Finished Kitchen

I am happy to say, the kitchen is finished. Or at least as finished as it is going to be for awhile.  There are still a few minor things we need to do.  So here are the final photos.

I ended up buying the clock I wanted on EBay, and my neighbor painted the awesome love painting on some reclaimed wood.

A closeup of the painting done by my neighbor Amy Wilson, she does great stuff, you can check it out here and have her create you a one of a kind masterpeice!

My new magnetic chalkboard that I plan to add a calendar to for kids stuff.   Scott just painted the magnetic paint and chalkboard paint, and put trim up around it.

And the final before and after pics.

Not sure what is next, but we will keep you posted.

Bye Bye 80's paneling

I don't have much to write about for this post.  This was actually a pretty easy project for us because we hired a painter to spray the wood. 

There are several people that we know that cannot believe we wanted to paint such nice wood.  And I must say, it was nice, but definitely not our taste.   So what better way to make a change than with paint.

Before

We had the wood sprayed the same white we have been painting the trim in the house.  And we painted the gray ourselves.

One more room tackled.... many more to go.

Now comes the hardest part

I wish this was the blog post that revealed the final project.... but it isn't.  We are so close though.  The only thing we have left to do is stain the rest of the cabinets, and accessorize.  This is the hardest part for me.  I have no idea how to decorate the kitchen now that it is almost finished.  I got inspired by this amazing recycled tin clock I saw at Hobby Lobby, but when I went back to purchase it, it was gone.

Now I am stuck, still love the clock, and love the idea, but don't know where to start.  I think I want to do a colorful, recycled metal theme, but I am not really having luck finding things that are catching my eye. So if anyone knows of any ideas, please send them my way.

So as for the kitchen progress...

Removed the wallpaper.  I know it was great, but we had to part with it.



















We have painted the molding black and attached to the tops of the cabinets.

Installed a new light fixture, nothing fancy.

Removed the posts in the opening that separates the kitchen and living room

Painted.  We went with two colors a darker color on the living room wall, and a lighter color on all the others.

Added outlet covers

Finished the hood.

It is so hard to believe that we were once here......

And here we are today.

Now onto decorating.  Volunteers?  Anyone?

The electrician came..... and brought me an outlet.

So, not much progress has been made on the kitchen lately.  Scott has been working a lot, and I just haven't been motivated for rennovation projects.  The holidays have definitely taken priority.

However.... Scott knew that this weekend was my big holiday baking weekend.  So he thought it would be nice if he put the outlet on the island we had talked about, so that I could use my mixer and other electric appliances on the island.  Since the island originally had a large cooktop on it, there was no surface left for prep, therefore no need for an outlet on the island.

And since the "electrician" (Scott) had to put the outlet/light switch in along with the outlet also came our pendant lights. So I got two fun things today, light and electricity.

The outlet

The pendant lights

 So in my time of not doing projects around the house, I have done a few holiday craft projects.  Our backyard was full of pine cones, so I wanted to put them to use.  The kids and I made a few pine cone trees, and I incorporated some of them into a wreath I made for above the fireplace.  I just used a Styrofoam cone from hobby lobby, some hot glue, and a few simple decorations from the craft store.

Alex's Tree

Evan's Tree



Wreath





I also made a few ornaments which I have been making the last few years for friends and family.  Just a few supplies and you have a personalized ornament.

Ornaments

Just some photos of our holiday decorations from our first Christmas in our new house.

Hopefully we will have the kitchen done soon. Scott is planning to take a week off at the end of this month, so other than refinishing the wood floors it should be done by February... and  I bought the paint today, so that is one step closer.

Happy Holidays!

Midway before and after

Progress is moving slowly as life has taken over.  But I wanted to share the small pieces of progress we are making. The tile is finished, grouted and sealed.  I also decided to take a stab at staining the cabinets.  The top cabinets are finished, and we are pretty pleased with them.  We just went darker with a gel stain, and it turned out pretty nice.  We also replaced the handles with a simple black handle.

Here is kind of a full kitchen view of the progress we have made so far.

Scott had a nice moment the other day, he found his original "to-do" list for the kitchen renovation, and he had 90% of the items finished.  There is still a lot to do, but at least now it is mostly just little, non messy things.

Things left to do:

• Add trim to top of cabinets
• Finish staining cabinets
• replace all cabinet hardware
• put the chimney on the hood
• replace the drawers below the gas stove
• remove wall paper and paint
• purchase and install pendant lights above the island
• paint ceiling
• replace the ugly white coffee pot :)

It might be a while until the final before and after shots are taken, but here is a preview of the transformation made so far.  It is hard to tell from the photos, but we have an extra foot of ceiling height, since Scott removed the drop ceiling and ugly fluorescent light.

Quite a nice change, if you ask me.

Stay tuned, hopefully we will have a final picture sooner than later.

The hood is up

A preview of the almost, well at least much closer to finished kitchen.  The hood is finally in place, finally giving us an idea of the final layout.  I never knew appliances could make a person so happy :)

Adding Tile

After a break from rennovating, Scott found some time to jump back in and get started on some tile work with help from his dad. They hung the cabinets back up and got some of the tile up. 

Below are pictures of the finished drywall.  Scott was once again, bound and determined to to do it himself, and it turned out great.

We are getting closer, and it is starting to come together.  The tile work has been started, and we hope to have it finished soon. 

Here is a preview, hard to tell since it hasn't been grouted, but gives you an idea of the colors.

The top cabinets are back up, looking more and more like the finished product. 

And I finally got to contribute.  I painted the island black this weekend. I am pretty happy with it. We aren't sure what we are going to do with the other cabinets.  If anyone has ideas, please share.  We are not replacing them, but would like to darken them.

Hopefully I will be posting pictures soon, of finished tile work and an installed chimney hood. 

Stay tuned....