Category: Room Makeovers

Room changes, step by step.

On the Up and Up

Published on by Our Humble Abode17 Comments

Over the long weekend, we tackled a few kitchen projects.  Items highlighted in light blue were done before.  Those highlighted in dark blue were finished this weekend.

  • Buy all appliances: sink, stove, vent hood, dishwasher
  • Tear out the upper cabinets and soffit {more on that here}
  • Add support on load bearing wall before tearing out
  • Knock down the wall between the living room and kitchen {more on that here}
  • Install the vent hood {more on that here}
  • Remove the lower cabinets, counter tops, and sink
  • Rip out the tile floor and sub floor {more on that here}
  • Install the new hardwood floors {more on that here}
  • Build toe kick bases, wire everything for lights, replace the cabinets and sink {more on that here}
  • Get the new stove in place and hooked up {more on that here}
  • Add the cabinet above the fridge and frame it out {more on that here}
  • Install the new dishwasher {more on that here}
  • Build the five remaining drawers we’ve waited on (we needed to see how things were in place before we could build one drawer in the dining room, the trash can pull out, and the under the sink drawer)  {more on that here}
  • Fill, sand, prime and paint said drawers
  • Install every drawer, 16 total 
  • Decide on sconces and buy them {more on that here}
  • Buy the wood for the counters 
  • Haul the wood slabs to a cabinet shop to have them sand both sides smooth {more on that here}
  • Cut the wood to fit and install the counters {more on that here}
  • Add decorative face trim to all cabinets for a smooth, pretty, even front {more on that here}
  • Fill, sand, prime, and paint all cabinet faces {more on that here}
  • Install the toe kicks and rope lighting
  • Hang the upper cabinets
  • Build the drawer fronts
  • Buy bar stools {more on the debate here}
  • Fill, sand, prime, and paint the drawer fronts
  • Install the drawer fronts and hardware pulls
  • Add crown molding to the top of the cabinets
  • Cut shelves for the cabinets
  • Build the cabinet doors, including two glass front doors
  • More filling, sanding, priming, and painting of the cabinet doors
  • Sand the ceiling and walls smooth
  • Prime and paint the kitchen and living room.  Probably the dining room too.
  • Add lights: sconces, light over the sink, and recessed light halos
  • Trim out the posts and door frames
  • Decide whether we want to add decorative trim to the vent hood or paint it to match the wall color
  • Install the pretty new marble tile backsplash
  • Put everything back in place and enjoy

For the toe kicks, Ben cut pieces of 1/4 inch thick MDF to 3 1/2 inches wide.  I primed and painted them with the cabinet paint.  This was so much easier than installing the toe kicks then priming and painting.  After letting everything cure, we were ready for install.  We decided to use small pin nails to hold the toe kick covers in place.

These are super tiny nails, so we didn’t have to fill holes, sand, prime and do touch up paint.  Though, I do have to paint the ends which were cut.

With the toe kick covers in place, Ben cut and placed the U channel for the rope lights.  I didn’t get a picture of these, but basically it is a small plastic channel with a strong adhesive backing.  Simply cut to length, peel off the backing, stick in place, and snap the rope lighting in.

When standing, you can’t see the actual light strips.  I just wanted to show you what everything looks like.

At night the kitchen glows like Christmas.  I love it.  One of my favorite things about Christmas are the lights.  Now we have them year round.

Fortunately, the toe kick and lighting didn’t take more than an hour, so Ben got to work installing the two upper cabinets. Here’s the larger one to the left of the sink.

And the slightly smaller cabinet on the right side of the sink.

You can kind of see we painted the insides of the cabinets a light blue.  The same blue we used in the dining room and theater room, actually.  What can I say, I love that color!

Sorry, I couldn’t find my smaller camera to take pictures of the entire kitchen, but here’s what you can see from the living room.

The plan is to hide a small microwave (a .7 cubic foot one to be exact) in the cabinet to the left of the sink.  The lower right side will probably house a toaster and/or blender.  Which means we need outlets inside the cabinets.

According to Montana code, we also need outlets every four feet, so we installed a light switch and outlet on the outside of each cabinet.  The switches are for lights over the sink.

As you can see, we still have to cut, prime, paint, and install the shelves before the upper cabinets are functional, but it’s a good start.  So that’s what happened on Saturday.  I’ll share Sunday’s progress tomorrow.

Now I’m wondering, do any of you have appliance garages?  Or cabinets that extend to the counter?  Are the inside of your cabinets painted a different color than the outsides?

All Oiled Up

Published on by Our Humble Abode11 Comments

And ready for the body building competition.  No, not me, our counters are all oiled up.  Now they’re ready for competition.  Last week, Ben sanded the filled areas, which means we could finally coat every counter with mineral oil.  We still have more oiling to do, but they’re looking good so far.

So far, we’ve applied four coats of oil, letting it soak in completely.  Between each coat, we lightly ‘sand’ the surface with super fine steel wool.

Our goal is to get the counters well oiled before installing the upper cabinets.  It will be much more difficult to oil thoroughly with the cabinets resting on the counters.

While the surface isn’t impermeable, it does hold up well.  Right now, we’re careful not to leave water spots or other semi-liquid stuff on the counters for too long.

As for our home-made wood filler, it worked quite well.  The seam on the peninsula is barely visible.

A small crack on the counter by the stove filled in nicely, too.  Ben accidentally hit the cabinet with the sander, so I’ll have to repaint this cabinet bay.

The peninsula had a crack as well.  These are from the center of the tree, but we couldn’t cut this out.

Because the crack wraps around the end of this piece, the color difference is most visible at the end cut.

Ben had to make a few special cuts by the stove because the top sits above the wood.  We also cut a 45 degree angle so the counter didn’t stick out beyond the stove.

Sorry for the lack of kitchen progress posts, too.  We have had cold weather, so Ben can’t do much work in the garage.  Yesterday, we finally had a day above freezing, but we used the nice weather to rake leaves.  Fortunately Wednesday is our trash pick up.  I bet our garbage men loved us because we left them this little gift.

With about ten more bags on the other side of our driveway.

What about you, how has your weather been?  Raked your leaves yet?  Do your kids request photo shoots when you pull out your camera?  Do they request to see their pictures?

That Was Hard(wood)

Published on by Our Humble Abode22 Comments

It took more muscle and time than we hoped, but we’ve successfully pulled up the tile floor, cement board, subfloor and installed the new hardwood.  The rebuilding has officially started.  Ben tore out the tile on Monday night, which left us with a lovely kitchenette.  Simply a stove, microwave, and one cabinet.

He took the week off to work on the kitchen.  Fun vacation, right?  With the tile up, Ben, with a little of my help, painstakingly tore up the cement board.

Seriously, it was a pain.  The screws from the tile backing held like crazy and the nails were abundant.  Luckily, Handy Sammy came to help.

Removing the sub floor took a lot of muscle.  Some areas received too much muscle.  The boards flexed and some broke.  I’m not going to lie, I freaked out a little.

As always though, Ben had a plan.  True to form, things have to get worse before they can get better.  So, Ben started by cutting off the damaged boards, leaving a hole between the joists.

Actually, this happened in four spots.

Did you notice the chaos and mess?  And the fridge placement?  Anyway, back to fixing the gaping holes in our floor.  Ben screwed pieces of two by fours on each side of the hole into the joists first.

Then he covered the holes with pieces of 3/4 inch wood material.

Before we could get started on the floor install, we screwed every board  to the joists, just to prevent any squeaking.  That was a pain in the butt, too.  I’ve never had to use a drill for that long.  Makes me want to invent a cushy drill grip.  After all that screwing (haha), we laid down the rosen paper.

We had to nail one row of the wood perpendicular to the existing dining room hardwood floors.  It would have been way to difficult to line the new floor up with the old floor if we hadn’t done this.  Unfortunately, Ben laid this with the groove against the dining room floor.

Which meant he had to start installing from the stove side.  He had a few wires and the gas line to cut around.  The first few rows are always the most difficult to install, because everything is based off that.

Fortunately, the 5 inch wide planks installed quickly and easily.  While Ben installs the planks, I select which boards will go where.  I have a method to my madness, though.  First, I pick out the pieces of wood I like best.  These will go front and center.  This wood had tons of pieces with large knots, so I made two more piles.  One of the knotty pieces (not to be confused with naughty) and another of clean wood.

We had to remove all the trim that was against the floor, too.  The new floor is 3/4 of an inch lower than the old floor, so we’ll have to lower everything.

Ben borrowed an air nailer from a friend, which made the job quick and easy.

He wanted me to show you how great of a multi-tasker he is.  Here, he’s using both of his hands to nail and his foot to hold the clamp down.  Ooooh, ahhhh.

And here’s the floor we finished as of a few hours ago.

And now for some detailed shots.  The transition between the original flooring in the dining room and the new floor.

Toward the wall, Ben had to face nail because the other nailer can’t get that close to the wall.  That’s okay though, this won’t be seen as the cabinet will cover everything.

The back door landing looks great, too.  We still have to add a piece along the top of the stairs.

Now you’ve seen the most recent progress.  I’m hoping to get at least a sink back some time today or tomorrow.

Have you ever ripped out a beast of a floor?  Put down pretty new hardwoods?  Do you prefer wider planks?

After the Dust Settles

Published on by Our Humble Abode8 Comments

Yesterday was Ben’s birthday.  His gift?  No more kitchen tile.  Pretty awesome of me, right?  Actually, it was his idea.  I was going to take him out to dinner; he insisted on removing the floor.  Before the floor could come out, we had to tear out the cabinets.  Yeah, our kitchen is no longer usable.

Ben unhooked the sink plumbing and faucet.  Vincent helped.

Buh bye, backsplash!  You and your swollen middle will not be missed.

After unscrewing the cabinets, Ben started hauling everything out.  His dad wants the cabinets for his shop.

To keep the kitchen as usable as possible, we rotated the stove to the other side and put an old cabinet next to it.  We’ve down graded from a full kitchen suite to a kitchenette.

Then the real demo work began.  The tiles came up rather easily, but the cement board did not.  And we have to tear the floor down to the subfloor.

Ben pulled up part of the plywood floor to see how difficult it would be.  Turns out, one of the boards below had a small hole.

 

Then, Ben went back to tearing up the floor.  What a mess.  But it has to get worse before it can get better.

To tear out the tile, Ben used a pick axe.  Pick axe plus muscle equals mega damage.  In the best way possible, too.

Here’s what everything looked like after four hours.  Tile anilihated.  Mission accomplished.

And, things are looking up.  Literally.  Here’s what the ceiling looks like with three coats of mud.

Obviously I took these pictures before the demo began.  Sanding still to come.

Do I get the best birthday giving award?  I thought so.  Now we have another long day of demo and work.

And the Walls Come Tumblin’ Down

Published on by Our Humble Abode21 Comments

If you follow us on Facebook, you already know we tackled more demo work this weekend.  Quite literally.  Ben got pretty physical with it.  The destruction took place in the kitchen, to the wall standing between the living room.  The process was pretty straight forward.  First, Ben removed the baseboard, chair rail, and an old no longer in use vent.  Just to make sheet rock tearing easier.

Then, from the kitchen side, Ben kicked some sheet rock butt.  Meaning he actually kicked his foot through.  With the rock loose, he used his hands to tear out chunks.  Some small.

Some large.

Because this wall is load bearing, Ben has reinforced everything in the attic, but we’re also keeping a beam and support posts down below.  To try to minimize sheet rock repairs, we decided to try to save the sheet rock which will cover the future beam.  Ben had an idea that sounded like it would break the sheet rock cleanly, both from the lower rock and studs.  First, he measured the height of the beam and marked the wall.  Then, he screwed a scrap of wood and scored along the edge.  He left the board up while tearing the sheet rock off.

Luckily, it worked like a charm.  Now we hoped the studs would come off cleanly.

Using a hammer and brute strength, Ben knocked each stud out, first at the bottom, then at the top.  And, the sheet rock stayed nearly perfect.  Wahoo for not having to patch more drywall and install new crown.

Open sesame!!  It’s so much brighter.  Funny story.  Just after Ben tore the sheet rock off the wall, I had to put something in the entry closet.  I noticed a sliver of light and looked for something reflecting light.  Then, I realized, this was the first time I’d ever seen fresh light at that angle.  Such a happy moment.  I know, I’m a mega nerd.

Even better, we can finally see from the kitchen into the living room.  No more wondering why Everett is crying when he’s on the other side.  I can see him.  Oh, and you can see the recessed can lights Ben installed on Thursday night.  Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.  We centered one over each work surface for direct task lighting.  We’ll also have lights in the vent hood over the range.

Genius Ben had another great lighting idea.  You could say a light bulb moment.  Ahah.  He wisely suggested we move the stove side lights closer to the beam, rather than centered over the counter.  Why?  So people on the couch wouldn’t be blinded by the light (name that band).  Once the decorative halos are in, the lights closer to the sink won’t be as visible either.

And here we are after a day of demo.  You’ll notice boxes for our sconces as well as our child safe light switch placement.  Of course that is temporary, but we’re moving stuff around so much lately.

Now for the best part.  Looking from the back door through the kitchen to the living room and beyond.  And, you can see the beam Ben installed along the top, which matches the dining room perfectly.

Yes, I did stop vacuuming to get Vincent a yogurt and take this picture.  Excuse the mess and the giant microwave that won’t stay.  We’re all so excited to finally see our plans come to life.  Vincent and Everett already love to sit on the chair near the stove to watch and beg for snacks.

That’s how we like to spend our Saturdays.  But we did a little more on Sunday, involving our vent hood.  What did you do?

P.S.  Manfred Mann.