remodel – Page 2 – Peacock Orchard

Another Kitchen Remodel Update

If you haven’t been keeping up you can go to these posts to see what I’ve been up to:

I spent a large amount of my Saturday and Sunday completing some of the parts of the remodel I was most excited about. The new pantry was painted (though the shelves still aren’t stained as it’s been too cold to do so far). The best part is the over the fridge storage I built for all of my important kitchen bits.

I had most of my pans stuffed in a single cabinet next to the stove, my baking stone and cast iron skillet in the buffet in another room and the cutting boards stashed on top of my pot rack. It was a mess. I could hardly find anything and getting the stone and skillet were a hassle. No more! They are within reach of us tall people, in the kitchen and beautifully displayed. Of course, some of them aren’t exactly beautiful….that blue cutting board. Still, I am in LOVE!

Since I built, I was obviously able to customize the different heights and widths. It is spectacular! I even had room left over for my huge serving trays.

Allow me to back up though. The first thing I did, after taping, puttying and floating the new walls was add the 2×4 frame the new storage would sit on.

Then I painted, with help.

A very happy helper indeed!

Then I measured and cut the top shelf out.

And painted some more.

The pantry is 70% complete. I still have to make doors. We are also putting a wooden fronting on the side of the wall and the front of the 2×4’s. Also, I have to stain those shelves!

I love it already! Of course doors are needed as not all our food is that…photogenic.

Have to build a door for the top shelf storage as well. It’s quite hideous at the moment. Terribly functional though!

I also primed and texture the part of the new wall that faces in toward our formal living room. The walls are different sizes. The original interior walls of our house were made with 1 x 3’s. I used 2 x 4’s. Still, it works. I have the wall primed and ready for a decision on color. I’m hesitant as there is another wall in the formal living room that is going to be removed so I suppose I should just wait and paint the whole thing at once.

The fridge is almost ready to be moved. The water is the only hang up. I’m building a new sink and faucet for the 1/2 bath as shrinking the wall made the old sink too large. Once those are done and installed I’ll be able to turn the water on and thus have the fridge connected to water for the ice maker. May not be a big deal to some but I’m fairly certain my husband and children could not live without ice.

Kitchen Remodel Stage 2- Update

Before

I always have eager helpers.

I pre-cut the wood for the walls I needed to build before knocking out the final part of the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen.

The walls were built (the above picture is not of the finished walls, simply me laying them out. They are not that crooked once built.) and then:

It’s a family job. My niece and children got in on the wall smacking action.

Here is the new wall behind the old wall. Waiting to remove the old wall until wiring is done.

Boxes have been installed for re-wiring and…

Thanks to the most amazing father in the world, things were re-wired! It should be noted that I removed some residual drywall whilst he was wiring and so he got…..dusty.

The new walls were then put up. I know in this pic the wall isn’t knocked out yet. This is my testing to see if I built the walls right pic. I did. VICTORY!

So part of this is going to be our new pantry. Oh a new pantry, I’m so excited. You have no idea how crappy our current pantry is. It’s a weird trapezoidal shape and is so deep that you have no idea what is in the back corner. So I used 2×4’s to create the frame for the shelves. The shelves are 1 x 12’s.

I measured and cut out a notch for them to fit neatly around a 2×4 for complete coverage.

Repainting over the awful color I chose when I was so very young is quite a trial. 2 coats of primer and 1 coat of paint should do the trick.

Then it’s time to drywall. I made this handy 1 foot tool as my space was 3ft. Drywall is a standard 4 ft and thus I simply needed to cut off 1ft.

And the bathroom wall is up. So exciting! Needed to tape and use joint compound still. That was fairly easy though:

Bathroom wall

Kitchen wall view

Still not even close to done. I need to float the walls, then sand, then prime, then paint. Then I need to assemble my incredible over the fridge storage. I’ve already started on them but I’ll save it for it’s own post. Coming along though.

You can see where I fell off the ladder holding the gallon of primer. Only got a bit of the floor white with that. Fun times!

As a funny aside I got home with the drywall tape and the joint compound and then had to text my father on how to use it. I wasn’t sure how the tape was supposed to stick. He sent me text directions. Drywall sucks by the way. It’s dusty. It’s heavier than you’d think. It’s super fragile and the taping process just isn’t any fun. Worth it in the end, I know. I really need a break from all of this though. I’m beat.

Kitchen Remodel Stage 2- In the bathroom

I am officially unemployed. How terrifying. I’m keeping busy though. I have a kitchen to remodel and I’m getting right to it. Unfortunately this kitchen remodel comes with a bathroom remodel. The only available wall to move the fridge to requires that the fridge be sunk into the space so as not to obstruct flow. Luckily our 1/2 bath is there and way larger than it ever needs to be. So today I removed the bathroom vanity, sink, faucet and part of the wall.

Found an interesting wire from who knows what. Looks like they did a great job with it. I am sure that’s up to code. *sarcasm*

The sink needs to be moved about 2 feet. I was hoping to simply cut the pipe, cut a new hole in the floor and move it without messing with the set up of the drain pipe. Alas I am probably going to have to cut it in a few places now. Perhaps I’ll simply replace the whole set up. I hate this one anyway.

I’ll only be able to move the wall back as far as the light fixture. That lovely hole in the ceiling let me know where the beam ran. The good news is I won’t have to put in an extra electrical outlet as we’ll just consume the current bathroom outlet. It’s not needed in there. Only Husband uses that bathroom anyway.

I work fast. Did this during the kids nap.

Stay tuned for the removal of this wall and the rest of stage 2. I am so excited to build a better pantry here. Plus as soon as that fridge is moved and the new pantry built the main wall is coming down. Terrifying!

Kitchen Remodel Stage 1- DIY Concrete Counters with a New Sink and Faucet

The kitchen remodel is coming along slowly but surely. Almost done with stage 1. All that is left is painting the base cabinets and the cabinet doors. The game changers, for me, were the counters and sink. Our old sink and counter looked like this:

It was 6″ deep and the faucet barely came 2″ above that. Can you imagine how difficult it was to fill a simple bucket in that thing. Horrid! The counters are laminate. They had this horrible maroon tile back splash and the tile was on the counter edge. Removing that tile and putting molding on the edge made things look better immediately.

Originally I was going to router a 1×2 board for the front edge of the counters. However, boards aren’t 1×2 in big box stores. They are 1 1/2 or 2 1/2. I didn’t want to have to rip the boards I wanted down to size so I went in search of a different solution. This molding was in the cut bin of Home Depot. It is the exact right size and doesn’t need routering as it already has a rounded edge. Ideal!

Next I removed the sink. This was a big deal for us as it meant no dishwasher and our bathroom sinks are just as teeny tiny as this kitchen one. Basically we’ve been using paper plates and the grill for a few days.

Very simple to do but did require a crowbar as that sink was glued down really really well.

Then I started the cement overlay on the counters. I read a million tutorials on how to do it so I felt confident. I sanded the laminate, mixed my Henry’swith a 1:1 ratio and plopped a glob on to start smearing. Wow. No one told me how anxious that could make a person. It didn’t seem to be sticking all that well to the laminate and I was having SERIOUS doubts about this decision. However, I persevered and did 3 coats.

Look at how terrible that looks! What a nerve wracking first coat!

I did all 3 coats of cement on Sunday and Monday night after work I set about sanding them smooth (by hand, as I really didn’t want all that dust getting blown about) and sealing them. We simply used a high gloss sealant we bought at Home Depot. My sealant is not labeled food safe. Cheng Concrete Sealer is supposed to be food safe. I simply didn’t want to pay that much. Yes, I’m that cheap. Plus I wasn’t sure how this was going to go down so…… I don’t regret my decision (so far). I did 6 coats of sealant.

I have a plastic bag over the automatic dog waterer so it would stay marginally clean while we were doing this. I have caught 2 of our dogs licking the bag. Bucket of water right next to it but they still want that auto-waterer. I think it gives them that fresh toilet water feel. Also, anyone who has multiple dogs should do this. It has changed our lives. You have no idea how often we were cleaning and changing the water on our old 5 gallon waterer. I can’t remember if I’ve linked the one we have before but here it is. Also, it’s hooked into the water supply to the sink. We’ve had it about 2 years now and I’ll never go back!!!!! I don’t think our dogs want to go back either.

As you can see we did not put the “back splash” boards up until after the counter was completed. The back splash boards were premium boards I put extra poly on. There is a slight gap that we are debating on. I think we may put a metal strip up as extra water protection for the wall and wood but we haven’t made up our minds yet.

My dad came and helped me install the new sink. I can be fairly handy after training (my Dad trains me usually) but I was nervous about this plumbing job. Probably because the last time I did any plumbing it resulted in leaks and mold in the master bath. We no longer have a bath tub in there thanks to me.

I have started the slide-out trash can area. The floor is in it and I have the bottom drawer pull screwed into the wall. Now I just need to make the box for the trash can and we’ll be good to go there.

I made a chicken wire shade for the new pendant light and hung it up with a Vintage bulb. I’m not sold on what I did with the rope. May change later.

I made this spice rack ages ago to hide the hole I made in the front of the cabinets in order to replace the old microwave.

I have a partial wall that needs painted, and of course the cabinets and cabinet doors. I may wait on the partial wall until I’ve torn down the part connecting it to the wall I’m removing. I’m undecided as of yet.

So take a look at a few before and afters. Obviously this is after I ripped the wall and the cabinet down but before I’d really put anything up. The tear down wasn’t particularly planned so pics weren’t at the front of my mind at the time, just hammering.

A huge improvement don’t you think. I particularly like my tomato display, which will be canned this weekend.

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Country kitchen remodel stage 1 of 5 in process

I was driving home from work recently when my mind finally figured out a problem in our kitchen design. The trash can was the problem. We had no other place to put it in the kitchen. At least we thought we didn’t. Last year I’d removed the drawers from one of our base cabinets. They were falling apart and their location made them a haven for mice. We’ve since fixed the mouse problem by purchasing this product and filling all the small holes and cracks in the house with it. We seriously haven’t seen a mouse since we did it. Life saver!

Anyway, so I had this blank base cabinet I was never getting around to turning into a pot rack. The trash fit nicely into it. With the trash moved I could finally take down a pointless wall that divided the kitchen from the laundry room. The kids enjoyed helping, and with hammers and eye protection passed around that wall came down. It did an amazing job opening up the space. It feels so much larger now. However, I had a damaged wall that I was going to have to do something with. We need somewhere to put our coats and boots. That has always been a problem in our household as the coats always seem to collect on the dining room table. So I planned to make mudroom cubbies. However, we liked the open feel so much I couldn’t see ruining it with cubbies. Thus we are doing a simple coat rack, a movable bench, boot trays and some wire baskets nailed to the wall. It was decided we would plank the wall from the kitchen into the laundry room to make the rooms flow better, as they are currently different colors. Once that was decided my mind took off and now we have a 5 stage remodel project that is going to change everything.

Stage 1- planking the wall, beautifying current cabinets installed on planked wall, new faucet and sink, open shelves to replace 1 wall cabinet.

Stage 2- moving the fridge and building a pantry.

Stage 3- remove cabinets, wall, and old island and build large island in it’s place.

Stage 4- lighting and fixing the ceiling as we currently have 2 recessed fluorescent lights.

Stage 5- fixing the flooring throughout.

So far in stage 1 I have boxed in the top of the wall cabinets that will remain. I always hated the space above them as it wasn’t enough to do anything with. I removed the wall cabinet and made and installed floating shelves. I’ve hung 3 coat racks in the laundry room. Seems excessive but we had a lot of wasted space in there so….. why not. I’ve ordered the sink and faucet and the Ardex required to cement coat our current counter tops. I’m still looking for planking wood. I think I want to use old fence panels and a local fencing company said they would call me when they had some I could take. I also need to purchase a bench and the boot trays I’ve decided on. Slow going as I am working full time, a mom and a farmer. Going all the same!

Here are a few pics of the wall demo. As you can see I got a bit nuts when we moved in and painted the kitchen a CRAZY mixture of reds, yellows and oranges. My cabinets are red….it’s horrible.

This is the coat rack getting screwed in.

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