Archive for November, 2011
Octo-momma
Work continues on our big opening between the kitchen and the dining room which I still forget exists until I stumble into the room in the morning only to feel the sun shining in and break out in song and dance. No really, I do. It’s like a Disney movie around here. So while we deal with door jambs (and trim and a wooden ledge for the half-wall) we thought we’d introduce you to the latest member of our family. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve added to my brood of white ceramic animals, so imagine my delight when John surprised me with this fine tentacled specimen:
Apparently I mentioned that I was in love with it a while back, but it was out of stock at the time. So sweet John recently received an alert that it was available again and secretly ordered it for me. Right around the time I was secretly working on his surprise 7 for the office. Cue the collective aww.
We’re thinking of calling it my belated “congratulations on finishing the office stencil and not having permanent claw-hands” gift. Though it does make me a smidge jealous that I don’t also possess eight arms to help me finish projects faster.
Important things to know about my new ceramic pal: she hails from Plasticland (but is made of porcelain) and I haven’t picked a spot for her yet (she’ll most likely end up on the dining room built-ins with a ton of our other ceramic family members so she’s out of Clara’s reach). She was $19, but with shipping she came to about $27. Not my cheapest creature (boils down to about $3.37 per tentacle), nor my largest (she’s about the length of a dollar bill at the widest point), but she is my first octopod! And she was a surprise gift from the hubby, so I couldn’t be my cheap self and talk myself out of it. Haha. Score. Oh, and her name is Henrietta. Not sure why. It just felt right.
Happy Friday to octopods, bipeds, and quadrupeds alike! Anyone doing anything fun? I’ll be found dancing in a certain doorway with a toddler and a dog. And no I won’t video tape it for you. I’m only ok with being this annoyingly chipper slash awkward in private. But it kind of looks like this.
Psst- As if John wasn’t cute enough for surprising me with my tentacled friend, this video of him introducing Burger to Clara for the first time (well, her scent) is pretty darn cute.
Giving Thanks
**Psst- We know most Fridays we just post once, but today we’ll be back in a few hours with a post about the newest ceramic animal that we’ve added to our family. Not exactly cuddly, but cute.
It’s time for our monthly shout out to thank all of the lovely sponsors who make our other 30+ posts possible. And of all the times of the year, this one seems the most suited for our little thank-fest. So in that spirit, we’re highlighting a bunch of things that bring out our favorite parts of Thanksgiving – family, food, warm clothes, and warm colors. Not that we’ve been gifted anything (here’s our no-swag policy). Oh and there are some bonus discounts rounded up at the bottom for ya. Happy turkey day month everyone!
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- These knitted goods by N. Fallon Design Studio that just scream “sweater weather.”
- That fellow blogger Between Naps On The Porch‘s table is already set with fall spirit.
- Fall aprons from City Chic Country Mouse (our favorite ironing board cover makers).
- Whimsical home decor from Jilly’s Happy Home, like this simple framed truth.
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- This mixed metal chandelier from Shades of Light (so great for a dining room).
- Z Gallerie‘s proof that even your Thanksgiving table can rock some autumn-y sparkle.
- A way to snag some of that sparkle: a $250 Z Gallerie giveaway from Hometalk.
- WallQuotes‘ charming kitchen decals (just in time for all that holiday cooking).
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- Penny tile from The Tile Shop! But you already knew we were digging that these days.
- SugarFresh‘s simply stylish rendering of one of Clara’s new favorite songs.
- Great playful patterns from Chic Shelf Paper (like these lovely yellow leaves).
- Tiny Tag birthstone charms from Heart & Stone Jewelry (for my fellow Scorpios).
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- Sustainably made cards from Smock Paper that give thanks for even the little things.
- Sarah + Abraham‘s custom placements for your little Thanksgiving sous chef.
- This other stencil from Royal Design Studio that we also considered for our office.
- P.C. Fallon‘s selection of pepper mills (in case your turkey comes out on the bland side).
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- The warm color palettes at Lacefield Designs (even the soft and subtle ones).
- This so-quirky-it’s-cool vintage planter on Ruby Lane (gobble gobble, baby).
- “Homegrown” hardware from Liberty Hardware that’s all made by hand.
- House 8810‘s Thanksgiving round up, including the coolest turkey platter ever.
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- The baking section of Dot Coms For Moms‘ fall guide. Um… yum.
- The fact that this “Stripe It Rich” pattern from FLOR comes in the color “Moolah.”
- A Vintage Poster‘s playful prints, especially the ones that encourage more dessert.
- This map print from Hoot Design Co. even if it is Missouri (and not Virginia) themed.
And now for the JUICY DISCOUNTS:
- Shades of Light: 10% off using code YHL0811
- WallQuotes.com: 15% off with the code YHL15
- The Tile Shop: 10% off when you use the code YHL10
- Heart & Stone Jewelry: 10% off your purchase with the code YHL10
- Royal Design Studio: 10% off stencils with code YHL10
- P.C. Fallon: $5 off orders over $50 with code YHL5
- Sarah + Abraham: 10% off orders with code YHL10
- Sugar Fresh: 10% off with code YHL10
- Hoot Design Co: 10% off custom orders using code YHL
Wanna Be A Baller, Shot Caller, Drywaller…
As exciting as it is to have both that section of wall and the contractor gone, there’s still a lot of work ahead of us before our opening is finished. Unless this is your idea of beautiful dining room:
Oh and speaking of the contractor, locals have been asking for Steve’s info – and now that we’ve worked with him and were extremely happy with his result, we’ll share (we only like passing along people’s info after we work with them, to be sure they’re someone we’d recommend). He’s a licensed Class A contractor as opposed to a handyman (so he doesn’t hang doors or build furniture or do odd little jobs), but if you have any big structural work (like knocking down walls, building additions, etc) he’s your guy. His email address is sstruder@hughes.net.
But back to our next steps with the opening. We left the protective plastic up because drywall installation was next up, which can be kinda dusty itself (especially the sanding part). We don’t consider ourselves to be drywall installation experts by any means (it was my least favorite part of our bathroom renovation two years ago) but this particular job seemed straightforward and small enough that it’d be silly to hire out. We just needed a span of it across the top of the doorway on the dining room side (to cover the exposed header on that side) and a few sections around the half-wall.
And actually, the kitchen side of the half-wall will be paneling instead – which is why we had the contractor leave all of the scraps from his demolition. So I simply measured, marked, and cut using my little jigsaw. It was super quick and easy.
So easy that I went ahead and set the cabinet against it before proceeding further (Steve actually suggested doing this before drywalling the back so I could see my studs which would allow me to drill into them more easily/accurately). Note: there will be a 12″ counter overhang behind the peninsula with stools tucked under it, so you won’t see very much of the half-wall from this direction at all when we’re done. And we’ll be topping the half-wall with a chunky wooden ledge to add even more function and balance.
Already looking more finished, right?…. right?
Okay, not really.
But I was kind of avoiding my next task: getting the drywall pieces home. Obviously I can’t fit a 4ft by 8ft slab of drywall into our Altima. And renting the truck at Lowe’s or Home Depot is always an option, but spending $19 to transport $14 worth of drywall seemed silly. So I took another suggestion from Steve The Contractor: cutting the drywall to size before bringing it home. Which is how I found myself setting up shop in the Lowe’s parking lot. Have I no shame? Nope. Especially to save a buck (or 19).
Basically I brought my tools with me (measuring tape, pen & blue chalk line to mark, razor blade to cut, yard stick as straight edge, towel to try to keep the car clean-ish), bought my drywall, and spent about 45 minutes carefully measuring, slicing, and snapping my pieces to size outside. The drywall in the dining room is actually two panels thick for some reason, so I had to cut two of each size to keep it flush for a hopefully seamless result.
I managed to get my half wall pieces (plus a few scraps) in the trunk…
…and the long pieces for covering the new doorway header barely slid through the middle of the car (along with the door jamb kit, but that’s for my next phase of the project). Booyah!
Even though it was a bit awkward working in a public parking lot, it was nice to come home and jump right to screwing the drywall into place since it was already cut to size. Sherry helped me by holding one edge up and then I’d screw a few “holding” screws so she could hop down and take flattering photos like this:
But this is where my wow-this-is-going-better-than-I-expected luck ran out. Despite my best measuring efforts (we even took photos of a tape measure next to the existing drywall and the drywall in the store to pick the right depth), my new doubled-up drywall was a smidge thicker than the existing doubled-up drywall. And a smidge is not acceptable when it comes to drywall. This would have looked all sorts of awkward even with mud and tape and some sanding (it would still read as a slope when the light hit it).
So I ditched one panel and relied on a technique that I used while hanging hardibacker and drywall in the bathroom that we gutted: shims. I added some wood shims to get my new drywall flush with the rest of the wall. Only I didn’t have that many shims and furring strips, so I also had get resourceful and dip into our stockpile of paint stir sticks to help us out. We learned that a few of them screwed together were actually just as dense as a furring strip or two. And since the wood + steel header is beyond solid, everything held nice and firmly. You can see them poking out there a bit on the bottom (don’t worry, that’ll all get covered by trim).
I basically repeated that process for the big panel on the half wall (being sure to get things as flush as humanly possible before drilling). I know what you’re thinking. Yes we’ve accrued quite a stash of stir sticks over the years (probably because they give us one when they hand over our paint and we usually paint right away when we get home so the paint is still stirred from the store’s mixing job).
Fortunately for that little end cap I didn’t need to match any existing drywall thickness (since it’s a new plane) – so a single piece of drywall just went on straight into the wood frame. Then we used some metal drywalling corner strips to make the edges a bit sharper. Although they’re typically not meant for where paneling and drywall meet, we’re no strangers to “improvising” along the way, and you’ll see how it all turned out a bit later (spoiler alert: looks good).
So that completed the hang drywall part (with only one minor hiccup, thankfully). Next up was the drywall mudding part. I left that to Sherry because she has more finesse than I do when it comes to that stuff (at least I tell her that to get out of doing it – the same way she’s better at cutting in).
So Sherry broke out her spackle knives (the girl has a nice assortment) and started the fun process of taping, slapping up some drywall mud, smoothing it, letting it dry, sanding it, and then repeating that process. Although she didn’t tape this crack since it was especially tight (not even much of a crack thanks to a super tight fit).
She ended up doing three rounds in most spots, since she wanted things to be as smooth and seamless as possible (she decided to caulk that crack up near the crown molding instead of trying to get mud in there with a putty knife, so that’s why it’s untouched in this photo):
As for the corner things we used around the half-wall, they actually came out really well (admittedly better than I hoped, since I always worry that something catastrophic might happen to leave the walls looking weird and lumpy). Of course I realize as I write this that I didn’t take a photo from the other side so I’ll have to work one of those into a future post. But the corner piece and drywall mud seem to work just fine with the wood paneling – and once it’s all primed and painted it’ll effectively be “sealed” in there for a nice durable and straight-looking end result.
So… it’s definitely looking more finished than it did this morning… but nowhere near totally finished.
I’m the first to admit that the entire opening still looks kind of crazytown because:
- there’s not any trim to unify it with the other doorways nearby
- the baseboards aren’t complete on either side (they just end at the half-wall)
- there’s no wooden ledge above the half-wall to add some extra function and balance (we’ll tackle that along with the trim/baseboards next)
- there’s not a big peninsula with stools and a giant slab of counter behind the half-wall to make sense of it
- there are lots of things we have to prime/paint, so it’s looking extra rough
So the whole thing is sort of out-of-context right now. But it’ll get there – slowly but surely. Oh and we mentioned this in a past post (this one), but for anyone tuning in now, here’s why we opted for a half-wall instead of a full opening with a peninsula floating between each room:
- we didn’t want the peninsula to look like an afterthought (like it was placed in the middle of a doorway without much planning)
- we thought the half-wall would ground the peninsula, so it would feel solid and supported (instead of more like it’s floating between two rooms)
- we already have four base cabinets in the dining room thanks to the existing built-ins (so we don’t need additional cabinetry/storage)
- because of those existing built-ins, we thought an open bookcase, cabinet, or other form of built-in located less than three feet from the giant wall of existing built-ins would be a bit much
- our threshold would be a lot more seamless (if the half-wall weren’t there, there’d be an awkward strip of cork flooring between the peninsula cabinet and the dining room floor)
Next up? The door jamb, that ledge on top of the half-wall, and trim. Then comes primer and paint. And THEN it’ll start looking finished – especially once we begin to assemble the peninsula behind it. Of course there’s still the whole half-countertop-less kitchen going on (more on that here) but at this point we like to think of that as a minor detail.
Psst- Sherry got in on an interesting discussion about what’s in and what’s out over on Centsational Girl today. It’s definitely one of those fascinating everyone-has-a-different-take reads.
Reader Redesign: Ranch Re-Kitchened
Still working on the drywall situation for our new opening! While we get that together and snap some pics for this afternoon, let’s look at an awesome kitchen makeover – you know to keep the momentum up. Of course we perked up when we spotted the words “1948 ranch style house” and “kitchen renovation” in our inbox. Then we saw the awesome before & after pictures attached and, well, see for yourself. This is one of those makeovers that reminds us that whatever the budget, making one or two daring or unexpected choices can make the room (and make it feel like yours). We’re loving the playful choices like the yellow floor and the chalkboard pantry door along with a ton of functional upgrades like the large glass cabinets and the glossy white backsplash. Here’s Kathryn’s email:
We had a very outdated kitchen in our 1948 ranch style house. We bought our house in 2009 knowing that we’d have to do something about the kitchen – the overhead light didn’t work, the stove worked about 50% of the time, and it was claustrophobic.
We used the first time tax-buyer’s credit plus some other savings to re-do the kitchen and ended up redoing everything to make more sense of the room and update the dark and dated feeling (we removed a soffit, got new flooring, new cabinets, new counters, new lighting, new backsplash tile, new appliances, a new sink & faucet, etc). Hope you like it as much as we do! – Kathryn
Isn’t that amazing? A big thank you goes out to Kathryn for sharing! She has more awesome after pictures here on her blog, and you can see more of the in-progress pics here. It’s like a totally different room, huh? And when you take a moment to really check out those cabinets (the lines of them, the glass fronted ones, the fact that they go all the way to the ceiling instead of hitting a soffit, the abundance of large functional pull-out drawers, the open bookcase for cookbooks on the end of the counter, etc) it’s clear that the room’s not only a lot easier on the eyes, it’s a lot more fun to cook in too! So let’s make like the floor and have some fun… playing the what’s-your-favorite-part game. Mine are the glass cabinets, giant drawers, and the pendant above the sink.
Our Grand Opening
After 330 days of living in darkness, we can fiiiinally see daylight in our kitchen. And it’s nothing short of ahhhhhmazing.
This whole process took Licensed Contractor Steve and Right Hand Woman Tara almost seven hours of work (more on why we needed them, how we found them, and permit stuff here). Meanwhile John, Clara, and Burger hunkered down at his sister’s house to avoid the chaos and I stayed home to answer questions, offer up snacks/drinks, spy, drool, and live vicariously through them. They were amazing and we couldn’t be happier with the admittedly-still-very-raw but super-exciting-in-that-we-might-not-sleep-tonight result!
Here’s how it all went down. Literally. Of course this is completely over-simplified (and obviously isn’t a try-this-at-home tutorial since even we left it to the pros). First Steve and Supergirl Tara (can you tell I’m obsessed that our contractor’s right hand lady was a lady) used a power saw to precisely cut the full doorway opening into the paneling on the kitchen side of the room. First surprise: there’s not drywall or plaster behind the paneling- just studs. Good thing we decided to just paint it a while back (instead of tearing it down to hopefully find drywall/plaster behind it!).
This is also when we got a better view of what the electrical wire in the wall was doing, so luckily we had our guy on call so he could head over to take care of it while the wall was open.
Next Steve and Tara cut the drywall on the other side (which was actually two layers of drywall, doubled up) and busted her open. Light came streaming in, and from behind the curtain I pretty much lost my mind. In a good (but probably awkward and borderline creepy) way.
We already detailed what’s going on with those vents, but for anyone just tuning in: we had an hvac pro come out and ensure that losing those vents wouldn’t compromise our system. Then with his blessing John went under the crawl space and disconnected and capped ‘em (so the vents you see aren’t connected to anything anymore). We actually did that in our first house for our kitchen remodel as well.
Next Steve and Tara framed up two dummy walls for added support as they did their work on the header to reinforce the new opening (both from above and below in the crawl space).
It was kind of funny peering through all those planks of wood to see green grass, leaves, sunlight and all that other good stuff we never used to enjoy from the kitchen.
You can see the huge wooden header (and the drywall that we’ll need to patch above the doorway from this angle). The reason they worked on the header from this side? Drywall is much easier to patch for a seamless look than hacked up wood paneling. Yup, Steve and Tara = smartie pants peeps. Lastly they built in the half-wall for our peninsula to rest against and called it a day. Here’s what everything looks like as they’re pulling out of the driveway:
Behold: my favorite view ever. The magnolia out front is like a giant canopy with light streaming in all around it. Feels like some sort of tropical paradise complete with a tree-umbrella. Yes, I’m delirious with joy – but you have to understand why. There’s light in my formerly dark and cavernous kitchen!
Oh and see the electrical outlet reinstalled near the right side of the half-wall? We figure that will come in handy for anyone using laptops at the peninsula (most of the half-wall will be blocked by the peninsula once it’s installed, but since there will be a 12″ countertop overhang, a foot of wall space will show (which makes for a perfect outlet location).
When John got home we started laughing because we firmly believe it’s the first time that our fireplace has ever felt the delicious warmth of the sun streaming in on it. Might need to get him some sunscreen. Of course things still look a bit rough around the edges, but Steve and Tara’s work here is officially done (so I wrote out their $700 check as they went on their merry way). Now it’s up to us to:
- drywall, mud, and sand the half-wall and the area above the door on the dining side where the header work was done
- add a door jamb, a wooden ledge over the half-wall, and trim
- prime and paint the walls, jamb, baseboard, and trim
But we can see it. When we stare long enough and squint hard enough we can picture it all coming together. Can you see it? Two or three pendants hanging over the peninsula, a giant chandelier over the big dining room table, painted cabinets and shiny stainless appliances, rich mocha cork on the floor, a cozy armchair or chaise in front of the fire. It’s all there when we fire up the ol’ imagination. Let’s stare one more time, shall we?
Of course the half-wall looks odd without the peninsula behind it so we can’t wait for that to come together. We’ll keep you posted as we finish things off around the opening (we’re already working on drywall, so here’s hoping we have that update for ya tomorrow). And just to refresh your memory, here’s a before shot taken from a similar angle on move-in day last December:
Is that crazy or what?
As a reminder, our goal is to complete this kitchen overhaul over the next few months. Maybe by sometime in January? It’s still going to take quite a while to remove (and craigslist) the old counters, get our new counters installed, find or make matching doors for the new cabinetry that we added to create the peninsula, prime and paint all of the cabinets, tile the full-wall backsplash, build-out/install a range hood, hang open shelving, lay the cork flooring ourselves, etc. Yup, there’s lots to keep us busy, but you know we love a challenge. And most of all we love liiiight, glorious liiight. Oh happy day.
