Kitchen Update - part 2

Wow, this is a HUGE project (here’s how it started, last week).

This is how part 1 ended:

 

And to be completely honest, it doesn’t look a lot different, even though I’ve put a ton of work into it.

The paint I’m using needs 16 hours of drying time between coats (Benjamin Moore Advance) – so that’s one coat a day. I paint light coats, so the cabinets need four coats (yup, 4). The oak grain is quite deep, so the fourth coat finally covered all the grain enough that I was happy with it.

So – that’s four days for one side of the cabinets. Then I have to turn them over and spend four days painting the other side.

I spent every night last week painting – the stove and countertops make a good work surface:

At least the dishes can go back in the wall cabinets. The four coats are done on those.

So, at the end of a very long week, here’s what I have:

No doors on any cabinets, which shows me exactly how unorganized my bottom cabinets are L Here are the bottom cabinet doors waiting to be sanded and filled and primed.

I’m moving them into the garage tonight to start that.

Oh well, ‘they’ say it always looks worse before it looks better, right?

As I mentioned last week, please wish me luck because I think I’m going to need it.

Cheers! Kim

Kitchen Update - Part 1

As I mentioned here, I decided that updating the kitchen would be my big project for the year. The kitchen is fully functional and a decent size, but I don’t like the oak cabinets and dark tile backsplash. The entire kitchen seems dark and dated. I’d love a bright white space to cook and bake and entertain in – because truly, this is where everyone ends up.

That was back in January – and until this past weekend, I hadn’t done anything else about it. What an overwhelming project – painting the cabinets, new tile, granite countertops – where to begin?

I bought paint:

And started. I’d procrastinated enough.

Here’s what the kitchen looked like when I started:

I took the molding off the top, and washed the tops of the cabinets. Yuck. This took a lot longer than I thought it would. But seriously, who ever looks at the top of their cabinets? Magic Eraser to the rescue – they took all the grime off (I’m blaming all the grease on Mr. E and his love of bacon J)

While I was up there, I decided to paint the wall behind the cabinets – might as well, since I was already standing on the counter. I used the same colour I painted my wall stencil with.

After that, it went pretty quickly – the doors came off, and I taped the walls and white parts of the cabinets.

The first brush of primer meant there was no turning back!

I primed the cabinets and called it a night – it was after 5, and I was tired. Proud, but tired.

So here’s where we ended up at the end of the day:

My plan for this week is to finish the cabinets and the doors, so the upper cabinets are done – so we can put the dishes away and actually eat at the kitchen table.

I’ll keep you posted, but wish me luck – I think I might need it. J

Cheers! Kim

52 Projects - #7 - A New Chandelier

Isn’t this a great chandelier? J

I love it – but it’s from Ballard Designs that doesn’t ship to Canada – and it’s $400! I’ve seen these lights in blog-land, but I thought I wouldn’t be able to find them up here.

Well, look what I found at HomeSense a few weeks ago!

It's almost the same light - there's no crystal at the bottom, but the size and shape are the same. And the best part? It was $180.  Woohoo! Obviously, it came home with me. J

Here's what our old light looked like - it was too small for the space.

Plus, it faded into the background and was very bland and boring:

Here’s what our eating area looks like now:

A bit closer:

 Compared to the Ballard Designs light, it's pretty close, don't you think?

It’s a bit higher than it should be – but the chain was only 5 feet long and this is an 11 foot high ceiling. It’s about the same height above the table as the old light, and I don’t notice that it should be 6 inches lower – and I doubt anyone else will either. J

Out with the old, and in with the new. 

Another project finished - what a great feeling.

Cheers! Kim

52 Projects – Number Six – China and an organized China Cabinet

I got a delivery a few weeks ago – check this out: 

These were BIG boxes, and they were heavy. I had no idea they were coming – my cousin David called me to tell me he had a special delivery from my Mom. J It took some arranging with my other cousin Terry (who I talked about here), but eventually the boxes made their way to me.

That may not seem like a big deal, except for the distance – my Mom lives in Ontario and I’m in Alberta, so these boxes came across three time zones, four provinces and about 2700 kilometers.

This was what I found inside: 

An almost full set of dishes from my Great Grandmother. It’s a very delicate flower pattern, which is beautiful.  A covered serving dish, bowls, plates, cups were all inside the boxes: 

The handles and edges are gold leafed, and it’s a beautiful set that has obviously seen a lot of love and use over the years. The gold is worn in spots on the massive serving platter.

This is a wonderful gift, but the big question for me was – ‘where do I put everything?’ There are a LOT of dishes.

I’d been wanting to organize our china cabinet in the family room, so this was my incentive to get started.

This was what I started with. What a mess – this was a place we’d stuffed books and odds and ends – then promptly ignored: 

It sure didn’t make a good impression when we had company over. It’s right beside our fireplace (you can see the brick on the far left), and our family room TV is on top – so you can’t miss our big, hot mess.

So, I cleaned it out and packed up the books. We plan to build a bookcase in the basement this summer, so they’ll be unpacked when that’s finished. 

It looks so much better already! The clutter is gone J

Then I started staging the bookcase – it took longer than I thought it would. 

Slowly, I got things put on the shelves. I have a doll collection from my late Aunt that I put in with the dishes. 

After about an hour of arranging and rearranging, I came up with this: 

I’m amazed at how much better the china cabinet looks. Great Gran’s dishes are out for everyone to see – and it’s a china cabinet again, instead of a junk collector J

One more project done – while I may not be doing one a week, I’m proud of myself.

Cheers! Kim

 

52 Projects – Week Five – Pantry Organization

So, Mr. E and I spent the weekend a few weeks back, making these:

(Here’s how we did it)

Aren’t they great! And I found some similar, unstained ones at Michaels a few days ago, for $22 each!

I think we only paid a bit more than that for all the supplies – and we made six small boxes and three large ones! And these ones still needed staining. Yippee J

But, I digress.

I love the look of a clean, organized pantry, and once the boxes were finished, I couldn’t wait to put them in the pantry! But, I didn’t have a clean, organized pantry – mine was a disaster. 

Seriously – there was so much stuff on the floor nobody could actually get in there. We’d slide our feet in, lean over to grab something off the shelves, and hope for the best.

Spices were taking up a prime location, cereal boxes were jammed wherever they fit (and stayed in the middle of the floor), there were reusable grocery bags stashed in a corner, and nothing made sense. The shelves were overflowing with stuff – there was no room for any of the boxes we made.

Not any more – it’s fantastic!

This was a quick fix – I didn’t switch out the wire shelves or paint the walls to make the pantry seem more like a room, but I’m good with that. Having the space organized makes it easier to use, more efficient and the kids can help out by grabbing something when I ask. And, my main house goal for 2012 is to update the kitchen, so I want to finish that before I make any changes in here.

To make it easier, I didn’t do this organizing all at once – I did a section or a shelf at a time. Once I had a bit of open space, it was easier to move things around and keep organizing. It took me a few nights, but it was much less stressful that way.

I went through every shelf and threw out stuff that we’d never use – I was amazed at how much stuff should have been thrown out years ago.

Then I started sorting and organizing – woohoo!

Glass mason jars are filled with grains, some baking supplies and things that should stay airtight.

Baking supplies are all together

The plastic and reusable bags are now in pantry boxes and don’t take up much space – and don’t fall all over the floor.

Using the boxes has made a huge difference – there is so much space in the pantry now. And – we can see the floor again J

Having a personal challenge of completing one project a week is definitely challenging, but it’s such a sense of accomplishment seeing the project list slowly get longer!

Cheers! Kim

I'm linking this project up to:

52 Projects – Week Four – Pantry Storage Boxes

I’m slowly working towards my 52 projects around the house – this might be a tough goal to accomplish. Weekends seem to fly by and before we know it, Monday is knocking on our door.

But, I’ll give it my best shot – and I’d rather have less projects I’m happy with than more projects that I’ll end up redoing. Quality versus quantity, right?

The next project in my ‘series’ is an idea I had after seeing this pantry redo

What’s not to love? And you know what I loved most – the boxes on the shelves. They added some rustic charm to the pantry and made it seem more part of the house instead of ‘just a pantry.’

But, finding boxes like that around here proved impossible. To me, anyway. Maybe they exist, but not anywhere that I knew about. So I made my own – with a lot of help from Mr. E.

We used inexpensive supplies that we picked up from Home Depot:

I played around with the sizing of the boxes on paper, to make sure they would fit on our shelves, and fit beside each other. 7” wide was the magic size for the small boxes.

So we measured twice (or more) and cut one box to make sure it would work properly.

Once we knew it would work, we began the first assembly line step – cutting the pieces. We ended up with a lot because I wanted six small boxes.

I also loved the colour of my inspiration boxes, so the next step was the long, slow process of staining all the pieces of wood. They’re pine, so they took the stain quickly. It just took a LONG time – a few evenings of staining, waiting and wiping. I took over the kitchen table for about a week while everything dried (good thing we have an island that we could eat at!)

  

Since it’s winter here, and we had the weekend without kids, we assembled the boxes in the house.

The compressor stayed in the garage, so the nail gun wasn’t very loud. And we didn’t freeze in the garage. J

Once we got the hang of putting the boxes together, they didn’t take long.

I added some vinyl letters that I cut with my Slice. I think it makes the pantry look more personalized, and everyone can find things in the boxes this way.

So, what do you think?

 

This was a time consuming project, but I think the time we put in was definitely worth it. These will help organize those items in the pantry that took up a lot of space.

Now, just to organize the pantry so these will fit on the shelves!

Cheers! Kim

52 Projects - Week Three - Framed Recipe Card

This project is appropriate for the week three project because that’s how long it took – three weeks. I learned a lot about glue with this project, specifically what does and doesn’t work.

Anyway, here is the finished project: 

My framed recipe card - finally finished!

A close-up view

Making this frame definitely tested my patience – this was not an easy project, although it should have been.

The frames themselves are simple Ikea Ribba shadow box frames. I attached some faux leather to the back, to blend in with the frame and allow the recipes and fork to stand out. (I just used spray adhesive to put the leather on – like I did for these frames)

For the first try, I used glue dots for the recipes and the fork. The recipes stayed attached just fine, but the fork had fallen down by the next morning.

Fail with the glue dots.

My next attempt was to use my glue gun on the fork – hot glue works on everything, right?

Wrong. The next morning, the fork had fallen down.

Fail with the glue gun.

By this time, I was frustrated slightly annoyed that this wasn’t the easy project I thought it would be. Heavy duty help was needed so that fork wouldn’t go anywhere.

Enter Gorilla Glue.  

And if this didn’t work, this project was done – I’d pretend it didn’t happen and I’d move on.

Gorilla glue didn't let me down. Or the fork. Three cheers for gorilla glue! J

  

So, why did I frame two recipes and a fork? Seriously? A fork.

There is a piece of each of my grandmothers in this frame. The recipes are handwritten by my maternal grandmother, and I remember her pulling these out of her recipe box and making them, again and again.

  

The writing is hard to see, but the recipes are for Arrowroot Squares (an unbaked dessert made with – you guessed it – arrowroot cookies). The second is for Jam Thimbles, which are her version of jam thumbprint cookies.

I spent a few of my childhood summers with my grandparents, while my Mom went to University (what a role model!) so I remember these recipes, and many others, well. I learned how to cook and bake by watching her, and being allowed to help out and try on my own. Wonderful memories were made those summer days.

And, the silver fork was my paternal grandmothers – she used it as a child, my Dad used it, and so did I. There’s a spoon that matches it somewhere in the house, so hopefully I’ll find it as I clean and organize things.

Displaying these in the kitchen makes me smile – they are pieces of my history and both of these women helped shape who I am.

Cheers! Kim