Countertops, book lamps, and pipe shelves

Cody and Udom are at a friend’s going away party but I didn’t go because I didn’t want to leave Jordan home alone. He’s recovering from wisdom teeth removal… it was a lovely time and I’ll write more on that in another post.

So since I’m home, I may as well do a couple projects right? First project was a tile removal job. One of our kitchen countertops had this weird tile scene on it that (once again) was badly done. Several of the tiles popped off the other day and we noticed that the thin set came off with them showing us painted wood underneath.

Thank you previous owner for doing a shabby job. It makes removing it so much easier…

So we removed the tiles in less than 5 min. I scraped off the remnants of thin set while Cody loaded the dishwasher. I stripped, sanded and stained the counter top today. It looks like this now.

Excuse the poor camera photo quality photo but I can’t find my normal camera.

Next up on the list was making a lamp. Cody called it “a little light reading” because he’s a dork. It’s made of two books and lamp parts.

I set it on top of another stack of books and no one could tell. I heart it!

And moving on, I also started staining my pipe shelves in the kitchen today. It’s not done yet, but they’re looking better. They now match the floors and the counter top.

yes, that’s another camera phone picture and it is exactly how my kitchen is right now.

It was a productive day though. I loved it. Looking forward to move stuff tomorrow. What have you been doing?

Edited: July 31st, 2010

A purple Kitchen and Pipe Shelves

We painted the kitchen this lovely shade of “poetic purple” and put up shelves this week. By painted the kitchen I mean I painted the wall the shelves go on and will paint the rest of the room later. I LOVE the color. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would but I kept painting anyway.

Then we put up shelves. Cody drilled holes in the wood and we put up the pipe and wood shelving. I’m staining it later but all of this stuff was all over the house and I needed it put away. So it’s not quite done, but it’s closer.

I added my glass jars and stuff. It’s not done, but I’m happier. I’ll be adding a couple shelves by replacing the 10 inch pipes with 8 inch pipes. There won’t be as much of a gap (which I like) and I can have more shelving on the wall.

It’s not fully done, but it’s a good start. We’re putting trim  up around the bottom of the wall and I’m painting the ceiling white. Eventually I’m doing several other things to the kitchen, but this is my tide me over project until I can do those things. One thing we are doing though is replacing the light fixture. New light fixture, no yellow crappy lights. Better photos. It’s a good thing!

Edited: July 15th, 2010

Removing kitchen Cabinets

I have a project list I’m working on while the boys are gone. Removing and replacing the kitchen cabinet is something that would be a weekend project in a normal house. My house is not normal and the POs like to throw us surprises whenever I try to update/fix things. I assumed this would be no different and allotted a week for it. Which is good considering all the damage that was under the cabinets.

First, why am I removing the cabinets? Whoever built them was an idiot. seriously. They were so poorly laid out on the inside that it was a struggle to put any of our food or anything in them. Things became lost easily and the top shelf was only about 7 or 8 inches tall but the shelf right below it was at least 20. It was weird. We’ve tried to adjust things to suit our needs but this required a gut job.

So Jordan and i removed the top cabinet and then Udom took out work frustration on the bottom cabinet. They’re all laying outside waiting for a bonfire party at my house.

Under those cabinets, you can see lines in the floor and on the walls where original cabinets used to be

The floor is damaged.

They badly cut the wood ledge under the window. I’m going to have to remove the whole thing and replace it with one long solid strip of wood. Yeah. that ledge I stripped layers of paint off of not too long ago? That’s the one I’ll be ripping out. Awesome. this should have insulation and then that wood over it, obviously it does not!

I have to plaster or drywall the damaged walls and then paint them.

And after all that, I can put up my cabinet project. It’s a pain in my ass, but it’ll look so much better when I’m done. It’s the first of many kitchen projects and a compromise between Cody and myself. I want a kitchen reno, but this will at least let me organize the kitchen which will keep me from demoing the whole thing soon. … maybe. …

Edited: July 13th, 2010

For the Kitchen

This photo makes me swoon. I swear it’s like organizational house porn or something. It’s like almost the perfect kitchen pantry thing. I love the perfect glass jars, the shelves that are the right height, the color etc. I would love it in my kitchen!

We already have a ton of glass jars, but I’m slowly buying more. We’re planning a kitchen project based on this one but not exactly like it. The perfectly spaced shelving and the glass jars will be the same, what the shelves are made out of will not be. I’m doing it after my boys leave to see their Oma in Arizona. It’ll make the kitchen so much more functional and pretty! I can’t wait to do it!!!

Edited: July 7th, 2010

Stripping paint – A minor kitchen project.

I have windows all over the house and the kitchen is no exception. We have this neat window that has mini windows on the top and sides and a nice thick chunk of wood on the sill. It’s big enough that you can use it as a seat or a place to put things. The previous owners decided to put a piece of wood there so they could use it as a breakfast area. Nice in theory but it covered up some of the cabinets and drawers. So… we removed it.

That was the POs kitchen photo from the house listing. Cody and I removed the table thing awhile ago and dealt with the overpainted bubbly ledge. It was one of those thing that had just painted tons of times and never stripped. It also had many layers of caulking on it.  Like so

I grew tired of it and after seeing how easy it could be to fix, I decided to go for it. After spending two hours stripping paint and sanding the wood ledge so it would be smooth, I went to stain it only to find my stain was gone. /big sigh. I’d been hoping to finish before the guys got home.

So then Cody and I went to Lowes and talked to our paint lady. she helped us pick out stain and now it looks like this.

Sorry for the dark photos. It’s been raining all week. It’s almost the middle of may and I’m in a long sleeve dress and thick tights. /sigh.

The project is fixed though. Check one thing off my house renovation list! What I want to be next up is painting the wall under the shelf to be white and adding shelves to another closet so i can remove something from that area. What’s actually next up? the basement floor (again). We’re fixing that this weekend with a self leveling something or other. fun times…

Edited: May 13th, 2010

Fixing an ugly kitchen

Eventually we want to remodel the kitchen if we stay in this house for awhile. Right now though I wanted to fix it without spending too much money. A before shot

It’s not *too* horrid but I hated how the board thing that was used as extra counterspace covered one drawer and made it difficult to reach the cabinet all the way to the left. It looks fine, but the cabinet doors don’t stay shut and they don’t open all the way either. I loathe that the counter top goes over on to the trim. I hate the tomato soup orange color. I wish they’d left the bread box… The ceiling fan is seriously disgusting. We’ll leave it at that. Ew.

So Cody and I removed that counter top thing and then I decided to remove the cabinet doors too. It looked like this for awhile

Don’t be fooled. That trim is NOT white. It’s all this yellowed cream color. Goes well with the soup… Anyway. So my kitchen always looks messy because you can see EVERYTHING I have in the cabinets. ew. I had left over fabric from when my mom helped me make curtains and decided to try and see how badly I can screw up curtains.

Turns out that I didn’t do half bad. I wasn’t sure if I liked it though so I posted a photo on my facebook page and asked for opinions. I was told it was pretty and vintage-y so I decided to make the second curtain and hang it up too

I agree with some friends that I need to hem the curtains off the floor a bit more but I like it. I think it goes well with the age of the house. I still loathed the orange though. oh look… a handy leftover gallon of paint from the dining room.

I need a second coat of white and I still have to paint the cabinets but it’s looking better. Hopefully the husband won’t be upset at what I’ve been up to today… and well if he is, it’s too late to change it now! I still have to organize the cabinets a bit and put things in their glass jars. The next project is jar labels and eventually we want to make this whole part of the kitchen in to a floor to ceiling cabinet area (no counter top), but that’s a later project. Not bad for 30 min of work though!

Edited: February 5th, 2010