Kitchen Remodel Questions...Answered!

A few people have asked me some questions about the kitchen remodel in our first house,
so here are your answers!

Thanks for the compliment, Anna! 

The cabinets we went with were special order cabinets from Lowe's. 

Stock cabinets would have been cheaper, but they just weren't very good quality. 

We went with Shenandoah cabinets, which were on the cheaper end of the special order cabinetry, but were still good quality. 

The style of the Shenandoah cabinets we picked out was Winchester and the color was Maple Cream Glaze. It was a nice, warm cream color.

 We chose to go with Lowe's over Home Dept because they do FREE consultations and will draw up a kitchen plan for you (Home Depot charges for this service).

I'm happy to give you more info on the laminate, Missy!

We also ordered our laminate counters from Lowe's. We went with Wilsonart Laminate and the pattern was called Kalahari Topaz, which was a neutral light and dark beige combination.

This isn't the best picture of it, but it gives you an idea of what it looked like up close.

We went with the beveled edge finish, instead of the traditional waterfall edge that you see on most laminate counter tops. In my opinion, I think this is what made it look more like a stone counter top.

We had originally wanted to go with a glossy-finished laminate that looked just like granite. However, the expert at Lowe's told us that a glossy finish would show every single little scratch, so we ended up going with a matte-finished pattern. 

And we were so happy that we did!

Good luck with your kitchen remodel!!!

A Craigslist Lesson

I've been searching Craigslist for weeks upon weeks,

looking for the perfect armoire to house our big ugly TV in our bedroom.

One afternoon last week, I found it.
EXACTLY what I had been looking for. 

And the price was right.

It looked  just like this one from Pottery Barn.

Except it was unfinished wood.

And it definitely did not cost $1,199!

I waited until the next morning so that I could show my husband before I bought it,

BUT IT WAS GONE!!!

UUUUUGGGGGHHHHH,

WHY DID I WAIT!?

Totally kicking myself.

Our First House: Kitchen Remodel

My favorite project that we did in our first house was the kitchen, hands down.

It was the biggest transformation.

But it was also the most difficult project.

And the most expensive one too.

But oh, what a difference in made in the whole look of the house!

Here it was in all of its hideousness before we bought it.

I cringe just looking at those pictures.
That was one UGLY kitchen!

We started out by painting the walls a sage-ish green,
removing the ceiling fan (who puts a ceiling fan in the middle of a tiny kitchen!?) and
replaced the door to the garage with a solid-core white one.

Then we tore out the heinous pink and cream linoleum and the taupe carpet

and replaced it with real hardwood that we found in the clearance section at Lowe's.

That made a huge difference!

But it also made the cabinets look even uglier.

In hindsight, we should have torn out the kitchen cabinets first, then replaced the flooring because the new cabinets didn't exactly line up with where the old ones had been on the floor. We ended up having a gap on the floor between the the cabinets and the hardwood flooring.
OR
We should have saved some of the flooring to put in the gap after we replaced the cabinets.
Luckily, it was nothing a little molding couldn't cover up.

After adding in recessed lights to brighten up the kitchen,

the real work began.

If anyone ever tells you it is easy to demo and replace kitchen cabinets,

they're out of their mind!

And be prepared to live in absolute disarray until you can get it all put back together again.

We had already replaced the dishwasher and were planning to replace the fridge too, 

but the stove was brand new when we bought the house. 

However, while we were removing the upper cabinets, 

we dropped one onto our glass-top stove and put a big ol' crack in it.

Don't you just hate when that happens!?

We found out that replacing the glass top would cost us almost as much as it would to just buy a new stove.

I would have preferred stainless steel appliances over white, 

but since the white stove had been new, we had already purchased a new white dishwasher. UUUUGGGHHHH!

So we were stuck with the white.

But I guess the white made the tiny kitchen seem a bit bigger.

The HARDEST part was hanging the upper cabinets.

I had to hold the humongous things up (and keep them level) 

with my scrawny arms while Jacob screwed them in.

We had a very hard time locating the studs to screw them into, 

so our new cabinets ended up with a few more screw holes than needed.

Thank goodness for wood putty!

Then we learned that you can cut out a strip of the drywall and attach a long board to the studs so that you can screw your cabinets into the board instead of trying to drill into the studs through the cabinets.
It will all get hidden once you hang

the cabinets anyways.

That made things MUCH easier!

The base cabinets were much easier to install. 

We didn't have to hold them up in place and 

we finally got the hang of what we were doing.

We ended up going with a laminate for the counters.

We figured it wasn't cost-effective for us to do granite because 

we probably wouldn't see a return on our investment if we spent that much.

We got a nice stone-looking laminate with beveled edges.

It looked really good.

It fooled a lot of people; most thought it was corian.

However, (there's always a however, isn't there?) 

it turned out our walls were not straight,

so the new laminate backsplash had a big gap between it and the wall.

I'm talking big here. 

So big I could stick my whole hand down behind it.

 We never did figure out how to fix that.

It wasn't too noticeable if you put some accessories in front of it :).

I loved that big sink. 

You could wash a (small) dog in it,

a whole cookie sheet,

a baby,

 or a big baking dish.

We're definitely going to have to put one of those in our new house.

I miss that sink.

And here are the after pictures...

 

See that big, new fridge?

It was much bigger than the old, crappy one that we inherited with the house.

So much bigger it blocked the door to the garage (yes we measured first!), 

but once we got it home it just didn't work.

So Jacob and his dad had to cut an alcove into the wall behind the fridge to make it fit.

And that required rewiring and replumbing.

And putting up new drywall.

What a headache!

But it turned out very nicely!

It was A LOT of hard work and 

it took A LOT of time,

but we were SO pleased with the results!

Here's the transformation one more time...

 

Our First House

This was our first house.

All 1,080 square feet of it.

 We lived in that tiny house for 5 years and remodeled every square inch of it,

from the roof all the way down to the flooring. And we did everything ourselves. 

Yes, even the roof.

This is what it looked like when we bought it in 2004.

 Wasn't it hideous!?

I remember the first night we slept in it. I remember thinking  

We just spent a whole bunch of money on a total piece of crap.

Well five years later, after a whole LOT of DIY work 

and a ton of lessons learned (mostly what NOT to do),

we sold our first little house.

Due to all of our hard work, 

it sold after only 5 days on the market (in a terrible economy)!!

Thanks to our first little house, we were able to buy a much, much bigger home

to house our family of five. A home that I LOVE.

 Don't get me wrong. I loved our first little house too, 

but only after we put lots and lots of work into it.

Since we sold the house as soon as we finished all of the remodeling, 

I never got to show off what we did.

So anyways, I thought I'd share some of the improvements 

we made to our first house every now and then, 

along with the lessons we learned along the way.

Stay tuned...

Free to Fab Inspiration

While gathering my daily decorating inspiration by reading through my favorite blogs this morning,
I saw this at Knock-off Wood.

I thought it was SO cool that I had to share it.

Ana took this...

 A FREE PALLET!

and turned it into this beauty...

Photos courtesy of Knock-off Wood

A beautiful reclaimed wood collector's shelf.

That is definitely one to save in the idea files!

A niche, a vignette...I just call it CUTE

I'm on a little hiatus from The Master Bedroom Project...

My husband had to go to Alaska for a few days for work,
we celebrated his 30th birthday when he got home,
all three kids got one doosy of a flu that lasted forever,
and then the weather got super nice, so we've been spending lots of time outside
and so...
decorating the bedroom just kinda got put on hold.

We are still working on things,
just very sporadically.
Jacob is working on my new dresser
(he's got most of the wood all cut)
and I have figured out my nightstand "situation"
(but more on that later).

So between cleaning up throw up, doing massive amounts of laundry, and trying to stay (somewhat) on top of running the household,
I managed to squeeze in a tiny bit of spring decorating.

Using a foam ball, some fake moss, my glue gun, and a stick from the backyard,
I made my own little topiary.
Using this treasure I found for $1.99 at St. Vincent de Paul...I spray painted, sanded and added some twine
and it turned into this beauty...

I added in a wooden watering can found at Safeway for $9.99
and a little bird house from our local craft store
and viola...A little display of Spring greets you as you walk in our front door.


I'm also posting this at:
Shabby Chic Cottage's Transformation Thursday: Spring Fling Edition,
Just Something I Whipped Up,
Beyond the Picket Fence's Under $100 Linky Party,
Fingerprints on the Fridge's Feature Yourself Friday

No matchy-matchy here

I'm not a big fan of matchy-matchy bedroom sets. I like furniture pieces to look good together and to complement each other, but I don't believe that you have to buy all of your furniture together for it to look good. In fact, I prefer buying pieces separately. It gives a room a more unique look instead of looking mass-produced.

We bought our nightstands when we first got married and I like them okay. I just don't love the color of the wood. I don't think painting them white would look good either since they have black exposed bolts and hardware. I could sand and re-stain them, but I am hung up because our bed and dressers are white...so would wood colored nightstands look alright???

So I started browsing around the internet looking at bedrooms and I noticed that a lot of bedrooms that I like, have nightstands that aren't the same color as the headboard. In fact, I like it better when they aren't the exact same color. It makes the rooms look interesting...

Photo courtesy of Country Living

Photos courtesy of Pottery Barn

Photos courtesy of Coastal Living

So after seeing all of these beautiful bedrooms, I was convinced that it was okay to re-stain our nightstands and not have them be white like the rest of our furniture.

Here is a what our nightstands looked like before.
I did no tidying up for the picture; this is what it looks like on a typical day.
(Mental note: invest in some storage for all of those well-loved books and magazines!)And here's the after.
I sanded and then stained (3 coats of Minwax Polyshades in Antique Walnut Satin - same color stain I used on the curtain rod).(It looks more reddish in the pictures that it actually is)

I loved how it looked when I was in the garage.
Then I got it upstairs...and I have to say that I'm just not feelin' it.

I don't know what it is though...
Is it too dark?
Is it the brushed nickel lamp base that makes it look weird?
Is it too polished looking - does it need to look more rustic?
Do we have too many different finishes going on?

Here is a picture with both nightstands -
the one I re-stained and the one I haven't touched yet.
What do you think? Advice, anyone???