Archive for the ‘Kitchens’ Category

Whether you are looking to purchase all new or re-purpose and make new, the “One Day Design” service could work for you.  Here are a few examples of the great job one of my clients did bringing some of my designs suggestions to reality…thanks again for the pictures!

Living Room (Before)

Living Room (After)

Hallway (Before)

Hallway (After)

Dining Room (Before)

Dining Room (After)

Kitchen (After)

So what’s “in” on backsplashes…. bold and trendy. It’s the most useful decoration in the kitchen, protecting the wall from spitter splatters while managing to look pretty the whole time. Sometimes all a kitchen needs is a fresh new splash. Here are some of my favorites….

1. Sea-swirl glass 2.Long oval ceramic tile, 3.Stainless Steel Ovals , 4.Colorful circle mosaics,5.Multidimensional tile, 6. 100% Aluminum recylced tiles, 7.Recycled glass tile

The kitchen was complete but that wall between the dining and kitchen room was really starting to bug me, so one night(about 2 weeks ago, 1  1/2 weeks before we were expecting 18 people over for the holidays)I decided I wanted that wall out and  an hour later we were ripping out plaster.

When we had bought the house we intended to take the wall down, but then it just seemed to get further and further on the bottom of our list.  We should have taken the wall down before we started the kitchen, but we were getting  ready to  put the house on the market and needed to get the major stuff done and taking down a messy plaster wall was not on the top of that list. Yes, we were going to sell our first home. The house we wanted sold and it worked out for the better because now we have time for some more projects!!!!Needing to fit 18 people in one room for the holidays was a blessing in disguise and we’re so incredibly happy with how it turned out.

Here’s a picture before…The kitchen with the wall.

The kitchen and dining without the wall and a new look.

Still to be done…eventually:

The hard wood floors will be refinished to match the rest of the hard wood. Yes, some think we’re crazy, but unfortunately with having a dog, 2 kids and a border line OCD problem(that’s me) the black just isn’t the most forgiving when it comes to scratches and dirt. I was aware of all that, but reeeally wanted the black and wanted to at least try it.  In the back of my head I knew we could change it if it didn’t work out  and besides Matt the handy man looooves redoing hardwood floors:) We also need to put up the crown molding and a wooden fabricated valance, like the one in Liv’s room, above the window and this project will be checked off our list for some time to come!

Here’s a picture with our new faucet and wall color “deep space”.

The custom made butcher block countertops and open shelving…made by my favorite handy man, Matt.

The newly painted dining room with the same “deep space” color.

A new piece of furniture for the newly painted wall.

We’re almost there! Our kitchen progress….

Open shelving done!

Custom built-in #1

Concrete Countertops

This side of the kitchen is still a work in progress… (new stove area with new custom built-ins)

So we’re in week 6 of our kitchen renovation and with only being able to work on it a few hours a day, we’re making progress.

Our completed tasks…Removed the old linoleum flooring and installed/stained new wood floors; Removed  old formica countertops and created new concrete countertops from start to finish; Added a new under mount sink and faucet; Modified and reconfigured the layout; Removed the old tile back splash and added new subway tile onto the wall; Built custom wood brackets, wall shelving and base shelving units; Primed and painted most of the cabinet doors, frames, shelves and trim.

Tasks to complete… Add new hinges, hardware and hang all the doors; Complete all custom built in’s; Finish up all the painting and we will have ourselves a functioning kitchen:)

Here’s a preview pic of the progress.

Most people would prefer purchasing wood flooring that is already pre-treated with the stain of their choice, but if you want to save some money you can purchase unfinished flooring and do it yourself. For us this was a no brainer since we already stained 1400 sq ft of wood floors… what was a couple hundred more.

Thursday evening we sanded, pre-stained and stained the floors.  Typically, a good rule of thumb is to stick with one stain through out a house to maintain a good flow and create a larger looking space, but we chose an Ebony stain. With the Ebony we really wanted to add some contrast and ground the white cabinetry, subway tile and walls in the space.

Friday we added another layer of stain and it’s still in the drying process. We’re doubling the set time to make sure we don’t smear the stain when we apply the water based polyurethane.  Again, a general rule is that you do not want to mix oil and water but from careful research and from Minwax directly, you can use water based poly but need to lengthen the drying time for the stain to make sure it’s completely cured.

Counter top progress coming soon…..

Sunday we picked up our untreated wood floors from Lumber Liquidators for our kitchen. We weren’t intending to start the kitchen renovation until the following weekend, but we were a bit anxious to demo the kitchen. We tried getting our hands on some salvaged wood at Construction Junction, but the lots were either too small or too large, so we had to settle for buying new.

Sunday night we started ripping out some of the linoleum and sub flooring just to see what we were getting into for the next day. Oh, and when I say “we” through this demo section, I really mean Matt…someone had to watch the kids:)Monday was a full day of floor demo with removing flooring, appliances and base cabinets to make way for the new floors. Tuesday evening the new floors started to go in and by Wednesday evening the floors were completely installed. Total time from demo to laid floors was about two full days because Tuesday and Wednesday were just a couple hours each evening. Now on to staining the floors…. building the concrete molds and setting the concrete for the countertops….building all new open wall shelving….and painting!!!!!

Our work in progress….

Yesterday we started the process of ordering the concrete for our new countertops to be formed next week!  Here’s a short litst of some key items going into the remod in the next few weeks:

• Concrete!!! After much research and a new mix being offered from Quikrete, we decided to take on the daunting task of doing this DIY just as we have with every other project.  One particularly great site we found was Wes and Sarah’s (WesandSarah.com) showing their modern remodel of their kitchen including the countertops.  Ours will take on a slightly more classic feel to match the rest of our house, but will definitely have modern touches.  Here is a picture of their kitchen:

• Subway Tile Backsplash. While we considered going with a glass tile, we decided to pull influences from the living room mantle hearth and the downstairs hearth (both with Subway tile) to have a better flow from each room and keep the kitchen more classic even with the concrete countertops.  A similar example can be seen in this link.

• Tile / Cork / or Hardwood? While originally we wanted to refinish and reuse hardwood flooring for our kitchen, the process to take out the subfloor below was decided to be too much since it would involve moving out all the cabinetry.  Having 2 kids and limited time comes into play and without a kitchen life would be tough.  Our second option was cork, but again although it’s resistant to water and we’ve seen it done in other kitchens, kids would be very hard on this surface.  Our final option is probably tile but we have not made the final selection.  This step will be done after the cabinets are refinished everything else is installed.

• Faucet… We’ve had our faucet for almost a year sitting in our pantry.  It’s finally time to get a move on!   It’s very similar to our bathroom faucets but this one is made by Huntington Brass (WYKTS01BL):

• Lastly, here is my nemesis and one of the last major remodels, I dare show you now… The Green Monster kitchen before: