Not too dark, not too gray, just right. Thanks for sharing, Mom! Lucky me, I went to find a store nearby and stumbled upon a $10 off coupon. Enjoy!
Jan 10, 2011
And the winner is...
After receiving a lot of feedback (thanks, Everyone!) about the three cabinet colors below, I've decided on something entirely different. Sorry! My mom sent me this color and let's just say she knows me well. Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you Sherwin Williams' Cascade Green:
Jan 9, 2011
Cabinets are in the mail!
I've got the FedEx tracking number in hand! Our new cabinet doors are estimated to arrive on January 14th.
We can't wait to get going on this project and painting will be a lot easier than expected with the sprayer my dad is shipping to us. We're almost finished with the kitchen! We still need to add crown moulding and paint the cabinet bases, but we're so close to the finish line that it's hard not to get excited. We thought we were sold on the color-matched Kitchen Maid cabinets, but now we're having doubts. I picked up two additional samples and put them on our existing cabinets to get an idea of how they'd each look. What are your thoughts? If this were your kitchen with your bright white Silestone counters and your off-white, almost gray-brown tile floors what color would you pick?
I know what you're thinking and yes, white does look nice. It doesn't look nice when there are three different shades of competing white (counters are bright white, floors are off white, and cabinets are white) in one kitchen and no warmth in the floor. If we could afford carerra marble counters and wide pine floors, I would be all about a white cabinet. But that's not the case, so we're working with what we've got. Thanks for your help, everyone!
We can't wait to get going on this project and painting will be a lot easier than expected with the sprayer my dad is shipping to us. We're almost finished with the kitchen! We still need to add crown moulding and paint the cabinet bases, but we're so close to the finish line that it's hard not to get excited. We thought we were sold on the color-matched Kitchen Maid cabinets, but now we're having doubts. I picked up two additional samples and put them on our existing cabinets to get an idea of how they'd each look. What are your thoughts? If this were your kitchen with your bright white Silestone counters and your off-white, almost gray-brown tile floors what color would you pick?
Kitchen Remodel: Post #3
In order to accomplish priming, painting or adding crown moulding, we first had to remove the odd leftover wall above our new fridge. Here's a quick reminder of what that bad boy looked like:
I must admit, I was a bit nervous heading into this project. Demolition is no problem. I spent two weeks doing just that to homes destroyed by Katrina. I love demolition. It's the rebuilding/patching/making pretty part that had us both a little anxious. So anxious, in fact, that once the wall was down we called my dad in a panic asking him to fly up here. Of course, we quickly realized that joint compound and spackle aren't that scary and now we've got a much more open kitchen to show for it. Here's the start of the demolition:
I thought Mark had everything under control at this point so I went upstairs to put away laundry. A few moments later I heard, "Laurie, you should get down here. This is so cool and will make for a great picture on the blog!" Out of the remaining duct work there was a pesky nail that wouldn't come out and Mark was sawing it off with a Dremel. Sparks were flying everywhere, his face right next to the blade, with no goggles to be found. I screamed, told him to stop and asked him where his goggles were, to which he replied, "I don't need goggles. My eyes are beautiful." Exactly. Fortunately I got my way and he got back to sawing. He was right, it did make for a really cool picture...of sparks flying at his face.
Then it became time to patch the walls. It was no big deal until everything dried and sanding began. Being the novices that we are, we didn't think to tape off the room and air ducts. We thought wrong. Very wrong. Our kitchen is drafty and that draft tends to move the air out of the kitchen and into the dining room. Mix a fine powder into that air, and you've got an impressively dirty home. So on day two we learned from our mistakes and taped our doorway and vents.
The air in the kitchen was caustic, but the rest of the house was no worse for the wear. We also learned a lot about joint compound and spackle. I think the most important lessons include: over filling the holes to create a smooth wall by sanding, sanding with long strokes, and waiting for everything to fully dry before you sand. Also, if you're a first timer like us, we totally recommend the DAP Pink-to-White spackle. It goes on pink and dries white, which kept us from constantly poking our wet spackle to check if it was dry. We also used Glidden's Pink-to-White ceiling paint with great ease. It kept us from re-painting areas that didn't need it and knowing just how well the paint was covering (or not covering) the ceiling.
After we sanded, primed and painted, we walked away with an imperfect, but good enough, wall above our fridge.
That's not all we've managed to do, either. All of the walls are now painted in Glidden's Smooth Stone and we couldn't love it more. We could love the weather more. Apparently if your exterior walls are less than 50F, paint doesn't dry correctly and peels off in sheets. Space heaters came to the rescue, but not before I exchanged a few "adult words" with the walls that I just finished a second coat on. FYI: the ceiling isn't trimmed in the above pic because we're adding the 4.5" crown moulding. The tile next to the fridge is also officially repaired. Thanks to Bo's help, of course:
The tile project really stretched Mark. He had to bust out a lot of existing tile, move pieces around and learn how to retile a floor. I'm pretty proud of him for doing such a great job. The finished product is seamless. In addition, all of the trim and doors have been given with a fresh coat of white, I knocked out that awkward shelf above the island (we plan to put built in cabinets up there) and repaired the wall, and we managed to rig a recessed can light over the sink into a hanging pendant light. Check out my sheer brawn:
The can light was interesting for a few reasons. First, we thought we could use an adapter kit that they sell on TV, but our model was too old. Then when we talked with the helpful folks at Home Depot they basically gave us a useless answer, so we created our own solution that involved a blue plastic electrical box and some 2x4s cut to make a bridge that held the box flush with the ceiling.
Most interesting was the discovery of construction waste inside our cabinets. Once we pulled out the can light, we found a variety of sheet rock, wood and debris tucked up in the built-out ceiling:
Frank really loved the exposed wires hanging from the box. Like all good parents, we let him play with live wires and grabbed the camera. Isn't he the cutest?
Here's the pendant, semi-finished. We still need to paint the ceiling around it and caulk the decorative medallion to the ceiling (we had to add it to cover up the giant hole the can light left).
So there you have it folks, you're officially up-to-date on our kitchen remodel and yes, in case you're curious, we're exhausted.
I must admit, I was a bit nervous heading into this project. Demolition is no problem. I spent two weeks doing just that to homes destroyed by Katrina. I love demolition. It's the rebuilding/patching/making pretty part that had us both a little anxious. So anxious, in fact, that once the wall was down we called my dad in a panic asking him to fly up here. Of course, we quickly realized that joint compound and spackle aren't that scary and now we've got a much more open kitchen to show for it. Here's the start of the demolition:
I thought Mark had everything under control at this point so I went upstairs to put away laundry. A few moments later I heard, "Laurie, you should get down here. This is so cool and will make for a great picture on the blog!" Out of the remaining duct work there was a pesky nail that wouldn't come out and Mark was sawing it off with a Dremel. Sparks were flying everywhere, his face right next to the blade, with no goggles to be found. I screamed, told him to stop and asked him where his goggles were, to which he replied, "I don't need goggles. My eyes are beautiful." Exactly. Fortunately I got my way and he got back to sawing. He was right, it did make for a really cool picture...of sparks flying at his face.
The air in the kitchen was caustic, but the rest of the house was no worse for the wear. We also learned a lot about joint compound and spackle. I think the most important lessons include: over filling the holes to create a smooth wall by sanding, sanding with long strokes, and waiting for everything to fully dry before you sand. Also, if you're a first timer like us, we totally recommend the DAP Pink-to-White spackle. It goes on pink and dries white, which kept us from constantly poking our wet spackle to check if it was dry. We also used Glidden's Pink-to-White ceiling paint with great ease. It kept us from re-painting areas that didn't need it and knowing just how well the paint was covering (or not covering) the ceiling.
After we sanded, primed and painted, we walked away with an imperfect, but good enough, wall above our fridge.
That's not all we've managed to do, either. All of the walls are now painted in Glidden's Smooth Stone and we couldn't love it more. We could love the weather more. Apparently if your exterior walls are less than 50F, paint doesn't dry correctly and peels off in sheets. Space heaters came to the rescue, but not before I exchanged a few "adult words" with the walls that I just finished a second coat on. FYI: the ceiling isn't trimmed in the above pic because we're adding the 4.5" crown moulding. The tile next to the fridge is also officially repaired. Thanks to Bo's help, of course:
The tile project really stretched Mark. He had to bust out a lot of existing tile, move pieces around and learn how to retile a floor. I'm pretty proud of him for doing such a great job. The finished product is seamless. In addition, all of the trim and doors have been given with a fresh coat of white, I knocked out that awkward shelf above the island (we plan to put built in cabinets up there) and repaired the wall, and we managed to rig a recessed can light over the sink into a hanging pendant light. Check out my sheer brawn:
Here's the pendant, semi-finished. We still need to paint the ceiling around it and caulk the decorative medallion to the ceiling (we had to add it to cover up the giant hole the can light left).
So there you have it folks, you're officially up-to-date on our kitchen remodel and yes, in case you're curious, we're exhausted.
Jan 1, 2011
We're officially open for business
I promised an update on the guest bedroom so here goes:
Removing Noah's Ark and painting seemed easy enough, so you would think that getting window treatments up wouldn't be so hard, right? Wrong. Where does time go? The great deals I snagged on window treatments (2 blinds, 2 curtain rods and 4 curtain panels for less than $100. Yes, please.) didn't seem to give us enough motivation to actually hang everything. Finally on the most productive day of 2010 (Dec. 30th in case you were curious), we got to hanging. Except hanging sounds like we were doing something exciting like rock climbing when really I'm blogging about curtain rods. Wow...
So here it is in all of its guest-worthy glory:
I'm not a fan of the orange lamp or the outdated fan, but both will have to wait while we tackle the larger projects in our home. Namely the sudden leak in our kitchen ceiling. Yes, that's right over our bathroom sink. No, I'm not going into details in this blog post. Yes, I will get around to it once I meet with the granite counter estimator tomorrow. It's a fun story full of hangovers and ebay, quite possibly the most incredible combination ever.
The guest room budget breakdown:
Removing Noah's Ark and painting seemed easy enough, so you would think that getting window treatments up wouldn't be so hard, right? Wrong. Where does time go? The great deals I snagged on window treatments (2 blinds, 2 curtain rods and 4 curtain panels for less than $100. Yes, please.) didn't seem to give us enough motivation to actually hang everything. Finally on the most productive day of 2010 (Dec. 30th in case you were curious), we got to hanging. Except hanging sounds like we were doing something exciting like rock climbing when really I'm blogging about curtain rods. Wow...
So here it is in all of its guest-worthy glory:
 |
| Newly on display is this beautiful antique letter press that Mark gave for Christmas. |
The guest room budget breakdown:
- Paint and Primer: $50 at Ace Hardware
- Bedding: $90 at Target. The coverlet was on sale!
- Bed and Dresser: Given to us by my parents.
- Side table: Given to us by Scott and Katie (Mark's brother and his super talented wife).
- Window treatments: $100 at Target and Home Depot
- Chair: $32.50 ($3 at Goodwill for the chair, $18 at Target for the pillow case, $5 foam, $3.50 for staples and $3 for upholstery tacks that I didn't use but opened and therefore can't return. I already had the spray paint.) Read more about this project.
- Rug: $120 from OneKingsLane.com. If you aren't a subscriber, you really should be. We actually store our clothes in closets outside the master bedroom to avoid waking each other in the mornings. This room is mine and stepping on this super plush rug each morning is a total treat.
- Picture Frames: I purchased the yellow frame at Target to match the pillow and the portraits on the wall for only $3 in their dorm decorating section, the other two frames were gifts.
- Antique portraits and frames: These were inherited from my maternal grandmother and I love them.
- Grand Total: $395.50. Considering this budget included paint and blinds, I'm not terribly disappointed. I'd like to squeeze in a bit more style for $400, but the room looks clean and comfortable and it has a very "guest room" feeling. Not that I would know, since I'm not one. Which brings me to my next point: when are you coming to stay with us?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)