Updating, raising and painting kitchen cabinets

I know that there are a bunch of cabinet painting posts out there where it only took a couple of days to paint the cabinets… well that is clearly not how fast my project is going. Now I will say that I knew going in to this project that it would take a lot of time, be messy, tedious and pretty much a pain in the ass, but if I wanted painted cabinets I was going to have to suck it up, put on my big girl panties and get started!

So you know I finished the butler’s pantry a couple of month’s ago… which I am so happy with!

Then I took a little beginning summer break and me and my hubby started working on raising the kitchen cabinets and adding open lower cabinets. So our kitchen currently looks like this, nope I didn’t even straighten it up for you, no glamour shots here… but I can see how much I’m going to love the finished product already!

I removed all of the dishes from the cabinets and all of our everyday dishes are temporarily housed in the butler’s pantry, everything else is laid out on the dining room table… it looks like I’m getting ready to have a rummage sale in there and I’ll have to wash everything that’s there when I’m done due to all of the dust I’m creating…

The cabinet below was a H-U-G-E pain in the arse for my hubby to build, but I think he did a fabulous job and I love the fact that it is one large cabinet rather than 3 individual pieces, it will give us so much flexibility for the space. He also added an electrical outlet in it in case we want to put a microwave or something else in the cabinet.

As much as I know my hubby would love to be done with the cabinet making part of this project he still has a rather simple one to add to the top of the stove and refrigerator space. We also added a wire from the under cabinet lights to this area so that it can be lit at the same time. This will be the only area in the kitchen cabinets where I will have decorative items, all of the other open cabinetry is for everyday dishes, glasses etc.

We also changed our mind on the range hood and decided to install this hood instead of a custom wood surround.

I think that the black of the hood in combination with our black island cabinets will be a very nice contrast to all of the white cabinets. So we had to remove some drywall, install a 2×4 support and shift the electrical over so that it will be hidden by the hood as well. When we were done we just patched the area with 1/2” plywood and I will patch and prime the entire area in preparation for the tile. Yet another scope creep item, we will be installing the tile backsplash all of the way up to the ceiling behind the hood… did we need to do this, no, but will it look better if we do… yes, I think it will look stunning!

So I’m slowly working on adding trim to the sides of the cabinets, caulking, filling and priming, in general I’m having no fun, but it’s better than being outside in the hot muggy hotness that has decided to reside over the Louisville area for weeks!!!

I will (eventually) be painting the interiors of the open cabinets the same color as cabinets themselves, but I’m pretty sure I will be using paper or fabric as a removable colorful backdrop in them.

Just so you can see a comparison to where we were before we started this project and today, it’s getting there slowly but surely!

What you can’t feel is the sense of height that raising the cabinets to the ceiling gives you when you walk into the kitchen, it just seems so much more grand for some reason, I love it! Obviously getting to the top shelves will require a step stool, but I am planning on storing all of my china and rarely used dishes and cookware on the highest shelves so that I will rarely have to get anything down from there. Well I guess I have stalled long enough from working on the kitchen… better get back to work and get this project done!

Until next time!

July 25, 2016 4

Adding feet and molding to cabinets

Adding feet and decorative molding to the butler’s pantry cabinets was a pretty straightforward and easy project. We started off with these cabinets.

I removed the shoe molding from the kick plate and we dry fit a 4” piece of poplar wood which is very smooth and solid. We chose to use solid wood instead of MDF because we were routering the top and MDF doesn’t look as crisp/sharp as real wood does when routered in my opinion.

I also installed one of the doors back on temporarily to ensure that it would fit once the molding was attached… I don’t always think ahead, but when I do I sure as shit am happy about it in the end! So the door fit and we were back on to the next step…

Using SmartDraw I designed the exact cutout I wanted for the feet. We did consider adding 4 feet (one for each set of cabinets) but in the end opted for just 2 which I am so glad we did!

My Super Awesome Hubby used the jigsaw to cutout the design and the router to add a nice ogee edge to the top. Since the wood is placed against about 1.5” of cabinet face all I needed to do was nail it directly into the face, very sturdy and simple. I then filled in all of the nail holes and a long dent I didn’t see when we bought the piece, I use spackling for this process rather than wood filler as it is quick to dry and sands very easily.

I also added a small chair rail backer piece of molding to the sides of both of the top and bottom cabinets. Just used some Loctite and 1.5” nails and it’s not going anywhere.

Once everything is filled, sanded and caulked we can move on to priming and painting!

I’m almost finished with the the door and drawer fronts, hope to share the finished product with you soon!

Thanks as always for stopping by!

May 12, 2016 5

Another Dormer Window Nook Update

I PROMISE this is the last dormer update you’ll see from me (mainly because it’s the only one left ) So we have been working on this little space for a while and to be honest it’s not technically complete, but it will probably stay in this state for a while until I’m ready to get back to it… honestly that’s the way it is sometimes! As you may remember I have already renovated / updated the two other dormer windows in the master bath and closet, but this one is in the “Princess Suite” which is our middle daughter’s room. Again it was just a long hall to a seat destination, not very comfy but it did have a little storage.

This is the picture my hubby took during the walk through inspection.

At this point I have already painted the nook Benjamin Moore’s Teal, which is quite a lovely very dark color that coordinates beautifully with her wall color which is Benjamin Moore’s Sagebrush a totally soothing spa like green/blue/grey… I want to envelope myself in this color it’s so perfect!

I have also made a window shelf with vintage wood brackets and a blackout Roman shade for her as she loves sleeping in pitch black and lets face it at 20 years old she doesn’t want to wake up with the sun!

I had measured the length and width of the dormer and determined it was the perfect size for a twin size bed and what a great place to curl up and read a book (Cassidy is an avid reader) or maybe if you have a friend come over there is a place for her to sleep. It is also a great place to watch the deer in the backyard or just enjoy the scenery.

So rather than remove the existing set we just added to it, much easier in the long run and no need to make a big mess…

First we added 2×4’s, screwing them to the studs with 3” screws after ensuring they were level both front to back and side to side.

Then we added cross braces in order to support the plywood platform.

I was very concerned about screws not being able to withstand weight so we used these hanger pieces to add additional bracing and support

We added 3 cross braces in total, feeling like that should be plenty of support.

We added a 3/4 plywood top, which will eventually have pistons installed on it so you can access the area for storage, but for now is just sitting on the 2×4’s.

We then built a box out of MDF (using the Kreg jig and pocket screws) and nailed it to the sides of the end 2×4’s. This area is right near the outlet and we thought it would be a great charging station area for cell phones, iPads and laptops.

We added MDF around the face of the box, caulked, spackled and added back the baseboard molding to the space.

It took about three coats of teal to cover all of the raw wood, had I primed it with my grey tinted primer I’m sure I could have done it in two. Also, I added a little trim to the front just to jazz it up a bit and that was it!

A nice place to store books and show off collectables… and collect dust if I’m being honest…

Throw a bunch of comfy pillows and a blanket here and it’s such a cozy spot!

I hung up a charcoal drawing self-portrait my daughter drew in high school. She’s a very talented artist I just hope she keeps it up!

Like I said it truly is a great chilling out spot, the kids used it a lot during Christmas break for watching movies and napping (the shades are blackout). The mattress pad that I have on it I bought at Ikea for about $100, it’s foam and comes with a cover and is about 3.5” thick and it’s pretty comfy. I have temporarily wrapped it in a twin sized white duvet cover, but I will get around to making a real cover for it eventually. Like I said we still need to add the pistons on it that will allow easy and safe access to the storage portion, but since we don’t need to store anything there it’s on the backburner for now.

We have three dormers in our home and for each one we have customized it to work for us. I understand why the contractors build little seats in dormers to make them seem useful, but for us I’d much rather have a space we would really use, not just something to fill the void… So what do you think? Have you done anything awesome to your dormers? I would love to know what other people are doing too!

Thanks for stopping by!

January 10, 2016 4

Thonet Chairs Refinishing Complete!

Well Happy 2016 to you all! Over at our home we had a very busy Christmas Holiday with our normal household of 3 humans and 2 dogs increasing to 9 humans and 4 dogs!!! It was crazy and lots of fun, but I’m glad we’re back to normal capacity now! Believe it or not I did get the Thonet chairs finished by Thanksgiving and I would have posted about them earlier, but with all of the blogosphere hyper focused on Christmas decorating I felt like this little post might get lost in the shuffle and I totally think it’s worth checking out… just saying

So you may remember that I started off with this set (plus a couple more I picked up later) of Thonet chairs. (If not you can check out the post I wrote on the refinishing process here) Man have I forgotten how ugly these were to begin with!!

This is where I left off while I moved on to refinishing the farmhouse table, see I wasn’t 100%sure how I wanted them finished so they sat here empty for a couple of weeks as I thought on it…

I had initially thought I wanted to use faux leather on the seats to help with the inevitable cleanup, but after looking at several (let say 10 or so) samples I couldn’t find one that I liked enough… they were either too shiny, too fake looking or just not the right shade. So I ended up finding this very extremely soft grey crocodile embossed velvet.

Of course this fabric was the most expensive fabric I looked at (isn’t that how it always goes!), at $28.00 a yard, but I only needed 3 yards. The cost breakdown of the chairs is: $80/set of 8 chairs + fabric $92 + paint $25 + $10 repair product = $207 or $26 per chair, which is pretty freaking awesome don’t you think!?

To reupholster the seat cushions I just cut the fabric off, using a sharp knife and cutting as close to the staples as possible. There were a ton of staples and honestly I just didn’t want to remove them, had I been upholstering these for someone else I would have probably started with a new wood seat and foam as that would have been less time consuming than removing all of the staples.

I chose to leave the original bottoms (less the previous owners address stickers) and stapled the fabric right near the old staples, it worked like a charm and only took me about an hour to do all 8 seats. Having said that though I should mention that I do have an electric stapler that uses very fine staples, I would never have been able to recover them so quickly with a manual staple gun, you know the old saying about using the right tools for the job!!

Look at that gorgeous velvet!

Originally I was thinking I would paint the chairs grey (which is why I used a grey primer) but once I found my fabric I decided to paint the chairs Benjamin Moore’s Linen White in Advance Satin. I sprayed about 4 light coats on each of the chairs, which would have been less had I primed them with white primer instead of gray but oh well!

I tried to get a good picture of an area that I repaired, I will say that the repairs are about 99.9% invisible! I think they look like they were built this way originally and I’m pretty proud of the job I did…

I’m really digging the different shades of “white” I used, it helps make the table feel like it is less of a set and more of a collection… if that makes sense?!

Now that I have all 8 chairs in they really are a little snug around the table, but one day I will be able to used both ends of the table and it will be the perfect amount of chairs! I love the finished look of the chairs and I am so happy I took the time to update them. I hope this post may inspire you one day to take on a project like this, it really was pretty simple!

Thanks as always for stopping by! By the way I’d love to hear what you think about this project!

January 4, 2016 6

A Very Productive Snow Day

Well we had a very interesting weather day here in Kentucky yesterday. I’m just outside of Louisville and we got 4” of snow, so needless to say the schools were closed and the kiddo was home. This is a very early morning shot of our backyard, it was pretty gloomy and quiet outside all day yesterday.

And Chewy (our Schnoodle) freakin’ loves the snow, buries his face in it and runs like a snow plow, but when he comes in he’s all covered in snow balls on his fringe and it takes like 10 minutes to remove them with the hair dryer… doesn’t his face say WTF Mom let me in!

So anyway, this post is really about how productive I was yesterday… which is not always the case… I replaced the runner on our stairs AND fixed the scratches on the treads while I was at it! This is what I started with and let me say I have HATED this runner since day one, but I was not ready for a big stair renovation…

I found a couple of runners that were the right width and that I liked… I have seen a bunch of bloggers redo their stairs for “$100” with runners, let me tell you I could NOT find any runners wide enough for that kind of price. These runners cost me just over $300 in total and they were on sale… maybe I’m looking in the wrong place? Anyway, I laid out the runners to validate how the layout would work before I started the process.

Getting the original runner up was not a big deal, just a lot of staples to remove that didn’t come out with the runner when I pulled it out. That left me with a tack strip in the back and carpet padding, which I left down… and consequently stepped on the tack strips a couple of times while doing this project!

After the runner was up I worked on the scratches in the oak treads. Most of them looked a little like this…

The process I used was so simple, just wipe on more stain on the stairs, wait a couple of minutes then wipe it off. I would say the difference is pretty dramatic.

I have no idea what the original floor color was, but I used “Special Walnut” stain color, pretty awesome change right?!

I didn’t poly over the stain, just wiped the excess off good. I will eventually have the stairs refinished but for now they coordinate much better with the refinished wood floors downstairs.

Here’s my BIG HUGE tip for those of you with white stair risers and pickets. 1. wipe as much of the excess stain off of the white paint as you can before it dries, 2. once the stain is dry use Goo Gone and a paper towel to remove the rest of the stain 3. clean the Goo Gone off with a paper towel and Formula 409. SERIOUSLY, if you do this you might not need to touch up your white painted areas, but at the most you’d only have to do one coat to make it look good. Otherwise your looking at at least 2 coats to cover the areas the stain discolored, don’t say I didn’t warn you..

So after my white paint touch up was complete I laid out the runner and started stapling away, being sure to keep it taught and straight. This was the easiest part of this whole update. I also hammered down the tack strip under the runner so we couldn’t feel the tacks trough the carpet.

The first riser was originally carpeted but I didn’t have enough runner for it so I just filled in the staple holes and painted the riser, I like it better this way …

So I’m thrilled to death with this update. Now I don’t feel like I have to explain to guests why we have updated the whole first floor but let the old, ratty, ugly runner. While this runner is not a permanent solution for me I will be very happy if I can get 2 years out of it or until I’m ready to make a longer term commitment.

I will totally admit that this was a project I had been dreading because of the poor condition of the wood. Even though it took me the better part of the day to complete it was well worth it and nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I’m hoping you’re keeping warm and safe, thanks for stopping by!

November 18, 2014 16

Beautiful Laundry Room Makeover

Let me start by apologizing for being so absent! Sometimes I really get sucked into the projects we are working on and just can’t (or don’t want to) carve out the hours necessary to photograph and write up a post… I want to share but I’m just so darn slow so forgive me ‘kay?

So as the title states we have been working on making over our laundry room. It’s a very nice sized room (12L x 7.5W) with a folding table, cabinets, a sink and natural light, what more can a girl want right? Let me share with you the underwhelming Before shots before you answer that question…

First of all AGAIN I’m dealing with white on white on beige, I think the previous owners were deathly afraid of color! Also, checkout the weird light placement below. I think they installed the pull down stairs after the fact and because of that had to move the light as half of the light is over the cabinet… thanks mister stair installer!

So not only did the light placement look weird, but those cabinets just smack you in your face when you walked in and they also made the room feel claustrophobic. So we removed the upper cabinets and I can’t tell you what a difference this made… don’t worry about losing storage space there is a TON of storage in this house so I really didn’t use these cabinets anyway.

After removing the wire shelving (ARGH!) and the folding table we then moved one of the upper cabinets to this area. I added bead board leftovers to the side of the cabinet to jazz it up a little.

We added some V grove wood planks (same as we did here), primed and painted them.

The color we chose is Benjamin Moore Regal Select (Pearl Finish) Barely Teal #2048-70. It’s a very pretty blue, quite honestly I don’t see any teal, but it’s very pretty and coordinates with the wallpaper (oh, did I not mention we are installing wallpaper in here, well we are!?)

I removed the old countertop and sink from the base cabinets on the other side. The drawer fronts and doors were also removed because I am painting the white cabinets… Just freaking WAIT until you see these cabinets!!!

So there is a HUGE reason I am doing all of this work for a laundry room… it’s because every time I walk up the stairs this is the room I look into. It has a window to the backyard that lets in a ton of light into the hall so this door stays open pretty much all of the time. So here is my view now… and I kid you not I smile every time I walk up the stairs and see this view!

The cabinets I painted with a custom mix of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (50/50 Provence & Florence) it coordinates perfectly with the Amy Butler wallpaper and is such a stunning teal color.

The knobs I found at Lowes, they’re Allen Roth brand and just perfect I think! The cabinets were waxed with Minwax Paste Wax after a very light sanding.

We paid someone to install the wallpaper, I can install wallpaper but I was concerned it would not be perfect and these guys did a perfect job! The new countertop is a faux Carrera marble laminate, which I was very concerned about (the faux part), but really turned out being just right!

The drying racks I picked up on a trip to Ikea and are fabulous!

The countertop we made out of two pieces of 2” thick pine boards that we attached together, sanded, stained and waxed. It is about 6” narrower than the original folding table but it helps the area in front of the washer & dryer feel more open and there is still plenty of room to fold.

This cabinet is installed up high, but I really like having all of the space beneath the cabinet and I can still easily reach the bottom shelf, I would need a stool for the less used items I keep up top.

We painted the ceiling and the pull down stairs the same white, it doesn’t disappear but it is less noticeable. You can also get a sneak peek at the black photo wall in the hall that we are still working on… We also replaced the sink and faucet with a new stainless steel sink and chrome faucet… the old ones were pretty beat up.

Obviously we replace the “boob” lights. This one is so cool, it’s made from a vintage can, I picked it up at Shades of Light while is was back in Richmond visiting.

It tool me a while to find the right piece to coordinate with the can light but this fixture was perfect… well maybe not “perfect” as I did have to paint the original rust finish with a zinc like finish that worked better with the other light. Still it’s cool right?

This is another Ikea piece I already had, it is perfect for hanging paint brushes up to dry and to hold those pods for the washer.

I did consider a countertop over the washer & dryer but it would really be for looks and not for function so for now this is the way it is.

We made another small wood shelf to hold some decorative items, which is all the decorating this laundry room is getting!

So when all was said and done we made a huge change to the room right?

While all of this color might not be your cup of tea, let me tell you this is BY FAR the most vibrant and fun room in the house. And why not? I think the laundry room should be as cheery as possible and I think we achieved that goal.

Let me know what you think! Are you more of a subtle, understated laundry room fan or a punch of color and pattern is fabulous fan?

Thanks as always for stopping by and leaving some comment love!

Until next time!

UPDATE: Our laundry room has been chosen for Apartment Therapy’s Color 2014! Would LOVE it if you would go vote for me!

Linking up to these parties:

Redoux Interiors, My Romantic Home, Elizabeth & Co., Savvy Southern Style, Carissa Miss, From My Front Porch to Yours

Featured on:

Hooked on Houses

September 2, 2014 102

SUPER Easy 10 Minute Chair Update

Hi all! Sorry I have been so quiet but I have a ton of projects (all unfinished) going on and I don’t want to share them with you until they are done… OK so it’s either that or I am feeling lazy and don’t want to clean and take pictures… you decide

So rather than clean the house or write a big post on something I’m working on I decided to start yet ANOTHER project… this one I can finish quickly though so I think it will help me feel like I have accomplished something…

First let me start off by saying that this chair “makeover” really took me less than 10 minutes to finish, which includes me taking the award wining photos seen below (seriously don’t be jealous)!

First I started off with this “blah” vanity chair that the previous owners so graciously left for me. I do use the chair because my vanity is SUPER short even for my 5’5 frame so sitting down to put on makeup is a must. Also, we have updated NOTHING in this bathroom since we moved in so I really wanted to inject a little bit of “me” into the space so I started with this.

Nothing special and I thought about painting it too, but I’m pretty sure the black will work for me long term, if not it is an easy change to make after the fact so pressing on…

I removed the seat, cut a square of fabric I had on hand 3” wider than the seat and “place tacked” the fabric on. Place taking means that you slightly angle the staple so that it is easily removed once you get to that space. It is very important to place tack in order to ensure your fabric is placed properly.

I am still using my AWESOME electric stapler by Maestri, it cost me about $130 but was well worth it and so much easier than lugging out a air compressor for such a small job.

I stapled around the edges pulling the fabric taught (NOT TIGHT) working my way from one staple to the next, removing the place staples as I got to them. If you do it this way you should have no to very little wrinkles along the outer edge of your seat.

Once done it looks like this.

I then trimmed the excess fabric close to the staples.

I realigned the chair back on the seat cushion and reattached it with the original screws. Most seats will be attached in a very similar way so it makes reupholstering the cushions very easy.

Here it is all finished up, like 8 minutes later!

Seriously so easy I’m a little irritated I waited so long to do this!

I hope this inspires you to try a little upholstery too! These types of chairs are so simple to do, but I will say it helps to have the right stapler. I have had MANY non electric staplers over the years and I cannot say enough about the ease of using this one. If you are going to do a large project or if you may do many projects over the course of a year I would recommend buying the best stapler you can afford, it will make all the difference in the world I promise!

Hope you have a GREAT weekend, we can see Spring coming and I cannot wait to get outside and do some gardening!

Thanks as always for stopping by…

Until next time!