Kitchen: Phase 1 - Complete?

Our goal this week was to really focus on finishing our kitchen so that we can completely unpack and put away everything and finally be able to cook a full meal without scavenging through boxes looking for utensils and gadgets!

First, after getting the kitchen sink installed, I had to re-sand, patch and repaint the cabinet below it. We reused the piece of wood that ran along the top of the cabinet in that section and moved it down to makeup for the giant hole that the false drawer used to take up.

Next, James and I worked on putting up the crown molding that we got to transition from the ceiling to the upper cabinets. I wanted a more seamless look and we found a thin molding that worked perfect. This was a daunting task since we have a corner cabinet that is at a weird angle (56 degrees) and we didn't necessarily know the best way to get the correct angles in the molding. I wish I had counted how many cuts we had to make to get the right angles, because it was A LOT! Eventually, though, we got close enough with all the cuts and amazingly, we had bought the perfect amount of molding to make up for all of our mistakes. With those cut, James nailed them up with the nail gun and I filled in any gaps with spackle. 

One corner spackled, obviously there is some sanding and smoothing out to be done.

Molding on, still waiting to be painted

The molding turned out nice, it looked way better than before! But the above picture brings me to another project. After getting our upper cabinet up and the doors on, I realized that I couldn't live with myself if I just left that dingy color on the base of the cabinets. Finally, I just decided to take off the doors and repaint everything with a fresh coat of white. Yes, I will have to re-wax and yes, it's going to take some time but after I got that coat on, I was so glad I did it. With this coat, the grease stains finally aren't coming through anymore... after all, there are now three layers of wax between them and the fresh, new paint. Below is a picture showing the difference, before and after (before is the horizontal piece, after is the vertical)...

It may not seem very obvious in the photo, but trust me, there is a significant difference! Anyway, I can't wait to paint the molding and get a few coats of wax on so that we can put the doors back one, they're going to look great with these few extra touches that we added!

Next up, finishing the lower cabinets... I give my dad credit for putting the hardware on all of the doors and drawers. The hardware also wasn't an easy task... we had 3" hardware with a 3-1/2" existing hole spread, so it took some finesse to get them right... but afterwards, they all turned out great!

So that's it for the kitchen... you may have noticed that I haven't posted many "finished" photos... in the next week or so I'm going to post the "after" pictures of all of the projects that we have been working on in there, I just wanted everything to be done and cleaned up so that I can get some nice shots. At that point, the kitchen still wont be completely done by any means, we still have open shelving and back splash to install (both of which are pretty big projects), but it will be totally "functioning", meaning I can put everything away, use our cupboards and drawers and actually set things on our counter top!

We did finish one other project outside of the kitchen though and that was installing shelving in our bedroom closet. We ended up using the pre-made shelving board available at Home Depot and stuck with a pretty basic design. We did one shelf up high for storing out of season clothes, a stack of shelves on either side for each of us and two rods for hanging. The pre-made shelving was pretty cool because they already had pre-drilled holes for pegs, which made making the actual shelves super easy.

First we ripped out the boards that were running horizontally along our walls...

Then we did all the necessary cutting and put in the two side shelves and the top shelf...

And finally, we installed the rods...

I filled the holes in the wall that ripping out that board left, and the next step was supposed to be painting the strip but somehow I totally spaced and didn't even think about painting before I started putting all of our clothes away... one day :)

The finished product turned out pretty good for how affordable the materials were and I think overall, it only took us about an hour and a half to completely put together! We plan on doing the same thing for the two other closets...

Here is the BEFORE

And here is the AFTER!

So that's it for this week, but I really am looking forward to putting the finishing touches on the kitchen and sharing everything soon! Also, the husband promised me a trip to big city this weekend to so some furniture shopping,and by that, I mean the Sacramento IKEA haha! Really though, I've been searching for the right shelving/storage solution for our bathroom and I can always find something at IKEA! With that said, I really hope that I can tidy up our bathroom situation as well and get that space looking nice enough to share a "finished" post for too.

Special thanks this week to my dad and Teresa for helping us get to the finish line with our kitchen!

First Week in the New Digs

Still struggling with not having an at-home internet connection and being very busy at work, so I'm doing a short, quickie post to appease my regular followers (which, at most, I think is maybe a grand total of 6 people... but still, this one if for you guys!)

After move in day last weekend, we had a pretty low key Sunday. My sister had her graduation party at my mom's house, so we got a little break from all of the work at the house. But on Monday my dad and I were back at it since I had the day off of work for President's Day. My dad was at my house bright and early to start working on getting our kitchen sink installed. First we got the hole cut for the sink...

..and then we got to putting together our super cool new Delta faucet (it's super cool cause it has a touch sensor!!)

Removing all of the old waste pipe

The new sink and faucet in place

There was still a lot of work do be done though, we were waiting on one of the drain strainers to get delivered to Home Depot to finish up the sink, so we were only using the left side of the sink for a few days. (We currently have a fully functioning sink now, I'll post a few more pics in the next post, coming soon). After our final extra coats of Waterlox on the counter tops around the sink, we can then caulk it and it will be completely finished!

On another note, we've been enjoying our new place, but still staying busy. We've completed a few more projects that I can't wait to show off, like our cabinets! We still have one drawer that we need to buy a track for, but other than that, the outside of our lower cabinets are finished and they look great! I am quickly trying to find some in-cabinet storage solutions for a few of the deeper cabinets, but soon we should be able to unpack almost all of our "kitchen" boxes.

Also, you may not have noticed, but as we've been chugging along, I've been editing and marking things off of our To-Do List. There are also quite a few things that I wanted to add to it, though...

• Pass our 203k loan inspection and get our contractors paid (we passed on Monday!)
• Add crown molding to the tops of the upper kitchen cabinets
• Install leftover butcher block as a window sill for the kitchen window
• Install a larger window sill for the bathroom window
• Design, build and install shelving for the three closets in the house
• Install doors for the three closets
• Install ceiling fan in living room, ceiling fans in bedrooms and new light fixtures throughout the house
• Design and build a frame for our bed
• Design and build a temporary shelter for our goats (more to come on this later)
• Fence in the goat pasture

Obviously we will be adding to our list as we run out of projects inside the house and start heading outdoors, but that's it for now!

The Final Lap... of the First Race

(or second, depending on how you look at it)

I guess that the first real hurdle was closing escrow on the loan, and that did take some significant time (almost 3 months) Then, our objective was to make the house livable and "nice" again, and we were able to do that in a matter of two and a half months. And finally, our end goal is to make this house a home... to live in it, decorate it and really make it our own! And with that said, I am so happy to say that we are finally living in our new-to-us home! This last week was a mad rush to get things to a point where we were comfortable with moving in... if only at least partially!

We did some more painting... my mom painted our bedroom and closet...

Our bedroom ceiling (it's a dark purple, a shade darker than the living room accent walls)

...while I started in the bathroom.

Painting behind this sink was almost impossible, ugh!

In the kitchen, Kyla and I started the prep work on my plans for the only bare wall in the room (everything else in the kitchen will eventually be covered by either cabinets or back splash). I debated for a while if I wanted to do an accent color on this wall and I even played around with the idea of wallpaper, but no pattern that I saw caught my eye. Finally I decided to just go for it and paint my own stripes!

We measured, leveled and tapes off sections for stripes and then I painted on the first layer of white to seal the edges of the painters tape for the color.

The next day when the seal paint was dry, I was able to paint the actually colored stripes and peel off the tape when the paint was still wet...

I learned this trick online and although it might be common knowledge for painters to do stripes this way, I was pleasantly surprised at just how good our stripes turned out. They did need a little bit of touching up inside the stripes in areas that the paint was a little thin, but other than that, the lines themselves were basically flawless with absolutely NO bleeding underneath the tape, despite textured walls. I gotta say, these stripes turned out really good!

We used a lot of tape!

While us girls painted away, the boys continued their work on the counter tops. James has been putting layer after layer of Waterlox on the butcher block since we first cut them... in the end, we will have 3 layers on the bottom, probably about 5-6 layers on the tops and then a few extra layers on top of that around the sink area.

On Tuesday, they starting with routing the holes for the connectors...

After those were all done, Colt finished them off by gluing and leveling all the counter tops together. I might make it sound simple, but these counter tops were really hard work and we they definitely wouldn't have turned out as good as they did if it weren't for Colt's expertise! Although the counter tops are close, they still aren't completely done... we still have to do some sanding and a few more layers of seal!

So... then came the weekend, Saturday was moving day! We definitely weren't ready for all of our stuff but the guys (Justin, Ryan and James) did 2 trips from the in-laws in 3 trucks and a trailer and got A LOT of stuff over to the house. I was able to unpack a few boxes but other than our kitchen, our house is still seriously lacking in storage space. We plan on building shelves in all 3 of the closets in the house soon, but until then, a lot of our stuff is going to have to stay in boxes. Not to mention, the house is still under construction, we have quite a few projects still going on and unpacking unnecessary items would just make a bigger mess!

We were able, though, to bring in  and unpack our new refrigerator and stove and they looked absolutely glorious in our new kitchen!

It was a long day... but regardless of the chaos, we were finally able to end the day (Valentines Day) with our bottle of Dom Perignon that we got as a wedding gift and share it with our friends. We were waiting for a special occasion to open it and we couldn't think of a better time to pop that baby!

All we had to drink out of were the glasses that came with the champagne and coffee cups! haha!

But the best part about finally living in our house was being able to have our pups with us and to get to sleep with this girl again!

This week, my personal super heroes were Colt and Kyla, my mom, my husband and our buds, Justin and Ryan, for helping us finally be ready to move in! More to come very soon, like my dad and I installing our kitchen sink and dishwasher!

...Like a Home

Yes, our little HUD house is finally starting to look like a home! (Better yet, it's starting to smell like a home) I swear, each week we pump out more work than the last and this week a few projects got completed that have really polished the place up!

First off, the floors got finished... every photo I have of them they are super dirty and have been that way even since they were done, but still, they look great!

Tuesday night we did some more work on the counter tops and finished cutting themFriday... lucky for us, a few of our helper buddies, Justin and Colt, had the day off and we all started our weekends early working on the house.

trying the sink on for size

The semi-finished product

The counter tops are all done being cut (and with no mistakes or waste thanks to Colt's skills) but there is still a lot of work to be done on them... we still need to route the holes for the "connectors" (I don't know what else to call them), glue them and finally, seal them... seal them over and over and over again!

 Next up, paint! My mom got started painting our ceilings Wednesday night...

I had to to a panoramic shot to show the destruction that was our living room

Unfortunately, after the ceiling dried it was pretty obvious that many of the spots and stains were showing through, so I had to end up doing many touch up spots (twice) with my trusty Kilz... I've coined a term, "Kilzing"... I recommend it to anyone remodeling and old house... but I recommend Kilzing before you paint.

Just part of our ceiling... so many spots!

And James also got his own layer done on the laundry room...

Friday was a big day for painting, too! Justin, James' mom, Debbie and I got to painting the living room/great room and as soon as we started, Justin immediately blew us out of the water!

I've been contemplating paint colors for months and I was finally able to decide on a paint color for an accent wall in the living room. I am admittedly a little scared of color on walls, we painted the kitchen in our last house a bright red that angered me for almost 3 years. But I took the leap and went with a muted purple (the closet "color" to gray I could find). After I finished the two walls I was relieved.. I really like the color!

Saturday, my pops and step mom, Teresa, came up to help us with a myriad of things. First off, the guys assembled and installed our new ceiling fan...

And then we were finally able to hang the upper cabinets... they've been waiting around for so long to be hung and they finally had their day... the boys did most of the work, although I did stand back and supervise!

Next up was mounting the new oven hood...

And lastly, the doors! We set up a little station for mounting all of the new hardware and hinges and they were ready in no time...

So there they are, the upper cabinets in all of their glory... overall, I am pretty happy with how they turned out! The doors look awesome but the cabinets themselves could be improved upon. These were the cabinets that I "learned" on so they are a little more rough than all of the others, but still, I love them. And although they aren't completely finished (we have some finishing touches in mind), you get the general idea (awesomeness, obviously).

With all of this craziness going on, there was another huge project going on in the bathroom... TILE! Our tiler, Tu, spent 3 days making our bathroom beautiful (something it has never been!). Here is the bathroom, pre-grout...

(I wish I could get better shots of our bathroom but it is literally too small to fully photograph)

And here is a sneak preview, post grout... I want to save the final reveal until after we paint!

 

Yet another big project happened behind the scenes, our new windows and sliding glass door... we can't take any credit for these, but they still look great. They are the most rad windows, they slide so easy, open from both sides and you can completely take out the panes for cleaning (or as my in-laws found out last weekend, to move furniture through). Anyway, I'm obsessed with them and they just might be one of my favorite new parts of the house.

James' favorite window in the kitchen, it cranks open... also note the sweet new pendant in the kitchen that Colt installed

 (and all the while, I've still been painting the lower cabinets... more to come on them)

And finally, the last project of the weekend, the one we weren't expecting... digging trenches in the rain to avoid our house from flooding! We had a HUGE storm roll through the area and with a house with 1 out of the 4 gutters in tact, we had some significant water pooling around the house. So after a very long day of work, James and I through on our coats and boots and got to digging. Luckily everything was so wet that the digging wasn't too rough but we definitely got soaked to the bone... BUT! We successfully routed the water away from our house and saved the day!!

Wow, typing out this post really made me realize that we killed it this week, but as usual, we couldn't have done it without all of the help... special thanks to Colt, Justin, Debbie, my mom, my dad and Teresa... and to Halls for our beautiful new windows and Family Floors for our rad bathroom! We've got another looong, busy week ahead of us, can't wait to get at it!