Kitchen Debut

It's not quite finished. It may never be; that's how DIY goes. But the kitchen finally has a backsplash and undercabinet lights (thought they aren't wired to the switch yet). So why should the lack of a few cabinet doors hold up the big reveal? I love the convenience of the open shelves, so I'm in no hurry to buy and paint and hang new Shaker style doors. That is the plan, though, so it may happen eventually. In the meantime, perhaps some pretty containers and baskets will mask my cabinet clutter.

I must give plenty of credit to Jeff. This is our third house to renovate/restore, and it wouldn't be possible without my amazing husband. While I have the opportunity to be a stay-at-home wife and pursue my old house passion, Jeff is a busy professor building his career and trying to earn tenure at the university. So the fact that he uses his weekends and semester breaks to do a lot of the heavy lifting makes him deserving of an A+ in my book! He gives me plenty of leeway to dream and design and only occasionally pricks my bubble with a practical reality or two. Plus, he always lovingly checks my hands when he gets home to make sure I haven't lost a digit to the miter saw or jigsaw or whatever power tool I'm using that day!

Before purchase (the previous resident left it trashed):

After:

Breakfast bar:

Seedbox windowseat:

Sink view before and after:

Range view before and after:

Dishwasher view before and after:

Fridge view before and after:

Floor (after stripping three layers of vinyl tile and lino; and after sanding and Waterlox); and yes, the color does seem to match DaVinci!

In case anyone is interested, here are the details:

- Cabinets: original frames, painted BM Vellum with ADVANCE paint (new doors to be purchased later); two extra base cabinets added from salvage store

- Counters: Formica Basalt Slate

- Backsplash: beadboard panels from Home Depot painted BM Linen White

- Sink: Ikea Domsjo double basin sink

- Faucet: Kraus 1602 Pre-Rinse Commercial faucet

- Pulls: Belwith Studio pulls (discontinued Venetian Bronze finish from eBay, spray painted in Rustoleum Carbon Mist)

- Island: clearance JCPenney foyer table, topped with butcherblock remnant

- Lighting: 4 light chandelier from Overstock; undercabinet waterproof LED strip lights (SMD5050) from HitLights

- Paint: BM Bennington Gray walls, BM Linen White trim and ceiling

- Floors: original quartersawn heart pine floors; sanded and finished with four coats of Original Waterlox

- Windowseat: original 1920's seed box found in the attic and restored

- Breakfast bar: Ikea EKBY desk (added brackets and painted everything BM Vellum), with JCPenney clearance saddle stools

- Total budget: $2500

The appliances are all slightly older models I bought used on Craigslist. There is a Thermador 30" dual fuel range (and matching venthood, not yet installed); SubZero 700 series fridge; and a set of Kitchenaid dishdrawers.

Darling Display

I haven't debuted the kitchen renovation yet, as there are still some large, unfinished items (namely, cabinet doors and backsplash). It's too hot in the shop to work on the doors, and the paint wouldn't have a chance to level properly anyhow. And we have to make some decisions about undercabinet lighting (and wiring) before I can finish the backsplash. So those hold-ups are delaying the big kitchen reveal.

In the meantime, I'm having fun trimming it out with details. The windowseat is painted and in place, I found the perfect fabric for the box cushion to top it, and the cafe curtain and hanging planter are in. It still looks a bit messy and rather visually cluttered, due to the cabinet doors being off. But the open display shelves on the endcaps have never looked better!

Paneled fridge on the left, windowseat under the cafe curtain,
and a glimpse of the (unfinished) beadboard backsplash

This kitchen display is brought to you in part by my marvelous Maryland-based friend. I had made an impulse purchase at Ikea on our long distance shopping trip several months ago. It turned out to be the perfect item, but I only bought one. It was a very pretty, off white pedestal bowl that they were discontinuing. So when I realized it was the perfect shape, size, and color for my display shelves, I searched the country for more! A friend and fellow Ikea lover came to mind and I contacted her. Her store still had them! So she kindly purchased and shipped me several more to round out my collection.

Left of the sink

Right of the sink

End run by the range

I still need two more white "somethings" to fill the shelves completely. I'm not big on tchotchkes, knickknacks, or other purely decorative items, so I'm waiting until I find just the right functional and attractive (and budget-friendly) pieces.

Hot Flashes

The stove deprivation is officially over! As the saying goes, now we're cooking with gas! Firing on all burners!

You can tell I'm excited about the installation of my Thermador range. I really, really dislike electric stoves, enough so that it was the main impetus for the kitchen remodel at our previous house. And I have been cooking with nothing but electric since we bought the farmhouse seven months ago. Over half a year with a single, nonresponsive burner, dealing with slow heating times, long cooling periods, slippery coils, temperamental controls, etc; all of this on top of a rather dysfunctional kitchen. Jeff has praised and petted me regularly for making do under these conditions (never mind the fact that was my dream to buy and restore the farmhouse in the first place; he's just kind and understanding that way)!

My BTU (Beautiful Thermal Unit)


All systems go!

I have such a list of delectable delights I can't wait to cook and bake now that I have four powerful burners and a large oven at my disposal. Jeff has requested a batch of homemade granola, and I'm thinking about fudge and marshmallows (both of which require precise burner control). Now that we have heating under control, if only I could get a fridge and ice maker incorporated into the kitchen work triangle!

Squeaky Clean

Though I love our newly restored wood floors for their timeless appeal, unique grain, and unmatched color, I suspect Jeff is tickled pink because of their semblance to a basketball court!

Okay; I more than suspect, I actually know this because he stated it himself. I can just picture him dribbling down the length of the room and dunking into the fridge cabinet!

I noticed that the floors are so glossy, you can actually
see the cabinets reflected in them! That will calm down a
little bit with time and wear, but it's a nice place to start.

The floors are not quite done, but they sure look pretty. Like everything else we have taken on, the process was not nearly as simple and painless as my research had led me to believe. I have three coats of Waterlox on the heart pine, and now I need to go back and very light sand it all on hands and knees and apply one last coat. Or I hope only one. The pine is really drinking the tung oil up and leaving some rough patches and microbubbles (though not visible unless you really get down on the floor and look/feel). I'm tempted to just let it be, but I can't come this far and then settle for second best. These almost 90-year-old floors deserve better! (Reading the Steve Job's article right before beginning our kitchen remodel has either made us better craftsmen or clouded our judgment about what is achievable for amateurs; I'm not sure which, sometimes!)

Just for funsies, here is a photo taken before the floors were sanded:

A modern scribe

Scribe \ˈskrīb\ noun

1: a member of a learned class in ancient Israel through New Testament times studying the Scriptures and serving as copyists, editors, teachers, and jurists

2a : an official or public secretary or clerk b : a copier of manuscripts

3: writer; specifically : journalist

transitive verb

1: to mark a line on by cutting or scratching with a pointed instrument

2: to make by cutting or scratching

Jeffrey was a learned scribe today. Not the noun form, the verb type!

We have a lovely full surround for our Sub-Zero paneled refrigerator. This will integrate it seamlessly into the cabinetry of the kitchen. Of course, since I purchased the whole ensemble on Craigslist, it wasn't custom made for our kitchen (these things are never a stock item, always custom done). And our plaster walls and wood floors and weighted sash windows are not the most plumb, level, and square. Which meant that this very tall, rather deep cabinet sat quite wonky.

I wish I had a picture of how bad it was, but of course, we were more focused on correcting the errors than we were documenting them for posterity. It was pretty bad. Up close, you could see huge gaps and spaces along the back edge, some well over a finger's width. From a distance, you could see that it was very crooked in relation to the wall and the ceiling. Shims alone were not enough to fix it. Scribing was required, and big time.

Thankfully, as a custom piece, it has a built in overhang on the side panels for just such scribing. Many cabinetmakers today simply stick a piece of molding over the gaps, but the best tradesmen still build their cabinets for a custom fit. This was our first experience with such, as we have only ever installed stock cabinets. What a joy to be able to transcribe every bump and anomaly of our plaster walls directly onto the cabinet side and erase the offending gaps with a jigsaw.

It was a joint effort; I traced the walls with a compass and made all the marks, and Jeff did the cutting and sanding. Here is the "before" on one side (not even the worst side, but the only one I could really photograph).

And here is the "after" on the trickiest side.

See that join between the cabinet and the wall? No? Oh, that's right, I don't either! And our trusty bubble level reads perfection on all faces. Not bad for a quick evening's work!

Moodboard

I don't think I've ever posted my overall plan for the kitchen. Since it's coming together in bits and pieces, it may be hard to grasp the complete scheme. But I do have one! I put together this moodboard to help me plan what elements I want to use and make sure they all play well.

It was a fun little Photoshop exercise, but it also keeps me on track. I can refer back to it when I'm worried that something doesn't fit or if I need to make some changes. For example, I had a little breakdown the other day that the yellow on the cabinets wasn't the right shade. Looking at the overall plan soothed me that it all works together, but I did notice that my moodboard has a lot more white and gray showing and less yellow. So I will take some steps to balance out the quantity of yellow; perhaps painting or papering some interior cabinets gray when I put the glass doors on, etc. But I can make these changes later once I've seen the whole kitchen. Maybe that day will come before I'm too old to enjoy it!

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Friday afternoon, we had our new dishwasher installed. Now, Sunday night, we don't. It's been an entire day of leveling, installing, attaching, and then redoing it all. And then again. These high end appliances are not standard in any way, and certainly not easy!

After putting the counters on this morning, we realized the dishwasher drawers were too low following the initial install. So we measured, discussed, remeasured, consulted, measured thrice, and proceeded to remove and reinstall the dishwasher. Four hours later, it was level and reattached to the cabinets. Only to find that now it was too tall by 3/8 of an inch.

You'd think we could tell this during the process and not after, but leveling the unit requires removing the bottom dishdrawer to get to the little threaded feet. A socket set won't fit, and no one has a 5 mm open end wrench, so Jeff has been crouched on his knees for most of the day spinning a little crescent wrench around and around, first up and then down, trying to get the whole dishdrawer level, square, and plumb in a house that is decidedly not.

Stock photo of the KitchenAid double dishdrawer with custom panels. I'm excited to have it blend with the cabinetry so it's integrated into our "vintage" kitchen.

It will all be worth it in the end, I'm sure. We already did a test run with the dishdrawers Friday to make sure everything worked well, and I love the functionality of the two separate drawers that can wash independently. It will be perfect for our small family of two, since I don't have to wait to fill the whole thing. It's also very economical and quiet. But I'm certainly very glad we didn't pay full price ($1400!!!) for something so tricky to install. If we had shelled out that kind of money, I would expect it to walk itself right in, waddle into position, and bolt down without us having to lift a finger!

Sink or Swim

I may have a small bathtub (which is quite frustrating when trying to enjoy a relaxing soak), but I now have a humongous sink!

I joked with Jeff that it is really a "his and hers" tub.

This puppy weights almost 130 pounds and took some careful maneuvering. But it is no lightweight when it comes to durability. We discovered this fact immediately after buying it when the bottom of the cardboard carton opened up and dropped the sink from at least 6 inches onto the concrete floor at IKEA! We opened it up completely, check it over, and carefully repacked it with yards of strapping tape. Ever since then, we have been gingerly carting it around, but now it's found a happy home.

Dishing it OUT

The dishwasher that I so carefully covered and masked and taped (so it wouldn't get overspray during the painting process) is being replaced. I could fret over all that work for nothing, but instead I will be excited about the prospect of a dishwasher that actually... washes dishes!

The accused dishwasher
(not obscured to protect the innocent, I can assure you)

My old Bosch dishwasher does not, in fact, wash dishes. Jeff calls it a dishwasher-like object, because I have to clean the dishes thoroughly before I put them in, and sometimes even clean them thoroughly after running a cycle. It swirls water around, but it frequently leaves a tub full of sudsy water in the bottom at the end of the cycle, and it has actually never ended a cycle as long as we have owned it (secondhand, of course). It has a digital display and will count down to 1 minute, and there it will remain for hours. It never drains, and it never stops running. This means I have to babysit the dishwasher (which takes over 2 hours for a regular cycle, and even then the countdown numbers will jump up and down randomly sometimes, adding or subtracting time at will).

It was so disappointing this summer to have my nieces work with Jeff to install it, only to have it not work properly. And to add insult to injury, the girls don't have a dishwasher at home and were looking forward to a break from handwashing!

I called the manufacturer and it apparently needs a new circuit board or something, which is around $150. Then we would still have to pay for labor or do the repair ourselves. It is a reputable brand and a nice stainless steel model, but I don't think we have it in us to do one more DIY endeavor during this kitchen remodel.

Jeff suggested today that we find a replacement now instead of later, as it will be easier to install, level, and hook up a dishwasher before the counters are in. So, huzzah! When this remodel is complete, I will hopefully have a fully functional dishwasher in addition to the stove and fridge I have been looking forward to!

Post Painting

I wish I could say we got the Goldilocks coat of paint on the cabinets with our third try (you know; too much the first time, not enough the second, just right on the last). Well, that's not exactly the case. Either this Benjamin Moore paint is the best paint out there or the worst; I can't decide! When you get the right coverage, it dries beautifully smooth and hard and glossy. But just a bit much and it runs and sags. Too little and it can't self-level, so it looks like an orange peel.

The problem was compounded because we were spraying the paint. Most pros brush or roll the frames and spray the doors. Because I have so many cabinets and the interiors badly needed painting as well, I decided to spray. On a vertical surface with many angles, there are just too many opportunities for excess paint to build up and drip, as we discovered on the first pass. So we went much lighter on the second coat, almost misting it. But that produced overspray everywhere that dried very rough. My satiny smooth finish was no more! So we changed spray tips and tried again, with only limited success. We ended up having to hand-sand a number of runs and sags, which I will touch up with a brush.

I think spraying the doors and drawers will go much better, as those will be horizontal. There is quite a learning curve to this new top-of-the-line paint, but I think it's worth acquiring!

BM Vellum color in the new ADVANCE product line

Progress Report

The kitchen is coming along. I have cut in the crown molding and painted the ceiling (BM Linen White, a perfect creamy white for an old house).

The walls are being prepped for their paint coat, as well. After patching and priming the cracks, Jeff remarked that I must be writing Japanese characters on the wall. That top left one does rather look that way, doesn't it?

We carried in the counters and set them in place. After a few stomach sinking moments when it looked like the mitered corners were all wrong, Jeff figured out that we could chisel away some of the plaster along the walls and close up the gaps. Our wall angles are fairly square, but the plaster varies quite a bit in thickness. This discrepancy over several feet of counter run is enough to play havoc with a 45 degree seam. Out came the cold chisel and hammer and Jeff made it work. As I was admiring the profile of our counter nose, Jeff couldn't resist comparing his nosing to its.

Not quite, Mr. DeMille

Well, we have the first coat of paint on the cabinets! But they aren't ready for their close-up just yet. In fact, not for a while yet. A few places on the frames look more like a drippy ice cream cone than a satin smooth finish. This new paint from Benjamin Moore has some great properties, but run- and sag-resistant is not one of them. It's much trickier to spray than a standard latex. It does self-level and harden amazingly well. After applying it late last night and agonizing over all the drips, I expected it to look like a bunch of stalactites in there this morning. But it's actually not half-bad. But there is a lot of sanding to do before the next coat, so I'm off!

Blackout

Here is a shot of the kitchen as it looked Monday night. We had hoped to have it all prepped, but the huge cast iron sink was too heavy and awkward for me to lift, so we had to wait for reinforcements Tuesday morning.

Jeff made quick work of the counters after this photo was taken.

As one friend remarked after seeing this view, I have cabinets for days! The elderly gentleman who grew up in the house told us we need a helicopter to reach the top shelf (no matter that it was his mother who designed and had this kitchen built; I appreciate her foresight, even if he doesn't)!

Sometimes in painting, the hardest part is not the painting but the not painting. This is particularly true when spraying paint, because overspray can run rampant. Thankfully, the cabinets are the first (and only) thing in the room to be sprayed, so I can let paint get on the walls and trim without much problem. I do have to keep it off the windows, floor, and appliances, though!

Taping and draping can be an art! It took me quite a while
to get the dishwasher and windows covered neatly.

Still Prepping...

Jeff asked me the other day if I like to paint. My response was that I love what paint does! The process is rather arduous (if you do it right, that is), but the results are always worth it.

With a lead-in like that, you might think I would have photos of the newly painted cabinets. But no, we're still prepping. Every time I turn around, there is something else that needs to be done before I can paint.

The doors and drawers had to be removed and relocated to the shop for their trim and paint job.

The dolly I bought on CL has been indispensable;
a shot of Jeff working smarter, not harder!

The hinges had to be removed, stripped of old paint, cleaned, and dried.

A hot, sudsy overnight soak in the crockpot
did wonders for getting off the old paint

The dated valance had to be removed. If ever I doubted that the cabinets were well-built, now I have proof! That little 4 1/2" trim board took almost an hour to get down.

Before and After

The very heavy 42" cast iron sink had to be liberated from the rusty clips and bolts that had stabilized it for decades.

It took far more than the pipe wrench and screw-
driver that you see here to get the job done!

All of these tasks happened after sanding, deglossing, and cleaning the cabinets. But each new job produces its own plume of dust and filth. I feel like Pig-Pen in the Snoopy cartoon; there must just be a little dirty cloud following me around! Nothing to do but keep sweeping and wiping and dusting so the cabinets will be ready for the first coat of paint when all these tasks are finally done!

Slow and Steady

Prep, prep, prep. That feels like all we've been doing the last week. It's just as well, since I'm still dickering over the final paint selection for the cabinets. But the choice has to be made by this afternoon, since I can't get paint over the weekend and I'm planning to put the first coat on Monday morning.

We've papered, taped, tarped, spackled, sanded, cleaned, rinsed, etc. for several days now. We've moved appliances, removed hardware, cleaned out the cabinets, and generally made a mess of the rest of the house. Big, deep, cabinets all the way to the ten foot ceiling store quite a lot, as I've realized now that those contents have spread themselves all over two stories of farmhouse.

Most importantly, we set up the temporary kitchen in the laundry room. As the remodel will drag on for several more weeks, and our stomachs and wallets can only bear so much eating out, we created a "kitchen away from kitchen" as Jeff likes to call it. It actually feels quite familiar, given that I've only had a mini fridge and hot plate for the last five months anyhow! It's all about keeping our expectations low so any little improvement seems vast and any disappoint not far from the status quo ;-).

One amenity I have grown accustom to is hot water, but sadly, we have none of that at the moment. We just realized our water heater (the one hiding out behind the mini fridge in the first photo) has a pilot light that won't stay lit, so now we have only cold water to clean up with on a Friday afternoon after being covered in dust and dirt. We're hoping it's just the thermocouple, so Jeff is going to change it out and we'll see what happens. If it's not one thing, it's another!

Fuzzy Floors

Since removing the final layer of vinyl tile from the kitchen floors, we have been living with furry floors. The tiles left a sort of brown paper backing stuck down in a lot of places, and I was afraid of gouging the wood if I scrapped too hard.

Since there was also a good bit of water damage to the finish (the white splotches), we decided a DIY gentle screening with a buffer was not going to be sufficient. I have seen horror stories of homeowners with drum sanders mutilating their vintage wood floors, so Jeff made the executive decision on knowing our limits and we hired a lovely older man to come in and do the deed.

There is much to be said for the right equipment in the right hands! Hubert has been in the floor sanding business for almost 50 years, and his experience shows! Here is what we saw in just the first few minutes.

He took our floors from this:

To this:

We will be using a modified tung oil finish to really bring out the color and grain. I can't wait to apply that final coat and see the beauty of the old growth quartersawn heart pine!