Kitchen Remodel : Shelves and Chalk Paint? CHALK PAINT!

I found the most delicious stain color a few years ago .

It was a mistint on the clearance table at Lowe's.

A few bucks for a no-name color in quart size and my entire house color scheme changed.

This picture is of the old island in our kitchen.
Once I stained the wood, I was in love.

Contractor Steve created 4 floating shelves and a custom cabinet piece for our new kitchen.

From the beginning I knew I wanted those 5 pieces to be the same color as our old island.

Little did I know how maddening that would be.

The custom pieces are made of maple.

Maple is an extremely hard wood.
Stain does not soak into maple as it does the cedar I used around my old island.

After several trips to the paint store and 3 quarts of wrong-colored-stain later, I had given up.

I did not want anything painted in my kitchen, and I knew now, I was going to have to paint.
Deciding chalk paint was the only way to go, I headed down to the local store which sells Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.

I had used chalk paint on a high-use coffee table last year.  

There is not one scratch, not one chip, not one peel.  NOT ONE.

I knew this would be the perfect medium.

My only hesitancy came with the color.

They all seemed too light.
What I thought would be the easiest part of the remodel, had become the most difficult.

I was sad.

Diving in head first, I started the project.

When I put the first swipe of wax on, I was in love.

My heart soared as I knew this was going to be beautiful.

And perfect.

Oh, so perfect.

Here is what I did.

Equal parts Annie Sloan French Linen and Coco.

I mixed these together and painted 2 coats onto each shelf.

Black Wax

After the paint dries, I used the Annie Sloan wax brush and covered the piece with the black wax. 

Dark Wax

Once the black wax dried for 24 hours, I followed with a coat of the dark wax.  This color is a strong brown color and gave the perfect touch in making the shelves more greige than grey.

Once I was finished, I was so excited, I may have gotten teary-eyed.

Ok, I did.

I was just so happy.

OH MY GOODNESS you guys - just look at how closely the two colors match!
The piece I am holding in the middle is a stained piece from my old island.
The background piece is the shelf.

The wax truly was the magic touch.

It added the perfect color tones and brought out so much of the character of the shelves.

Here is a look at the before, during and after.

 Be still my heart.

Next : the shelves reveal!

Kitchen Remodel : Week 1

We're a week in to the kitchen remodel.  

The vision in my head is slowly transferring into reality.
And it's exciting!

After a very brutally cold winter, we packed up the family and headed to Palm Springs for a week of sunshine and pool time.  A week away went too fast.  Pulling into the drive, we could see pieces of our kitchen neatly tucked into a space in the driveway.  

The remodel had begun just as promised!

I immediately went into the house and the kitchen we had known was completely gone.  

In it's place we found boxes of cabinets.  

And water.  Lots of water.

Within 5.7 nano seconds our contractor was in our house fixing the problem.  

As I knew he would.  

Why?  I had done my homework. 

(Please read about this crucial step here.)

He took care of us and the problem was solved.

Expect the bumps.

 

Know what else you can expect? 
DUST.

Lord have mercy.  There is dust.

We have dark wood floors throughout most of our home.
There ain't no hiding that dust.

 

Many times I remind myself it's temporary.

Again and again and again.

I've also had to get use to things not being where they normally belong.

Doesn't everyone have an armoire in front of their slider door?

And this, my friends, is Grand Central.

My dining room table is everything but a dining room table.

It's our prep space,

cupboard space,

counter space.

Even as I type, I've secured a tiny little spot of the table while staring at the pancake syrup.

Despite the chaos of not having a kitchen, we are loving the transformation.

Next week, the countertop process begins!

Adding Cabinet Knobs

 I finally did it!
I took a drill to my kitchen cabinets.

The thought of making a mistake on something so visible paralyzed me from doing anything.

So there my cabinets sat; crying out for hardware but I was unable to give them what the needed.

Until winter hit and I found myself stuck in the house - all weekend - for the second weekend in a row.
ANYTHING can happen.  And it did.
My cabinets met Mr. Drill.

Taking our kitchen from boring oak to a more modern feel with white,
I opted for a simple brushed nickle knob.

What I used:

Drill

9/16" drill bit

Screwdriver

Pencil
My son's ruler from his backpack

A look at our cabinets before I started.

 

 Looking at the cabinets I decided the best spot for the knob would be 

2 mm in from the sides and from the bottom of the cabinet door. 

They make great handy - dandy templates that you can use that require no measuring.
Clever!
But I was stuck in the house in the middle of a winter storm and I didn't have one.
Bummer.

Using my son's ruler I marked 2 mm in from the side like this:

 Then I marked 2 mm from the bottom of the door like this:

I faced my fears and fired up that drill.

With the door closed I drilled through front the door.
Do not drill from the backside because you would then have to have the door open for this step.

Applying pressure to the door is much easier with door closed.

 Look at me using the drill!
Applause, applause, applause.
Ah, shucks - thank you!

 Using a screwdriver, I began screwing in the bolts into the backside of the cabinet door.
Continue screwing in the bolts until the bolt head is flush with the door.

The final step is twisting on the knob to the section of the bolt 

peaking out on the front of the cabinet door.

That's it!

Why was I so scared?
I have no idea.
Isn't that how it usually works though?

The improved cabinet door - ta da!

I love them!

Next on my list - finding the perfect drawer pulls.

Breakfast Bar Re-Vamp

When deciding on the changes I wanted to incorporate into our home, 

I spent countless hours flipping through magazines and being inspired on Pinterest.

To narrow our taste to a certain style is nearly impossible ~ it is a modern-meets-contemporary-meets-shabby chic.

The dark floors and white cabinets brought in strong clean lines and I wanted to break that up with a pop of unexpected.  

I knew I did not want to use bead board on the breakfast bar as it had been done too often and is too expected.

What to do that is unexpected?  Batten & Board.   

Batten and board?  Batten & board! 

And do it in a completely different color.

Here is my blank canvas.

Armed with lots of questions, and not certain of all we needed, 

we visited a local lumberyard to try and put the ideas in my head into a reality.

The salesman that helped me was extremely professional yet the look in his eyes 

told me loud and clear he thought I was a tad on the crazy side.  

I solidified his thinking when I told him I needed the board and batten to be rough-sawn.
Still the professional, he showed me the perfect pieces.
As we left the store, he shook his head and stated,
"I have never sold board and batten for the inside of a home before.  I've been in the business a lot of years."
I promised to bring him before and after pictures.

Now for the fun part.

I removed the trim pieces and then went to work on removing the counter braces.
That was a lot of nails!

Although I wanted the rough-sawn look, I lightly sanded the board and batten.
This ensured a rough look with a smooth finish.

Next came the staining.
Walking the aisles of a big box store I stumbled upon the perfect color in their mis-tint section.

The absolute perfect color cost me $2.50.  

BARGAIN!
Bargains always make me happy.

This color is the most delicious brown-grey color.
It looks fantastic against the white cabinets and dark flooring.

First I cut and nailed the plywood to the face of the kitchen bar.
Next step was trimming the top, bottom, sides and corners with the 1x2 boards.

From there I needed to figure out how close I wanted the rest of the boards to be to each other.

Once I determined the distance, I used a scrap piece to "cheat" my measuring.
I simply laid the cheat piece against the outside of the first board and the second board would then be set at the outside of my cheat piece.

Hopefully this explains it a little more clearly than I can:

My Cheat Piece saved me a lot of time.
Nail a board down, lay down the Cheat Piece, nail the next board down.

Repeat.

The new counter brackets cost $10 a piece and although 

they are a different wood than the board and batten, 

held the stain and matched perfectly.

Once it was finished, it transformed the look of the kitchen.

The grey color in the stain continues the contemporary element 

all the while the board and batten brings in a hint of a farmhouse feel.

A touch of unexpected.

Which, in essence, is what life is all about isn't it?

Bringing in the board and batten was a simple project which did not cost a lot of money (less than $100!) and it took only a few hours of my time.

An easy, cheap and fun project ~ the best kind of project!

P.S.
As promised I returned to the local lumberyard to show the 
salesman my before and after pictures.  
The look one his face was priceless.
My guess is next time he won't be so leery of my ideas.
And we all know there will be a next time.

Helloooo Kitchen Cabinets

Oak, Oak, Oak.
It was time to part ways.
Our builder-basic home said nothing of originality nor did it even whisper a hint of our style. 

Armed with a small budget, we tore up old flooring and laid down new floors.

I spent countless hours sanding, priming, painting, cutting and staining the cabinetry.
We are thrilled ecstatic with the results.

Ok, I may be the one who is ecstatic as I am no longer spending every waking moment outside of work with a paint brush in my hand.
And if I'm ecstatic, everyone needs to be too.

Or in the very least, pretend to be.

Here is a reminder where we started.

This isn't so much a before shot as it is a during shot.
The walls and ceiling have been painted.

The oak trim is gone from the floors and windows.
The new floors are down.

The view from our family room.

And here is what we have now.

TA  DA!

I love the look of board and batten and incorporated it into the cabinetry. 
I think it brings just a hint of farmhouse, don't you?
There will be more on that later.

 Just a splash of red.

It is amazing how much brighter and open the kitchen appears.
We often hear "WHOA, it's so much bigger in here!" when family and friends see the space for the first time;
which is exactly the goal in mind.

 The hardware on the cabinets are custom, to replace them would have cost us a fortune.

Instead, my husband sanded them down and I spray painted them.
They turned out fantastic.

To add a touch of whimsy, our monogram was incorporated into the design.

Well, there you have our latest redesign.
So much hard work and absolutely worth it in the end!

Over the next couple weeks I will spend time redecorating the kitchen, adding hardware and creating a fun back splash with an idea I have brewing in my head.

I'd love to hear what you think, do you love it as much as we do?
What was a favorite change you've made to your space?



Keeping It Real

It's easy to stare at pictures of beautiful rooms and swoon over their beauty.

It's easy to look at a design element in someone's home and decide to incorporate it into your own.

It's easy to find inspiration.

It ain't easy livin' in the Land of Inbetween.
You know the place ~ the land you live in while taking what you had and turning it into what you want.

It's scary.  And oh is it messy.

In my effort of keeping it real I give you, my friends, the Fiorucci Land of Inbetween.

This was our front porch while we were laying down the new floors.

Not very welcoming is it?

While putting up the new trim, our front living room and dining room was my painting station.

Just want to curl up on that sofa and share a cup of coffee don't you?

The seemingly endless task of painting cabinet doors took over the living room and dining room.

All available counter space was used for stacking drawers to be painted. 

There were plenty of days where it was difficult to find space to simply make a sandwich.

As we did all the work ourselves, we lived in a state of disarray for 3 solid months. 

There were days it seemed unending. 

There were days I thought I would go crazy. 

There were days the only sanity I found was sipping a glass of red wine while sitting on the corner of the bathtub because it was the only clean room in the house.

The only way to live in the after picture is traveling through the Land of Inbetween.

Just don't park there.

Up next, our beautiful revamped kitchen!