The Kitchen Reveal

Welp.

We did it.

We actually did it.

I didn't think we would really do it.

It seemed SO daunting.

All those cabinets.

Hand painting them.

Nothing about the project was appealing to me.

Except for the end product.

I never hated my kitchen.

Shit, when we first walked into the house, we LOVED the kitchen.

It's nothing glorious. 

The countertops are shit.

The floors are crap.

But we saw the potential people!

The cabinets were nice, just beat up.

We decided to change out our island, since it was just too small to be really functional.

Once we did that, we totally stalled. 

For months.

I tracked progress throughout my 2 week holiday staycation.

A few things I never thought I'd have in my kitchen:

A pot filler. We got this one.

A fire back. Being held up with adhesive. This thing weighs like 50lbs. I'm not sure where he got this from. Or why he felt like we needed one! But, now that it's here, it's amazing and I love it. It truly does add a bit of flair to the kitchen!

Adding shims to hold it in place.

I assumed I'd get a new stove eventually, but we pulled the trigger much earlier than anticipated. Having all of our appliances match became a much bigger deal when we started to put all the pieces together. We just couldn't have a shitty stove/oven and this new kitchen! We got this stove from LG.

I grew up in a household where there was a LOT of cooking. My mom always had a nice range hood above her stove. 

Our house came with the microwave combo. 

When we took it down, we realized that even though it's supposed to be vented outside, it wasn't ever connected properly. 

So all that disgusting grease and shit just...filled the cavity above the stove and never actually vented outside. 

Gross. 

Not only that, but our new range hood is 6 times stronger. 

And it'll be installed properly. 

We had to cut this piece down to size. We opted to get a copper color and went with this one. To break up the black/white we have going on.

We finally got our pulls. 

Well, most of them.

We got one set, but the size wasn't right.

We sent them back.

We got another set and finally started to put them up.

Of course we miscounted and we're missing one.

BUT, I love them!

Finished grouting, finally!

We are still missing some final touches, but we're about 90% there.

This is probably my favorite part. Fire back. New stove. Pot filler. Hood. 

I am beyond happy with the results! 

Here's a side by side:

Now the floors are so incredibly obvious and I hate them :( 

I also want to clear off my counters, so I'm hoping to fix up my pantry and I can put my appliances in there, like my air fryer and microwave. 

Don't look too close - we're still missing some trim and moldings! 

We're so close to finishing the kitchen!

We're so close. We can't lose momentum!

We had a few more tiles to finish up to get the backsplash done.

We are choosing to go with a darker grout, to really make the white subway tile pop. We have 3mm of space in between and I really love how the dark grout came out. We only did above the stove so we could get the range hood up and hope to finish up grouting this weekend. 

I cannot wait to post the reveal photos! We are hoping to get the grout finished up this weekend. 

Christmas Staycation Day 16 - THE LAST DAY!

Poor Steve.

This is Hell Week.

So he's working 6 out of 7 days.

All at least 13.5 hour days.

He also took on a small brake job over the weekend.

But, BUT.

I'm SO happy that he rallied Sunday and we worked from 9am - 10pm.

We continued tiling the backsplash.

We marked where the range hood should go.

Without having the pot filler, it was tough to know where to mark that on the wall.

Luckily for us, our water pipes are RIGHT behind our stove, because our half bath is right there.

Not much to update, other than we kept going until I got tired and decided it really was time for bed. it was 10pm, I still had to shower, make the kids' lunches and you know, get ready to go back to work, after being off for 16 days. 

So yeah. 

Christmas Staycation Day 15 (we took a break yesterday)

We took a break yesterday.

And when I say "we" I mean "me".

Steve was at work all day again.

Without knowing how to use the tile saw (and honestly, having zero interest in trying it myself), I took the day to just chill.

The kids and I relaxed a bit.

They played.

The end of my ridiculously long break is near. I'm trying not to have the "Sunday Scaries" too soon. 

I've enjoyed this time off. I've enjoyed being around my kids and family. I've enjoyed NOT having to go anywhere or do anything, unless we wanted to.

Steve is home tomorrow, so we're really trying to tackle as much as we can before we both go back to work on Monday.

Christmas Staycation Day 14

Friday, January 3

With Steve working again today, there wasn't much I felt like I could do.

I did pick up the wet saw today. So that's good.

I sanded and painted the holes that were leftover from the old knobs.

On our way back, the girls and I stopped to visit Steve at work.

They are repairing a diesel engine again. It belongs to a friend.

The crack going through the top circular thing is what's broken. Steve got the text "I blew up the engine. AGAIN." Like, how does that even happen?

And our new range hood arrived which is WAY more exciting! It wasn't exactly easy to get into the house, but I didn't want to leave it in the garage. 

I REALLY wanted to see what it looked like! 

It came extremely well-packaged.

GORGE you guys!

I cannot wait to see what it looks like installed. Steve really wanted to go with this pattern/texture and I'm excited. It's not normally something I'd pick out, but I love it. I think it'll go nicely with the draw pulls we chose (which should be coming early next week).

I am hoping that when Steve gets home tonight, we can work a little on the backsplash. I want to get to a point where I can maybe do a little bit myself tomorrow. I'm a bit nervous....I've never tiled anything....in my life.

I think I just talked myself out of it.

Christmas Staycation Day 12 - Kitchen Reno

Wednesday, January 1 (I'm starting to lose track of my days!)

We spent all day working on the kitchen and honestly, it didn't feel like we accomplished much.

We got up around 8 and after eating breakfast, we headed out right away to pick up the materials we needed for the backsplash and also some hole filler for the cabinet doors, where the old knobs used to be.

We went to Home Depot so we could rent a tile cutter, but ended up buying one since it was only $4 more than the daily rental fee.

First, there are so many fucking options.

I always wanted white subway tile - but once we got there, holy moly the options were endless.

 So many to choose from. We decided to stick with our initial idea of simple white subway tile. 

We got a simple tile cutter

Instead of using traditional mortar, we're using this adhesive.

Steve sprayed the cabinet doors and filled all the holes while I gave the cabinets and molding another coat of paint.

Steve works 6 out of the next 7 days, so that totally sucks for our progress. He'll likely spray the doors again tomorrow night, but we won't be able to finish the backsplash until Sunday when he's home (the ONLY day of rest he'll have in a week...)

We're finding that using the tile cutter and nippers is still not enough. It doesn't give us the clean edge we need to get around our window moldings. We're hoping to borrow a wet saw from a friend.

We called it an early-ish night and stopped around 8:30.

I'll be filling holes and sanding and giving the cabinets another coat of paint (making that 3 in total) tomorrow while Steve is at work.

Christmas Staycation Day 11 - More Kitchen Reno

We've been busy. Today's Tuesday.

Mila had a sleepover last night and we continued on with the cabinets.

Steve decided he couldn't take the microwave any longer. 

We've hated it since we've moved in.

I never understood why people put microwaves over stoves/ovens to begin with. Let's heat food up someplace above our heads and when it's done, we're taking hot food out and if we slip up? Hot food in our face. 

I just don't get it.

ANYWAY.

I grew up with a mom who cooked a LOT.

Like, a lot a lot. 

Like, every single day and in our culture, she didn't make just one entree and a couple of sides. 

She made like 3 entrees and like 6 sides. With rice or soup or both.

It's just how I grew up.

So we always had a super nice hood vent thing above our stove. 

We decided that since we're doing this, that we should do it right.

So we're getting a new range hood. It should be coming Friday.

We're also getting a new stove. It's arriving next Thursday (coincidentally the same day my mom gets into town!)

The cabinets are coming along.

This is real life people! My cabinets are not organized. 

Steve also decided that he didn't want to risk painting all the cabinets. There were stroke marks that were visible and while they didn't bother me all that much, Steve couldn't stand it. 

He gave the sprayer a try.

Our compressor and the sprayer were not working well together. I'm not sure entirely why, but Steve ended up going out and buying another sprayer. 

And he had a ball.

It obviously went much faster and was much more consistent. 

The primer alone looked fantastic. I cannot wait to see what the paint will look like. 

We've primed everything at this point and have one coat of paint on the cabinets. 

Tomorrow we will do another coat of paint on the cabinets and spray the doors with the first coat of paint. 

I was hoping to get the doors up by tomorrow (Wednesday) night but I fear not letting them sit long enough and then handling them and messing them up.

Maybe we'll wait until the weekend. 

We also ordered our drawer pulls and handles. I'm not going to post them just yet, as I want to do a full reveal!

I'm so excited!

Christmas Staycation Day 9 - Continuing with the Kitchen Reno

Well, it's Sunday.

I've made it 9 days without pulling my hair out or killing anyone.

And since I still have an entire week off of work...I decided to be productive.

Remember we made ourselves a new island?

I primed the cabinets...

...and then never actually painted them.

And it's been that way for....too long now.

It's time. 

This is multi-tasking at its finest. Doing some real work, answering emails while painting my cabinets. And no, I chose not to take these doors off to spray them the right way. I'm cheating with these doors. The rest of them we're removing and priming and painting the right way. Deciding whether or not we should spray them...

And of course I couldn't stop there. 

I knew I wanted to do the doors above the fridge. 

I didn't get a straight on shot of the before, apparently. But you can see them here, just plain pine. I figured they are out of the way enough so they'd be easy enough to just knock out without disturbing much in the kitchen.

Took the doors off; primed.

I really liked this primer. It seemed to do a nice job coating the wood surface without needing to sand.

Since we were changing things out, we figured we'd upgrade to these "soft-close" hinges. 

Steve also picked these up for me, to aid in drying

And then.

I just couldn't stop.

I wanted to stop after the two cabinets above the fridge. I really did. 

But I couldn't. So I decided to just do this one side of the stove.

And the drawers on the right of the stove...

And that's it. For now. 

Mila's having a sleepover tonight, so I didn't want to be clunking around the kitchen into all hours of the night.

BUT.

I hope to spend much of tomorrow doing this again. We'll see how far I get!