Kitchen Remodel

This summer I decided I was sick and tired of our kitchen. I have a friend who stained her cabinets and then replaced her countertop, and I thought we could do that. But my cabinets are pretty crappy, so I thought we would paint instead of stain.

I brought it up to a friend at work, Shawn Ryan, after deciding we would paint the cabinets, and asked him if he thought brown or white would be better. He asked me why we just weren't replacing everything? I told him that we didn't want to spend that much money. I want our house to be nice, but it's not our forever home, so I didn't want to shell out monstrous amounts of money. He told me it only cost him $2500 to do his kitchen because he did it through a discount company.

I talked to J, and we decided that sounded like a pretty good idea. Brand new kitchen, here I come!

We made plans to measure our kitchen and go to the company to get a quote. A couple days later my friend said, "Don't be mad at me." It turned out he went home and looked at his paperwork and the $2500 was the downpayment. It was over $5000 to redo his kitchen.

I wasn't very happy with him. I got some quotes, thought about it, and decided it was too much money. But it took awhile to go back to the original painting idea.

My cabinets are pretty crappy.

To illustrate. We have had a drawer that has been broken since we've owned the house. It was one of those things that I planned to get to eventually, but it hadn't really bugged me yet. The face was still hanging on, so it wasn't obviously broken if you didn't open the drawer. So we just didn't use it.

Well, in September, right before the cabinets were set to be painted, I fixed it.

You can tell in this picture how it broke. Someone had screwed it to those two broken pieces.

So I cut a piece of wood.

And I fixed the drawer.

We got a quote from Stephen Hood (I totally recommend him for any painting projects) and just needed to decide on a color.

If you are addicted to Pinterest, you know that light turquoise and greens are in. We painted some samples and fretted a bit. I have friends with brown painted cabinets and they look like poop. I was worried that white would be too white. So I thought a splash of color would be good. But what if I didn't like it???

These are some pretty good "before" shots of the kitchen.

This is how many color samples we bought. It was a serious decision.

I decided I was going to take a risk. Which is pretty uncharacteristic of me. But I love-love-loved this color. J told me he would support me. With a very doubtful look on his face.

If you'll notice, we got crown molding installed. Stephen recommended it. The guy he referred us to wanted $200. I told J I could find it for cheaper; it was going to be six cuts. I was not paying $200 for that.

Which is ironic, because when Stephen quoted us the price it would be to paint the cabinets, I felt like he was low-balling it because he's my nephew's dad. So I decided to pay him more. Because I knew how much work it was going to be to paint those cabinets. There are some things this DIYer is willing to pay someone else to do.

And he did a lot of work. A LOT of work. And he did an AWESOME job.

Cleaning, sanding, removing all of the cabinets doors and drawers. Painting a coat of primer and two coats of paint. Not to even mention all the prep work - taping and putting up plastic sheets.

I told you, I knew how much I was willing to pay NOT to have to do that. And I also knew how much I was willing to pay for crown molding. I got it for $95. Boo-yah! And the guy did a really good job.

I wasn't sure about the color for a few days. I was worried I had taken too much of a risk. I still loved it, but I was worried people would come into my home and think I was crazy.

I have received enough compliments that my ego has been satisfied.

Then we installed some hardware. And my kitchen got even more awesome. It took awhile to find some we liked. It's hard with oil rubbed bronze because there is orange, dark brown, shiny, muted, and a million other types. Also, we would find a knob we liked but the matching pull was hideous, or vice versa. And hardware is not cheap.

Installing the hardware is the only part of the remodel we did ourselves. I feel no shame.

The other thing I really liked about Stephen was that he asked if we had any closets or anything else wood that we wanted painted at the same time. Um, yes please.

So the hall closet is just as awesome.

I got some nice things to put up on my cabinets.

J and I had to wait to do the countertops. We got a quote for $800 and needed to wait until we had the money.

The sink was freaking $300. I found one on Craigslist for $95 but the podunk never returned any of my calls.

The faucet was $180.

And we needed a new garbage disposal. $64.

Things really escalated quickly.

Let me illustrate to you why we needed new countertops.

Can you see where the previous owner used this as a cutting board?

That's just nasty.

It took until December - if you remember, it was painted in September - but the kitchen remodel is (almost) done!!!

My kitchen looks so good. Just like my handsome husband.

We'll get around to replacing that stove. Eventually. J is so funny because when we first moved in, we bought a new dishwasher (we had been washing dishes by hand for months because the one that was in there was filthy) and then saved up and bought a fridge. When I asked him what sort of stoves he liked and how much we should save, he shrugged and said the stove was fine. Now that our kitchen is awesome, I think it might start bugging him.

Look at this glorious sink. Totally worth $300. I can let that big pan soak and it will be easy to wash.

Overall I am very happy with it. J has been talking about getting a backsplash (which we would probably do ourselves) but I need some time to recover. Between the painting, crown molding, countertops, and calling a million plumbers, I am tired.

Oh, I didn't even tell you the plumbing story.

Hooking up a garbage disposal, faucet, etc to the sink is something J and I could have definitely done. We've actually replaced a faucet before. But I have a shut-off valve in my bathroom that is broken (J went to turn it off and it came off in his hand) and the rest of the shut-off valves are pretty much worthless. I knew they needed to be replaced, and wanted the quarter-turn ball valve instead of the gate valve (why do they even use the gate valves?). Which we probably could have done ourselves.

But there was also a leaking house spigot in our front yard. Leaking pretty bad. It would need to be soldered. My Dad has shown me how to solder but I really don't trust myself. I am clumsy. I would light my own hair on fire. And J could probably do it, but he has agreed that there are some things a professional is just better handling.

I figured with all this work I could probably have someone come out, do it all, and give me a discount. So I started calling plumbers.

I found a couple people on Craigslist. One guy quoted me $230. For everything. When I tried to ask him if he was licensed/bonded/insured, he said, "I have 15 years of experience, you can either believe me or not."

We didn't go with that guy.

Another company (who was licensed/bonded/insured) wanted to come out and look at everything for a quote. I may have mentioned one of the perks of J working from home - that wasn't a problem.

I was at work and J texted me how much they wanted. I checked the text and choked. Nicole asked me what I was choking for. I explained to her how I was obtaining quotes for plumbing work. She said, "Oh yeah, that will probably be $600."

I said, "It was seven - " Nicole was noddling, thinking I was going to end with the word "hundred" but she choked too when I finished with "thousand."

No, I did not mis-type that, they wanted SEVEN THOUSAND dollars. When I asked J how they justified that, he said they itemized it. It was $300 to install the faucet, $500 to install the garbage disposal, $500 to install the sink (WHICH IS JUST DROPPING IT IN AND CAULKING IT - $500 FOR THAT???). I asked him if he laughed in the guy's face. He did not. I would have.

I ended up finding a licensed/bonded/insured guy who did it all for $380.

It's a relief that it's done. I'm ready to take a break and enjoy it. J has been really busy - he landed two really big jobs. I am very happy for him. And we are definitely putting the money to good use.

It's still going to be a small Christmas. I told J he can consider the new kitchen my Christmas. He protested, telling me I don't even use the kitchen. Yes I do. The cereal is in there.

Shelves in the Den

We've been meaning to do this project for years. Our first attempt at shelves was turning the coat closet in my kitchen into a pantry. Everything that could have gone wrong with that project did. I'm surprised we even attempted adding a shelf to the master bedroom closet.

This project's time had come. Our TV room/den had DVDs and gaming systems everywhere. Plus I'm always complaining that I don't have any storage.

Here's the before. A strange little nook. The part to the left is my laundry room on the other side of the wall. My house has all sorts of these little nooks. I kind of like it; it makes things interesting. It was a creative way to smoosh all the rooms together.

J and I had a really efficient system. We would get the board level, I would hold it while he drilled a pilot hole with a small drill bit. You have to make sure to mark "up" on your board so it doesn't get turned upside down. We would then switch out the drill bit to the larger one for the wall anchor.

I would use the larger drill bit to quickly drill a hole to countersink the screws (so the screw head doesn't stick out).

I would give to drill with the anchor drill bit back to J and he would work on the wall studs. I would take the other drill with the screwdriver head and get the screws started. This was a really easy way to line up the screws with the wall anchors. I would hand it to J and he would finish screwing it in while I switched out the drill bit back to the smaller piece and got everything ready for another board.

We got all the shelf supports up Friday night. Early Saturday we got up for round two. We still don't own a router so I sanded the shelf edges down. I have finally figured out the perfect technique (moving the sander in wide circles while also moving it up and down over the edge) and my edges look fantastic. It just took forever. And since it was a record breaking 112 degrees outside, it was not fun.

J is all ready to paint in this photo. We FINALLY bought a paint sprayer, so after a bit of a learning curve (it wasn't working because the hose wasn't plugged into the air compressor, duh) we got everything painted the same white we painted the room.

I was trying to take a picture and dropped my phone. And I caught it just as it took a picture. I like it.

We were just about done; I just needed to caulk and we had already checked that we still had caulk left over. I made the mistake of saying to J, "This just might be our first project where we've only had to go to the hardware store once!!"

I got out my caulking gun and my caulk was completely dry and wouldn't come out of the tip. It busted out the bottom and got all over my caulking gun. I had to go buy more caulk. But don't worry, we checked the vast knowledge of the internet and found how to store the caulk so that it doesn't happen in the future.

Maybe one day I will achieve my dream of a project where we only make one trip to Lowe's.

Here is why caulking is important. The before.

And the after. 

Look at that beautiful rounded edge! Like a boss. This was before the shelf was pushed all the way in; they don't stick out like that.

That's a special little treat just for me. The hotness that is my J. He was adjusting his cords and I decided that was a good time for the "finished" photo. You're welcome.

J was in Corum's wedding, so that's how we spent our Saturday night. At first it reaaaaaaally sucked being outside while they took the photos. Corum's mom said she had prayed for some cloud cover and wind. She got her wish. Can you see the sky in the background? She got a freaking haboob. Don't ever cross that woman. She has powers.