Since we moved to this house in December 2012 (just a few days before Christmas!) the intention was to renovate the kitchen. It was tired, dark and very very very outdated! I was promised the funding for our first major project would go to the kitchen but I couldnt wait that long so I inexpensively painted the walls a light putty grey and painstakingly painted the dark wood trim and sparkly bright white! The very first time we toured the house, here is what the kitchen looked like: Lots of wood trim, some oddly placed cabinets on either side of the sliding door (you cant really see it in my original pics), awful lighting, the weirdest 1980's tile backsplash ever...ugh! And here's how it looked in January 2014 when I was about to begin the renovation: The layout of the kitchen worked pretty well, the cabinet boxes were in good shape and the appliances were a little older but still functioned ok. My days of wanting a glistening stainless steel kitchen were over after my last kitchen in the purple house - stainless looks awesome, BUT it gets dirty so easily and is a pain to clean. This house wouldnt look right with a super modern kitchen anyway, so the goal was to stick to what was here already - a whole lot of Uba Tuba black granite countertops, white appliances, the light pine floor and a white porcelain sink. Those things would be staying so the design was built around those things. On the to do list: ~paint all the cabinet doors, drawers and boxes white, new knobs and pulls, remove exposed hinges and add hidden hinges, on all 18 cabinet doors! ~new black faucet ~remove the useless microwave/recirculating exhaust fan over the stove and replace with a mega-powered exhaust that was vented outside. This wasnt going to be cheap and I might have to sacrifice some cabinet space, but the ability to sear food again would be well worth it! ~remove the crappy outdated tiny window over the sink and add a new wider one to maximize the back yard views, which would mean removing one set of upper cabinets and adding some open shelving ~install an inside the cabinet sliding trash can and recycle bin ~remove the outdated backsplash tile and install glass tiles Oh, thats it?? The entire budget for this project was $3,500...let's see if I could do it! First off was to paint (experiment) on the sides of the pantry cabinet to see how many coats this was going to take... Apparently it would take about 19 coats of glossy bright white paint on top of the primer. Sigh. Not really - but at about 3 coats I was happy with the coverage. The peninsula was finished in a kind of textured paneling, so I went over it with a thin coat of plaster and sanded it down before priming and painting. Soonafter the peninsula was done being painted, we purchased a separate beverage refrigerator. This seems a little excessive, I know...but we drink a lot of beverages which take up a lot of space in the food refrigerator which is relatively small! So this was a $400 necessary splurge! It also covered up the sun bleaches part of the wood floor and the unsightly floor register the previous homeowner installed himself. I absolutely love it! Next up was to fill all the seams between the cabinet boxes (ugh, what an awful job they did installing these!) as well as removing all the (horribly ugly) pulls and knobs and fill those holes. Some I worked on while they were up and some it was much easier to take the doors down. At that point I was allowed to buy an electric sander! I never had one before! Mike took all the doors of the cabinet boxes and over a week or so, I sanded them all down, washed them with TSP and began the longer process of priming and then many many coats of glossy white beautiful paint! So much painting! At the same time Mike removed the exposed hinges from each door, drilled new holes and added hidden hinges. This was very time consuming and took a few trips to Home Depot for more hinges and special drill bits for the hinge holes. Mid-March it was time to work on the backsplash. I probably should have just done ALL the tiling at the same time, but Mike was going away on a business trip and I really was just so anxious to see what the pretty renovation was going to look like! The day before he was to leave, I bashed out all the gross old tile so he could install a backerboard for the new glass tile.
Here it is, mostly completed with a charcoal colored grout to connect it to the dark granite countertops. This was exactly how I pictured it in my mind! Next up was deciding on, buying and installing the faucet for the sink. The existing faucet was cheap and offered nothing, visually. Besides the faucet, I also really wanted a soap dispenser, so we didnt have that little stainless steel disk covering up the empty hole. We finally decided on a matte black Kohler Simplice faucet ($295, UGH!) and it's matching soap dispenser ($85, ARE YOU KIDDING??). Mike was a champ and even though he wasnt sure if he could do it himself, he installed that bad boy with no help. Actually, I know when the time is right for me to stay far away from him working and this was one of those times - leave him alone to swear and struggle - he did an awesome job and it looks amazing! The lighting in the kitchen was awful and mismatched so that was next on the list. I am generally have sticker shock whenever I need to buy lighting - $200 for a ceiling pendant?? NO WAY! So I settled on some basic Lowe's fixtures, frosted glass and brushed nickel finish, very plain and matches everything. There are 4 light fixtures in this room!!! I finally picked out some pulls and knobs for the cabinets, but it was hard for me to spend $300 on the ones I really wanted (wrought iron and handmade, 23 pulls, 8 knobs) but found a dealer online and picked out ones I loved at an amazing price. When they didnt arrive few weeks later and numerous calls to an unanswered number stressed me out, I put in a claim with Paypal and finally got my money back. In the end, I picked out some ugly basic ones from Home Depot just to get the job done, fully expecting to change them out in a few years. Im not even going to post a closeup pic of those - not a fan but they get the job done. A month or so went by and it was finally time to have the contractor come and do the hard stuff - install the window and the exhaust fan! This was the most exciting change for the kitchen for me and it couldn't happen fast enough! Something awesome was discovered when removing the old microwave - there already was ducting to the exterior of the house for an exhaust vent! For some reason the previous owners enjoyed smelling cooking smoke in their kitchen and installed a recirculating exhaust fan, sealing up the old ducting!! Great!! Some vinyl siding was slightly melted during our wedding last year so it was great to get that replaced at the same time the window was installed and I was SO HAPPY to have to remove the dumb screened in porch that divided up the patio. Mike really wanted to keep it, so he wasnt thrilled. Sorry dear! See the stupid screen frame behind us at our wedding in June 2013!? So ugly and non-functional! After the window, sill, trim and exhaust were installed, things went fast! We were heading out for our vacation in a few short weeks and I really wanted to get this done and not return home to paint cans and construction stuff everywhere! Good old Ikea sells these lovely and fairly strong white shelves ($14 each!) and as soon as Mike put them up I has all my pretty glasses and turquoise stuff on them. Removing the upper cabinet and basically doubling the size of the window made such a giant impact on the feel of the room - even though it wasnt completed in these pics, the room suddenly felt cleaner and crisp, not old and tired! I finally picked out the 4th light fixture over the sink - going with the black and white theme with a matte black metal fixture and a white globe (it has a handspun pattern that you can see better in some later pics). The metal doesnt match the other fixtures but I really like it with the black faucet. And look at the gorgeous view out the window! THATS what living in the country is all about! I continued with the tiling around the window and the walls - what a big project! Quite a few trips to the glass store! On our honeymoon the year earlier to the Turks & Caicos, we purchased this turtle tile not knowing how to use it. We met the artist on the plane and visited her store - Mike precariously rode back to our hotel on a bike, with bottle of TCI rum and this tile in his backpack! I didn't want the tile to be permanently installed in this kitchen in case we aren't here forever (very likely) but it really does belong above the stove! One cool idea I saw online was a backsplash spice shelf - seemed easy enough - so Mike made it happen. So simple but really a great storage idea! Once the tiling and grouting was done, there wasnt much left to be completed. The underside of the soffit over the sink needed some plaster work and painting, which was probably the worst job of all - nothing worse than sanding on the ceiling!. Before I post the "AFTER" pics there is one more addition to the kitchen, unplanned of course! The existing refrigerator had been doing some funny things lately, the freezer was REALLY cold suddenly and the produce was freezing in the drawers. I saw on the manual for the fridge, it was manufactured the same month Ethan was born - 2002 - which means the fridge was ONLY 11 years old! Mike called an appliance repairman who basically said the thing would most likely die very soon as that was a sign the compressor was on its last legs. I am still in shock that the life span of a major appliance is 11 years! UGH! Because we were going on vacation for 9 days the next week, we thought that would be a terrible time for the fridge to die, so appliance shopping we went! It turns out the space available for the fridge in our kitchen, is pretty much the smallest standard size fridge that is made these days - so my dream of a side by side with an easy access drawer and freezer drawer AND ice make was completely out of the question! Sears actually had the best deal - a sale on the outgoing model of a Kenmore 3-door fridge with and BIG drawer - which is what I wanted! I pretty much threw up in my mouth realizing we werent going to get out of this without spending at least $1700 so we got a pretty one with lots of bells and whistles for $2,000. There goes my $3,500 renovation budget! Here are the AFTER pics of our lovely crisp beachy new renovated kitchen!
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Ugh - I was so sad today!! I really didnt want to leave Eleuthera! We had a little slow start to the morning as you can imagine, so I went around snapping some pics of the house and views. I had a huge appreciation for the lovely plantings around the house and amount of work it must have taken to get it all there and keep it alive! Really some beautiful plants! A catamaran had pulled into the bay so for the first time we had potential witnesses to our outdoor showers but I dont think any of us really cared at that point. That was one of the most wonderful outdoor showers EVER! I was obsessed with how the green color of the ocean was reflected up to the clouds on the horizon, as I dont think I ever really noticed this anywhere else. So beautiful! Our ride to the airport came to pick us up and we reluctantly carried out all our gear. Her truck was making a little bit of noise and she seemed concerned so she arranged to meet her husband so he could take a look at it. I wont go into details, but let me say they left us on the side of the road to get another vehicle to take us to the airport, all because of a "little baby kitten". You really dont want to know what that means. We eventually got to North Eleuthera and hung out at the airport for our flight. The airport literally is one room but they still weighed our luggage and we had to go through security. As our plane raced down the runway, I might have shed a tear or two. I had such an amazing time and loved what Eleuthera had to offer. I can't wait to go back! This morning Mike and I went to Governor's Harbor in the morning to the GH Bakery to get some donuts. Everywhere else on the island people are downright pleasant, but for some reason, the two times we visited the GH Bakery, everyone in there was unhappy. Maybe it was hot, maybe we were tourists, who knows. I would happily go in there every day just to get those egg-y rich cinnamon donuts!! We drove around Governor's Harbor a little more. So many places we didnt have a chance to visit and at least I wanted to get a few pics, even if they were from the truck. Today's day trip was to Poponi Beach, then lunch then Cocodimama Beach, then Sky Beach Resort if we still had energy. It was becoming a ritual to pack up the truck every morning - coolers, bags, towels, snorkeling gear, hats, chairs...ugh! Exhausting! (Ok, am I really complaining about how much work it is to go to the beach?? Waaaaahhhh waaaaahhhhhhhhh!) First stop was Poponi Beach and Tippy's so Mike and I could snorkel some more and the girls could hang out on the beach. It was a little overcast and windy but we wanted to get more snorkeling in before we had to go home. It was a nice 90+ minutes of watching the fish and creatures so we slowly made our way to shore, in a different place than we went in. It looked like a clear path in to the sandy beach but as the water became more shallow, the sharp limestone on the bottom increased until we were in knee deep water with waves coming in on top of us - with no sand in sight. We finally go to a place where we HAD to stand up but there really was no good place to stand, let alone make it the last 20 feet in to shore. I was literally frozen standing there like, what do I do?? It was so hard to walk in the flippers - there was no way to turn around and walk backwards in to shore - so I quickly took them off - BIG mistake! Mike left his on and kept trying to take my hand to help me, but I was determined to get in myself! Every wave I would shimmy forwards a little and try to find a rock that wasnt TOO pointy and no urchins! A wave pushed me over and I recall banging my knee but jumped right back up and kept inching forward. Finally when I made it to shore I looked down to see blood streaming down my leg and Mike motioned to a cut on my foot. He was fine - how is that possible?? I realized I had stepped down pretty hard on the limestone and had a gash in the bottom of my foot, as well as a cut on my knee and other scrapes. Ok so lesson learned - get out the way you went in! After that ordeal we went home to clean up but first stopped at Pammie's in GH for lunch, since we hadnt yet been there and it was on our list. We ordered some cracked conch, grouper fingers and the usual sides. It was delicious! The afternoon trip started at Alabaster Beach, which had become one of our favorite beaches but Mende hadnt been yet. It was an absolutely lovely afternoon! There were some rum punches and lots of floating around enjoying the gorgeous scenery! After an hour or so there, we decided to make a short stop to the Sky Beach Resort, which was about 3 minutes from Caribbean Blue and probably the most typical "island resort" experience around. There are a few other resorts on Eleuthera but none were as convenient for us and really, we've been to the Mexican Riviera enough times to have had our fill of that experience. Either way, LB hadnt had that experience so we thought she'd enjoy it, which she did! The pool with swim up bar was fun - a little murky but was fine - rum punch was strong and we had some delicious French fries! I mean, how could French fries taste bad, in a pool, rum punch in hand, near the ocean, in Eleuthera!!?? We ended up staying much later than we planned (...not sure how that happened...) but it was fun anyway - feeding the birds (which Mende called Woonsockets - don't ask), talking with other people there, chatting with Sammie the bartender. We managed to get home and all crashed out in bed. Sad to see the last full day in Eleuthera! |
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August 2015
Mike & SarahWe love to travel, cook, eat, own a home and make stuff. |