New Window

Our new huge window is finally installed and it makes all the difference. I had no idea how much it would change the look and feel of the whole kitchen -- and actually the whole main floor! I haven't had to turn on any lights during the day since this was installed! I love it.
(excuse the photos, it was surprisingly hard to get a decent photo)

We are almost green-laminate free! We installed a piece of our old countertop and the old sink temporarily so we had a semi-working kitchen until our new counters were installed. It will be a happy day when it is finally gone for good!

The new counters are scheduled to be installed on Tuesday -- hopefully we can be ready by then...We still have quite a bit to do.

Kitchen Progress

We've got our cabinets mostly re-installed to the new configuration. We have two on the backside of the island that still need bases, but we're getting to those next. Ignore the old countertop and sink/faucet-- we decided it will be a few weeks before we have countertops, so something is better than nothing. I actually have a semi-functioning kitchen now! Although, the old faucet is leaking, so I'm trying to use it as little as possible. Thank goodness for a tiny bar sink downstairs! I'm going to try to never take for granted being able to wash dishes in a kitchen sink, or not having to run up and down the stairs for every little thing in order to cook a meal...
This is the latest on our layout:

Everything is still a total mess, but it is coming together bit-by-bit. We just got some quotes for a large window in the wall in front of the island. I can't wait for that! It will let in so much light! In my world, you can never have too many windows or too much light...

We're also trying to source some granite or quartzite for our island. I think we've narrowed it down to two options.

Luke is still going to have to get in the attic a couple more times to finish the electrical work, but for the most part, the utilities are finished. And as soon as we make a final choice for the stone, I can get started painting all the cabinets. I really like our cabinets, but with the floors that we are putting in, and the other finishes, the maple wood is turning very pinky-orange. Not going to work. So, I see weeks of painting in my future...Fun, fun...

Kitchen Demo

Yep, we did it. We tore into the one room that we really hadn't touched much during this renovation. The kitchen "makes or breaks" a house design in my opinion, so I really wanted to make sure it was right. After a lot of brainstorming and tweaking, I came up with a reconfiguration that would completely change the function and aesthetics of the kitchen, but we could use all of our existing cabinets -- major budget saver. It was a bit of a challenge to get Luke on-board, but he finally agreed that the new plan made a lot of sense. So, demo began!

This is our makeshift kitchen downstairs...yep, very classy.

Again, my brother-in-law was awesome and came to help us for the weekend. Between Luke and Brett, we were able to get all the plumbing moved and most of the electrical work finished. Because we are completely changing the configuration, we had to redesign the lighting plan. Good thing we are redoing the ceiling because currently, the ceiling looks like Wack-a-Mole with all the holes in it.

Yes, moving plumbing is a bit of a mess... Good thing the guys know what they are doing!

We're almost done reinstalling all the cabinets, so progress pictures are coming soon. The new layout is such a huge improvement!

Down comes the "Ghetto Wall"

The ceiling (at least in the living room and dining room is finished!)

After many (a ridiculous number) of coats of paint, we can finally put down our paint brushes. At least for a little while. Good thing too, because I don't think my neck could have handled another coat. One reason for so many was because we tried to use a "satin" finish paint, but once we got a couple of coats on, it looked horribly blotchy. Especially during the day when the sun was shining on it. So, we had to start all over with two more coats of flat paint. It finally looked pretty good, but two of the long boards needed some touchup, so I spent the better part of one morning painting them again. After it had been drying for about an hour, the wet, blotchy look wasn't going away.
Luke said, "I hate to say this, but you didn't happen to use the Satin paint, did you?"
No, no, no, no, no!!!! Ahhh!
So, I had to start all over and paint another two coats on top of what I had already "touched up."

Next up was floor prep. We had been living with what we had dubbed the "Ghetto Wall" for about 3 months.

It was a happy day to rip that thing out...

Next was the old railing, which came out pretty easily except for the post. It was in there to stay! Holy moly. The post was installed about a foot and a half below the sub-floor with two huge bolts and at least a couple handfuls of heavy duty screws. It took Luke and I at least 20-30 minutes to get it out.

After cleaning up the mess, we spent the next few days walking around like idiots, testing the floor, trying to find any squeaks so we could fix them. The next person who replaces the floor will see all of our "X marks the spot" areas...

And here is a sneak-peek of our floors. It kind of feels like the beginning-of-the-end to be finally laying down floors. Although, I know that we still have months of work left. Especially since we have just decided to completely reconfigure the kitchen... (I'm so excited!) More details on that coming soon...

Ceiling Progress

We spent our long weekend (courtesy of Martin Luther King Day) putting up trim boards. After we finally finished putting up all of the drywall, we then painted the entire ceiling a bright white (Valspar Ultra White in a Satin finish) to contrast with a light grey walls.
*Most of the time if I am doing light walls, I will continue the same color up onto the ceiling, but with this decorative ceiling we decided to paint it all the bright white our other trim and baseboards will be.
After giving our necks a few days' break, we got all of our trim boards up. We decided to glue and finish nail them, just to make extra sure they would stay put.

This is what it looked like when we got it all up:

Looking pretty good, right? Well, from far away, it doesn't look too bad, but close up, this is what it looks like before we fill in all the nail holes and caulk all the seams and edges (oh, and give it all one more coat of paint):

Yes, still lots of work left before we can pronounce this project done -- but we're making progress! We're planning to have the living room/dining room part of the ceiling completely done this weekend. (It never hurts to hope...)

Ceiling Prep

I'd like to tell myself that doing this ceiling treatment is easier than mudding, sanding and matching the existing texture on the ceiling, but unfortunately, it is not. BUT, it will look 100% better than the old dated texture. Before we could get started on the actual install, a lot of prep work took place.

The first thing we did was plan out our ceiling grid. We are doing this treatment in the entire main floor, so making the grid pattern look good throughout actually took a lot of work. We wanted to make sure none of our trim boards would be going through any existing lights, so some adjustments were necessary.

First we took measurements of the entire ceiling and the placement of all the recessed lighting and existing light fixtures. Then Luke created a layout in Google Sketchup (a free sketch-up program online). After many hours of tweaking and planning, it looked like this:

(Top-down view)

Next thing we did was mark all of the joists. The boards have to be screwed and nailed into something solid, not just drywall, so this step was crucial. We found the joist locations and then marked them all the wall across the ceiling with a chalk line.

Like so:

We confirmed the location the joists by screwing into the ceiling to see if we actually hit something. This left the ceiling a bit "hamburgered". But, we're covering it up anyway, so no worries.

Then we hit our first huge obstacle. We picked up sheets of 4' x 8' "brown board" or "masonite" to cover the whole ceiling and create the smooth surface. We got our first board up and we were making some final adjustments and the board came crashing down. !?!?!?! The board literally split apart from itself leaving some of the board on the ceiling and most falling on our heads. Obviously, the wrong material for this job.

Back to brainstorming.

After a lot of discussion and research we decided 1/4" drywall would be the best material for the new ceiling. Not only will it hold well on the ceiling, but all the screws can be patched and sanded down for a perfectly smooth surface. Also, it is easy to cut, and any mistakes that we make can be repaired quite easily. We should have chosen this first...but, live and learn...

Once we actually got the correct material, installing the boards wasn't too bad. Time consuming, but we feel confident that it will hold up and look great. The only truly tricky part was getting the boards up over the stairs. You don't want to know how we did that...no really, you don't.

The best help we had was a drywall jack we borrowed from my brother-in-law. If you are going to attempt this project, find yourself a jack. It will save you, literally.

Getting a board up -- assisted by our little helpers... Seth loved the fact that he could help crank it up.

The living and dining room boards are all up. We gave ourselves a couple of days to recover from the neck and shoulder aches. Next up will be to fill in and sand all the screw holes that won't be covered by the trim boards and then get the ceiling painted.

We are doing this project in phases because our stair railing will be done any day now and the ceiling needs to be up before we install the floors, but the floors need to be installed before the railing can be put in. So, we are in a bit of a time crunch on one end the house. Once the stair railing is installed, then we'll continue the ceiling throughout the rest of the space and then finish up the floor installation as well. It is all about priorities at this point.

Christmas Hiatus

Between busy holiday plans and the whole family getting sick right before Christmas, our house renovation slowed down quite a bit.

In my last post at the end of November, my sister and Luke's brother had helped us get the whole main floor painted. (Thank you!) But, we ran into a major issue. Removing the walls around the staircase and the areas around our new pantry left seams on the ceiling that had to be patched.

(Sorry for the blurry picture, but you get the idea)

We spent hours -- no, days -- patching, mudding, and sanding those seams. Luke meticulously matched the ceiling texture and before we painted, it was looking pretty good. After the paint though...not so much. The seams were undeniably noticeable. It was a huge setback and we started brainstorming.
Option 1: Leave it and hope no one noticed. (Not really an option in my opinion...)
Option 2: We could try it again, which meant days and days of sanding, mudding, texturing etc, with no guarantee that the seams would actually disappear.
Option 3: Hire out a professional
Option 4: Cover it up with a new ceiling treatment

Option 3 was looking to be pretty expensive because we had so many areas that needed work and for the same amount of money we could install a new ceiling and get rid of the dated textured ceiling that we both hated anyway. Not to mention that when we took out the wall between the kitchen and dining room, we found out that the ceiling texture was different in the two rooms.

So, after lots of discussion, we decided to do option 4. I've always loved the look of coffered ceilings:

Source

But, our ceilings are a standard 8 feet, so giving up that much ceiling room wasn't an option. But I have seen something called a flat coffered ceiling that could work really well. Something like this:

Source

So, December was spent planning and prepping for this ceiling treatment. I can't wait until it is is done -- it is going to look so much better that the old textured one! I'm actually pretty glad that patching the ceiling didn't turn out -- chalk this one up to a 'happy accident'.