Kitchen Renovation DONE DONE DONE!!!

Quote for the Day:

"Do not plan for ventures before finishing what's at hand."~Euripides

Almost 3 1/2 years after we started renovating our kitchen, it is FINALLY DONE!!!  You cannot even begin to fathom how happy that makes me!!!  

At the end, Andy finally threw in the towel and told me to hire our friend, Jeff, to finish up the job.  I had been through enough waiting that I readily agreed.  The last couple of weeks have been difficult as we lived with a torn-up kitchen...everything out of the pantry and the free-standing cabinet was moved into the dining room and living room so that the kitchen could be finished up.

The remainder of beadboard was applied to the walls, crown molding added, baseboards replaced, walls painted, and new flooring installed!  My part of the job was to paint the walls and shelves of the pantry before the flooring was to be done, so last weekend was spent doing just that.  After painting the shelves, I covered them with peel-n-stick floor tiles, which has become my modus operandi.  Since discovering that little trick on Pinterest, I now cover all of my shelving with them now.  It makes them very easy to clean and won't need to be changed in my lifetime!  And if anything ever spills on it, a sponge and soap and water makes clean-up a breeze!!  I even cover the shelves inside my cabinets with them...makes it really nice under the sink...if there is ever a water-leak, the wood of the cabinet won't get ruined!  It's like spilling water on your floor...get a towel and mop it up!  LOL

Okay, okay, okay...twist my arm and I'll show you pictures of my new kitchen!!!

I'll start off by showing you what the pantry looked like after I finished last weekend with the painting and shelving...

There were free-standing plastic shelves against the left wall and in front of the window.  Those have been removed and have been replaced by chrome wire shelving units. 

The peel-n-stick tiles on the shelves...

Now for the kitchen tour...25 cents please!  :) 

These are our new counter-tops.  They are laminate, but look like granite.

This is the north-west corner of the kitchen.  The doorway to the dining room is just off to the right that you can't quite see.  I have strategically cropped out anything having to do with the dining room because of the HUMONGOUS mess in there!  ;)  I still have to apply the hardware to the doors/drawers in this bank of cabinets, but that will get done eventually.

This is the north-east wall of the kitchen and is where the fridge resides...it was still pulled out in this picture because Andy had to run new water line to the ice maker, which he did yesterday.  The doorway to the dining room is to the left in this picture.  The door that you see on the right goes to the basement.  This picture shows the crown molding and beadboard well.

Continuing on around the kitchen, this is the south-east wall.  The door on the left is the basement door, again, and the door with the window goes to the side part of the wrap-around porch.  

This is the south wall.  We did the stonework two years ago, but I just got it sealed last weekend...something that has been on my "to-do" list.  It is called AirStone and was sooooooooo easy to install but really made a big impact in this kitchen.  There is a vintage, metal, free-standing cabinet that usually resides between the stove and the outside door.  It had some rust on it so I sanded and spray-painted it last weekend and it hasn't made it back into its spot, yet.  That will come later today.

If you continue turning to the right, you will come to this wall...the west wall...

This door leads to the walk-in pantry that I showed you in the first pictures!  Here it is with the new flooring...

This flooring is Highland Hickory XP by Pergo.  It is 10mm laminate and has the padding already attached.  However, since we have an 86 year-old house, we decided to go ahead and put down an underlayment anyway to help keep down noise, etc.  I can tell you that this floor feels as solid and is almost as quiet as our hardwood floor that we had installed in the foyer!  This is the first laminate floor we've ever had in a house and I am quite impressed!!!

This weekend has been spent getting things put back into the pantry in an ORGANIZED manner so that we can actually FIND THINGS when we need them!  What a concept!  LOL

And now...I have to get back at it...there is so much to do with company coming in on Friday!!  Thanks for taking the tour!  :)

Loretta

Rainy Days and Mondays....

Quote  for the Day:

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might"

~Ecclesiastes 9:10, King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

Happy Monday and Happy October to all of my readers!  I hope this week and month finds you well!  We are definitely into fall now...no denying it anymore!

Andy & I spent Saturday working on the kitchen...trying to finish the stonework.  I was hoping to finish it this past weekend, but alas, that was not to be.  However, we did put a good dent in what needed done.

Saturday morning the chimney looked like this...

 ...and by evening, it looked like this...

I worked on the chimney while Andy worked on cutting/sanding/shaping the stones that needed shaped to fit around the curved molding of the window and door.  It was very time-consuming work, but so far it is looking FANTASTIC!!! 

It seems that applying this stone should go much faster than it is, but it's kind of like putting a puzzle together.  You have to fit stones together, making sure that your seams/joints are staggered and don't line up.  Plus you want to stagger the dark and light stones and also the narrow and wide stones so it all looks "random".  Do you realize how hard it is to make something look "random"???  LOL  Then there is the "cutting" that needs to be done to get the final stone in the row to fit snugly...and since we are doing the cutting on the porch, there is all the running in and out of the house to do that. 

So...that's why we aren't farther along with the project.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  :)

We had some other things we needed to do on Sunday, so we weren't able to work on it then, but plan to get back to it this coming weekend.  We are having company the following weekend, so I'm really hoping we can it finished up this coming weekend.  Wish us luck!  :)



Today, after I got my "pearly whites" cleaned and polished at the dentist, I met up with a dear friend, Theresa Noble, at Panera Bread where she proceeded to coax cajole coach me with some crocheting.  Yes, Folks...I do know how to do more than just quilt!  Although I don't crochet very often, it is something I learned to do at the age of 13 and now do it just often enough to not totally forget the art!

However, I've never made a hat before and wanted to make these ADORABLE owl hats for the grandkiddos, so she and I met up and she got me started on my way with them. 

This is similar to what the ones I am making will look like...

 

...and here is what I've got done so far...

Thanks, Theresa, for helping me out!  :)   And I hope your daughter gets home safely!  (While we were at Panera she got a text saying her daughter's plane was being delayed due to weather.)  :(

So now I have ANOTHER project in the works!  LOL  That's okay.  It's small enough that it makes a good "take-along" project when I have appointments, etc.  :)  

One can never have enough fabric or projects!  LOL

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  :)

Loretta

Getting "Stoned"...

Quote for the Day:

"I'm picturing what it's like every time you renovate. 

There's a big hole in the wall and two paramedics."
~"Jill Taylor" in Home Improvement (TV Series)

Twenty-eight years ago Andy & I became parents for the first time and started on an amazing new life path together.  No longer was it just about "us" anymore.  We now had a new love in our lives.  Who could have guessed where that new path would take us, but I'm glad we took it!  We have been blessed by our children and can't imagine what life would have been like without them...or their partners...or the GRANDCHILDREN!  :)

So I want to take this opportunity to wish my dear son, Paul, and his wife, Trinity, a very Happy Birthday!!!  (Yes...they share the same birthday, though he is one year older than her!) 

We've been slowwwwwllllyyy renovating our kitchen for the last 16 months.  With Andy & I both off for the 3-day holiday weekend that just passed (Labor Day Weekend here in the USA), we decided to tackle some more of the kitchen.  We didn't get the whole current "project" done, but we managed to get it about 3/4's completed.  YAY!  

I was waffling back and forth as to whether to show what we have finished so far, or wait until we get this whole "section" completed.  But, I'm so proud of what we accomplished that I'm going to show you our progress!

There is an alcove between a chimney and the door to the wrap-around porch where the stove sits...

We decided to "brick" it in using Airstone.  It was slow going at first because the floor is un-level (our house was built in 1927 and there is nothing level anymore!), but once we got past the first couple of rows and I got into the "swing" of it, it started going faster.  Also, in the beginning, I was doing it by myself because Andy was working on finishing up an area of beadboard around the cabinets.  Once he finished that area, he started helping me by cutting the stones that needed cutting and then I was able to just concentrate on the actual "laying" of the brick/stone.

Note the shims...the valiant attempt to start out level!  LOL

After working on this project Sunday afternoon, all of Monday, and Tuesday evening after Andy got off of work, this is what it looks like now...



Ta-da!!!  I love how it's looking!!!  There are some beautiful stone houses in Fairmont, WV, that I drool over every time I'm in that town.  I LOVE them!  As we were working on this project, I told Andy that I feel like I finally have my "stone" house!  :)  At least this is as close as I'll ever get to owning one!  :)

Here's a close-up for ya...

It looks and feels just like real stone! 

My body is sore beyond belief from working on this project (lots of kneeling, bending, and up and down the ladder), but it has definitely been worth it.  We have to finish the area up near the ceiling on this wall and then do 2 sides of the chimney before we can call this area "done", but we hope to make another big dent in the project...and possibly even finish this part up... this coming weekend.  :)



Loretta