progress in kitchen and dining room

I just wanted to show off some of our latest projects.  Our new lights in the kitchen and dining rooms and a pots and pans hanger.  Yipppee!

Today I thought I would share a little about our dining room light fixture.  I had seen this paint at Target but had no need for it at the time. (Also I was wondering why in the world Target was selling paint? Strange.)  It's a perfectly lovely shade of pale, pale green. 

We wanted to return the light fixture that we had lived in the dining room for 49 years to it's place, but it was in need of a good makeover.  Our wonderful friend Jeff took it apart (he helped us with MOST of the wiring that was in dire need of updating.)  

I painted all the pieces.  It took several coats.  While the color of Target's paint was beautiful it wasn't the best for coverage.  It probably isn't very durable either, but that doesn't matter so much on the light fixture.  

After it was painted Jeff helped us to reattach it to the ceiling.  He also picked out these awesome light bulbs that look fantastic without the bulky globes.  

[More on Jeff and his awesome Electrical Skills]

http://www.christmascraftsman.com/

He has all kinds of awesome video tutorials and info about vintage lights!

One more bonus picture: 

This is my mother-in-love's front porch from this last Christmas, courtesy of the Christmas Craftsman, aka. Jeff. 

love,

Sarah

Cabinets

 Just to recap, this is what the kitchen looked like before.  It was COVERED in that orange-y wood.  It was everywhere. Even the walls. It was a little bit charming, in a woodsy cabin kind of way, but not for us.  We removed the two horseshoe shotgun holders that were above the door and we began to see potential.

Let me give you a brief recap on what happened.  I don't have pictures of all of this unfortunately.  :-(

My parents took the doors off (we didn't label them!) We used this stuff called citrus-strip on the doors to take off the finish.  This was grueling labor.  Fifty year old Varnish doesn't come off easily.  We probably should have done two kinds of varnish/stain remover or two passes of the citrus strip and a washing with mineral oil in between but I was so very over it that  I didn't.

After the counter-tops were in I knew I wanted the cabinets to be gray too.  I sort of hated to cover up all the wood, because it was beautiful, just too much pine.  So my thought was to do a gray "whitewash."  Well my friends, it seems that this is not a common choice because there was very little to choose from.

I really wanted to use a product like the ones below because I thought it would be easier, but alas, they didn't have any in Gray.  :-(

We ended up with a water based tinted gray that was really dark, a white wash that was called pickled white and a clear sealer.  I was impatient so I sort of blended them together.  to get the look I was after.  These were some of the samples that I tried on an inconspicuous area. (As a side note: we didn't get the wood that clean, that is untouched wood that was previously covered by the laminate backsplash and the inside of a cabinet.) 

Another reason that this was a bad sample of what it would look like later is that this was raw wood and almost everywhere else had been stripped, but still had a slight stain to it. 

This is how they turned out.  for some reason there is a slight pink/orange hue.  It is probably because  I didn't do the whitewash before I did the graywash. But who knows.   I think they look pretty cool.  Daniel likes them too.  (We spray painted the hardware: first with a metal primer in white and then in a oil rubbed bronze, two coats, more on that at another time!)

If I had it to do all over again I would do a few things slightly different:
1) I would be more patient. (Ugh, yes I was VERY impatient about getting it done, but now I wish I had taken more time.) 
2) I would do a whole coat in the whitewash, then a whole coat in the gray-wash, then a whole coat in the pickling whitewash. (That's why I was so impatient, I sort of smeared all those together in 1 coat)
3) I would have also done the inside of the doors.
4) While we are on doors, I would have labeled them from the start. Big mistake!
5)  I wish I had known more about Chalk paint.  I think I would have considered it. (Maybe it isn't off the table)


Well next time I'll show you the floors and then what the kitchen looks like now!

love,

Sarah

New door?

So this post is a lot like my sink post, except that this one has a less "happy ending."

This is our carport door. It goes into our kitchen. Nothing fancy. Pretty plain Jane.

This is our front door, it leads directly into our living room.  No entryway or anything.  It has a screen door in front of it that is perfectly darling. 

I am not a huge fan of either of these doors.  They aren't especially "cute" and I don't see them as especially sturdy, although they are functionally safe.  They just stick a little and are "rough around the edges." 

So the same warehouse sale that had sinks also had doors.  So of course I wanted to find out about those. So we looked at several. 

Here is my dad along with a standard sturdy door.  I think it was designed to be hung the wrong way and had a crack in it (thus it was on sale) but dad wasn't too keen on it so we passed. 

Both of these doors are beautiful and amazing! They came with door frames which we didn't need and were slightly off in the size department and the price department.  They were upwards of $400 and $600.  Too much for  a non-essential.  We had plenty of other things that we actually had  to buy. 

Even though the day was a bust as far as the finding and purchasing of a door and/or sink goes, it was a fun outing and I saw a bunch of cool old stuff.  There were old church pew end-caps and a huge octagonal window (Daniel hates octagon windows, "So very 80's.") 

However, any day now (read that as: in a month or two when I have the time/energy) I plan on painting both of the doors.  I am thinking either a misty blue or a happy sunny yellow.  I can't decide.

(following pics from my pinterest)  

What do you think? 

I also think that unless any of you fabulous people reading have a door solution I am going to go with something like this diy adorable door update.  This is a pretty color too! 

While I'm at it maybe we could use scraps or pallets to create fun shutters? Minus the window box. (We are currently plant killers, but we are working on that.) 

Well? I would love your feedback.  This is one of those projects I have had lurking in the corners of my brain but haven't gotten out and done yet. Help me make a choice!! 

If you're new here feel free to read this or this to get caught up!

Plus any of the others! 

Until next time,

Sarah

10 things I hate about Kilz

I hate the way you look to me

and the way you pour

I hate the way you smell all day

I hate it when we need more

I hate you in big dumb buckets

and the way you hide the grime

I hate when your smell makes me sick

you even make me rhyme

I hate the way you cover spots

I hate it when you dry

I hate it when I can't wash the brush

it's such a mess when I try

I hate the way you cover odors

and when you we have to haul

But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you

Not even close, 

not even a little bit, 

not even at all

Ok, so if you have ever seen 10 Things I Hate About You [If you haven't, go find it tonight] you'll recognize the classic poem that Kat reads in front of the class.  What? She isn't talking about Kilz paint? Whooops. Could have fooled me.

Ok seriously now.  Daniel and I have a love hate relationship with Kilz.   It really sucks to work with.  It's stickier and thicker than most paints.  And it STINKS.  Open a window or go outside when you use it.  It is impossible to clean up.  Even using the recommended mineral spirits it still is a beast to get an actually clean brush in the end. All of that aside.  This stuff rocks.  It really does cover odors and stains.  It is an excellent primer.

We painted our whole inside with Kilz.  Walls, Ceiling. Trim. Doors.* All of it has at least one coat of Kilz.  Sometimes two.  (Doors are still in progress)  This stuff works.

Here is Daniel wearing gloves while working with it, because otherwise you are going to rip off your skin trying to get it off before work the next day.  

This is my mom.  She loves kilz.  She gave us her extra Kilz and when we were in the hate stage of loving Kilz she volunteered to paint all the trim with Kilz if we weren't going to because "It has to be Kilzed."  She did come help us after convincing us it needed to be done.  And, yes mother, it was worth it. I am glad we did.  It helped make the old lady smoke smell go away.  We beat that smell and it didn't hurt to have the windows open and the attic fan on.  

It was great to have a "clean" slate to work with.  It made us feel like we were starting over and making it our home.  

Do you hate Kilz too? Have you used one of the fancy kinds that doesn't suck as much? (we mostly used Original) Let me know! I love comments! 

Love,

Sarah

The Concrete Staining Saga: Part 2

Today I am going to share the actual staining process with you!  This was definitely the easier of the two steps.  So if you didn't catch the last post and want to catch up on the stain prep part check that out here.

*Before I start I want to say that we had some fabulous help on this project.  Joseph, Daniel's mom and Jeff were all a HUGE help on this.  Also, this is a wonderful marriage builder, especially if you are quite particular or hangry.  You know your Mother-in-love loves you when she can stand to hear you fighting with her son about the way stain is applied to the floor.  She is a wonderful woman.  You'll see more of her in my next post! While I'm at it, all of our friends and family were so supportive and helpful with all of our house projects! We owe them so much thanks!*

Alright, on to the concrete stain,

First, we prepped the walls by taping up some brown kraft paper on the lower part of the wall.  Sorry for the horrible picture below, but I think you can still see the paper taped to the wall!

Next, you mix up the acid stain. We just followed the instructions on the bottle.  With something so specific, I wouldn't play with the proportions.  Some might not even need water added, but ours did. We put it in this sprayer we bought.  This is almost exactly the one we have, might be a different brand.  It was really easy to use though.  The color we used is called coca-cola.  We got it at JR Industries in Woodstock, GA.  There is likely an equally wonderful place near you that sells concrete stain.    

As you can see, this was a two person gig for us.  I don't think you need two people, but it definitely made it easier.  Daniel pumped it and made sure the pressure was high enough that the sprayer worked properly.  I used the sprayer to get an even coat.  I was quite liberal with the application, I didn't want to miss any spots.  *Make sure you plan your starting spot with your exit!  Don't back yourself into a corner!  We choose to start near the far corner almost opposite the stairs, then worked our way along the back wall.  After finishing one "row" we went back and filled in some holes.  We were nervous that there were some oil spots that didn't come clean during the grinding process and they were kind of beading up instead of accepting the stain.  I just put more stain on those areas, but this probably wasn't necessary because the way the stain set in wasn't a solid color anyway so it was barely noticeable when completed.  I didn't fill in the holes everywhere because we were worried that we would run out of stain and we wanted to finish this project that night!

If you look closely, you can see that the stain almost looks green in one spot.  Well, that's because it is!  When it reacts to the (air, cement, water?) it bubbles and turns green then turns the red-ish orange that it's supposed to be.  Not sure why it does that [I wish I did, sounds like a cool science experiment] but it turns out looking quite lovely!  

This is what it looked like right after we finished.  You can see the thinner spots dried quickly and then other spots looked like little lakes.  

We left it for a couple of hours to dry.  And in fact, we left it 24 hrs, because we didn't do the final step until the next day.  

The final step Daniel did solo.  This reduced the amount of feet that could leave permanent marks in our new floor.  In the last step Daniel sealed the floor with a clear sealer we also got at JR Industries.  This was an easy roll-in-on process.  He did two coats.  The floor now has a nice matte shine to it.  It isn't glossy and slippery but it still has some sheen. :) 

^Daniel hard at work ^

A view of the matte finish. 

Waiting on the floor to dry.  The view of our "completed" basement. 

I use air quotes because everyone tells us (and I know this to be true) a house is never done. 

But for now, this is a great start! 

We are very happy with the results! What do you think? Would you try something like this? Do you think it would have looked better in a solid opaque paint? Should I have used glitter? ;) 

Tell me what YOU think! 

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Sarah