trim). This way whatever I buy, I can try it out in the space all finished and return if no me gusta.