We are enjoying a restful break from our labors today. Steve and the children are outside picking up walnuts, Emily is working on a standing plushie design and I decided to blog about our kitchen project. We are probably slower than most at our remodeling efforts, but we are doing our best and it provides us the time to save up the money for the next step coming up in the project. We had no idea we were about to embark on such a long-term and costly remodel so we have just been piecing it together in our spare time, late nights, and with our nickels and dimes.
This project has stretched us all in so many ways. We have gained valuable skills and knowledge and made many wonderful memories together and we've had a lot of fun along the way, but it has also been very trying functioning without a kitchen for so long a time. Six weeks now. It is sometimes frustrating that we underestimate how long it should take us to accomplish something or how difficult it might be to do it, or how much we think it will end up costing. At times we wish we had just turned a blind eye and saved up before delving into the problem. But we are also enjoying dramatically less headache incidents than we previously were experiencing and we know that it is directly related to removing the rotted and moldy materials. We still have 3 other areas of the house that have mold in the walls to deal with and though it is daunting to think of tackling those, we are also feeling more confident that we can undertake it ourselves and take good care of our home.
I am so proud of my husband and children for working so hard! We've all had to pull together and take on additional work, even the younger ones. For the most part, everyone is eager to help. We've had several late night "parties" working in the kitchen getting tasks done without the distraction of little ones needing their needs met. And we've had full days of school and chores during the daytime as well as Steve's long days of working and commuting. I appreciate each one of them and remark each day on what a wonderful family I've been blessed with!
After we got the plywood layer of the sub-floor laid we cut and put in the next layer, the USB boards.
Everyone had a turn hammering in the nails. :)
Steve and Ethan got the part of the wall we had to replace in, I think it was called sheathing. It was nice to not have a hole in the wall any more.
Then they nailed on an outside wall that we can nail the new siding to and over. Steve found some at Habitat that cost us much less than new. It is "mystic blue" but we'll just be glad to have it in place and we can always paint it later.
Then they installed new flashing and put it on top of the concrete patio and sealed it with silicon hoping that this will help keep the water from running right into the underside of our kitchen as it comes down the hill. The siding will cover this.
Emily and Ethan were the ones who repaired the cabinet that the sink sits in. It has several panels that were ruined by all the damp. They did a fabulous job!
Next was to put in the insulation. We found some scraps up in the attic crawl space and they did the job nicely and we were able to return the roll we had bought at the store. Do you see Dolly, our heifer calf, outside the kitchen window? We've been keeping her in our yard so we can give her treats often and keep her a nice and gentle pet, used to people and small ones. She's so curious and would come to see what we were doing and hope for an odd cattle cube or two.
Once the insulation was tucked in nice and neat, Steve began putting in the new drywall. He's never put in drywall before and was a bit daunted but he did a great job!
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He taught Ethan how to put it in and he did a great job, too!
They make a great team and had a good time working together!
We finally have a complete wall again! Yay!!
Steve did me a loving kindness and tore out the very narrow sill beneath the kitchen window and put in an old board that he shaped and sanded as my window shelf. I love it!
It was finally time to bring back the kitchen cabinets! This is the cabinet that Emily and Ethan rebuilt.
Steve had a bit of a time getting all the other cabinets back in place since the room was not the same dimensions as when they were removed. But he eventually did get them all in and with a bit of shimming to compensate for how they were placed previously on the crooked floor he got them level. It will be nice not to have liquids running off the counter!
It's beginning to look a bit more like a kitchen again. :)
In the process of removing the lazy susan cabinets that sit in the corners they were damaged and he had to do a bit of cabinetry to fix them. He even painted the spinning shelves for me so they are nice and smooth. Every step of the way he is doing such a good job!
Next we decided to fix up the kitchen a bit instead of just putting it all back the way it was. The kitchen is very small already and with only one window it is a very dark kitchen and we are always working in our own shadows since the only light was from the fan fixture in the center of the ceiling. Steve had put a florescent fixture underneath one of the cabinets for me to have more light for working in the kitchen but while the walls were all bare he decided to splurge and put in some under cabinet puck lights that will work better and be more visually nice as well as more light on all the counter tops. Ethan did the work of mounting the boxes to the underside of the cabinets. One on each side of the kitchen.
Steve and Ethan cut out a little notch in the edge of the wood to make a place to run the cord down on either side of the kitchen and then Jacob carved grooves out of the drywall on both sides for the cord to tuck into and Steve taped them down securely.
Then they ran the cords down behind the cabinets.
Ethan got the lights placed beneath the cabinets on both sides of the kitchen and then hid the wiring.
I was amused to find him balancing his hammer on his chest as he contorted himself to get the job done. He is literally bending over backwards to get the job done! :) I had to take quite a few pictures of him doing this before I could get a serious one out of him as he obviously was having a good time.
Jacob was home that weekend so he got sucked into the work effort. He drilled some holes in the cabinet for Steve to run an extension cord through so that the wiring from each control box runs down the walls and behind the cabinets and then plugs into the extension cord which plugs into the outlet that used to control the garbage disposal that we had removed quite a long time ago, since we compost all of our scraps and wastes. Now my second switch controls the under cabinet lighting. Brilliant!
We also made the decision to change the backsplash. What we used to have up was dark tiles but several of them were broken before we began and several more broke in the process of removing the cabinets and I've never cared for them. The kitchen is so small and dark. We only have one window and it has the covered patio area making it so the light coming is not very bright and the overall effect is that the kitchen needs the lights on any time of day. We decided to try to brighten the kitchen by painting it in whites and make the most of what light does come in the window with reflecting it.
We painted the underside of all of the cabinets and all of the bead board Ultra White and Steve changed out all of the old earwax colored outlets and light switches with white ones and began putting up the bead board.
Jacob and Ethan helped hold things in place after applying the glue so the board wouldn't slide while Steve put in the finishing nails. Eventually pretty much everyone who was interested got to come pound in some of the finishing nails.
The under cabinet lights sure brighten things up with the white beadboard!
I donned my cleaning gear and tackled the Dusting Of The Kitchen so that we could begin painting. We used to have fake greenery above the cabinets and they were incredibly dusty! After I got it all ready to go Steve and Ethan caulked along the ceiling edge to seal and hide cracks.
Then we painted the ceiling in Ultra White. When I first began fermenting water kefir we did not expect the jars to truly be carbonated and had an explosion of grape water kefir all over the ceiling that had left a stain. On a visit home Jacob unknowingly opened a bottle of water kefir exploding it all over the ceiling and it also was, you guessed it, grape.
You can also see that Steve knocked out the panel of wood that overhung the light. It had scallops in it and I was never overly fond of it. Anything that stands between me and sunlight has to go! I very much need lots of sunshine and fresh air to thrive and be cheerful.
The previous owner had painted the walls of our kitchen and living room the exact shade of yellow that masking tape is. It isn't really what I would choose so we took the opportunity to change it. We decided to paint the walls Parchment. After Steve got the walls painted in the kitchen the kids and I began painting all of the cabinets Dove White. We had spent weeks sanding the cabinets and drawer fronts and cabinet doors down. What a job!
Normally I just love the look of wood and would never paint over it. But with the dark wood and the dark tiles and the one window, our kitchen was just so dark that I was craving the brightness.
I hope it is a decision we will not regret. Already it has really brightened up the kitchen.
It has been a jugging act getting all of this accomplished while keeping up with everything else the best we can. You can see how we are painting the kitchen around a spaghetti dinner being prepared at the same time. And then we are still hauling our water out to the patio area from the farm bathroom so that we can wash all of our dishes in the utility sink outside. I am just so ready to have my kitchen up and functioning again!
See how bright it all is looking?! Ethan says it looks institutional to him but everyone else thinks it is an improvement. I have plans for a bright and cheery curtain to help bring some color and charm into the room and he has been very involved in choosing the colors. I have lots of scraps of materials that we can use to piece together a patchwork curtain that is long enough to give some accent and a finished look to the window but not so long as to block any of my much desired sunshine.
Also, I have a collection of antique plates that were my mother's, and my grandmother's and my great grandmother's. I am glad for the opportunity now to display them on that little shelf running above my cabinets and that will also bring some color and character to the whiteness. I have a couple of antique glass canning jars that will also look very nice sitting on that lovely, wonderful window shelf.
Up next, we need to lay the final layer of the sub-floor and put down some flooring and get all the cabinet doors and drawers painting and back in. Then we can move back in and use the kitchen again!
