Almost Finished Newly Renovated Kitchen....Almost

So........ anyone else make any major life changing decisions lately?  Or just me?  Phew- it was a big one. Huge weight off of my shoulders though.  I'm taking what I refer to as a mental sabbatical.  A few weeks to finish up some house projects, relax, get out in nature before I start my new job.  Much needed mental sabbatical.  And by get out in nature, I mean drink margs on my chaise lounges with the sun hitting my face. 

Speaking of house projects.  Man, I've been busy!  I started a kitchen reno way back in May.  MAY!  This is an expensive one too.  I know you are all like "Didn't you just do a kitchen reno Kristi?"  And yes.  I did.  In 2019.  So 4 years have gone by.  I feel completely justified in renovating it again.  HAH!  

No- but in all seriousness, I renovated my kitchen in July/August of 2019 because I was going to move to MA.  So I updated as much as I could to get the highest return based on what I thought was trendy and what buyers wanted at the time.  Fast forward 4 years, I did not move to MA, the pandemic hit, I lived with this kitchen while not being happy with it, and finally decided if I'm staying here in this house, I wanted the kitchen of my dreams.  Well, my salary's version of kitchen of my dreams.  Contrary to what you all think, I'm not rich.  

Back in January I came across a countertop slab that I just fell in love with.  

I could not stop dreaming about this stone and what it would look like in my kitchen.  Then came the "what will this look like in my existing kitchen" thoughts and I cringed.  Hence, kitchen reno!  

I started saving up, knowing this was going to be expensive.  I wanted new everything (except for cabinets, again I'm not rich).  New lights, new countertops, new wall color, new cabinet color, new cabinet doors, new entry door for the newly redone pantry.  The list went on and on.  Queue the cha-ching noise increasing every time I added something else to the list.  

While the kitchen is not yet finished, it's mostly done, with SEVERAL delays which I will go into detail with about this countertop process.  

But until the kitchen is fully completed, I'll start sharing some of the smaller projects I did (and my dad did while I worked cuz my job had zero respect for my vacation time).  Mental sabbatical, Kristi.  Ommmmmmmmmm.  Namaste.  

These projects aren't in order of when they actually happened so I'm going to be all over the place here.  Just follow along.  Disregard any photos where something is old and I pretend it's not or something is new and I pretend you aren't seeing it until I post about that specifically.  

First up- my dining light.  Remember how I broke it and thought I'd have to get a new one?  It's 10  different Edison bulbs and the long tubular ones weren't made properly and were falling apart.  I didn't realize those three bulbs were hanging on by a wire and turned the light on- which blew the light up, there were popping noises, and the light was kaput.  It wasn't the circuit as the other two lights on that receptacle worked and no breaker was kicked off at the breaker box.  So I figured it was either the light was dead, one of the wires had popped out in the box in the ceiling, or potentially the wires on the lights side of the boxes side were dead. Now, I'm no newbie to hanging lights and doing the electrical for them.  So I could have easily figured this out on my own.  The problem was this light is so damn heavy that I know I could have gotten it down, but I wouldn't have been able to put it back up myself.  So I just left the light up until my dad arrived at the end of July to help me.  If we could get the light to work- wonderful!  I did really love this light and would have loved to keep it.  But if we couldn't get it to work, I had a fixture I purchased on standby waiting to be installed.  

Good news is- after cleaning up the wires: 10 lights = 10 cords + about 10 add'l feet per cord for wiggle room on how high or low it was being hung = a HUGE mess in the decorative box that attached to the ceiling.  My dad removed all the extra mess and we reinstalled it and with our fingers crossed turned the power back on and the light worked!  I was so happy that I could keep this light and returned the new light that wasn't as pretty that I knew I wasn't going to be as happy with.  So in addition to some new dining chairs and moving the green Gather sign into the space- here is the current dining room. 

The table is going away and we are going to build a new table next year and that white Bombay dresser will also be going away soon.  That was a Craigslist find YEARS ago and it's served it's $50 purpose.  I'll find something else or build something else to go there that is more my style.  

Next up was swapping out the kitchen lights.  I had been looking for new lights for awhile and found one I really liked but didn't like the brass on the top.  I kept searching and couldn't find something similar so ended up buying the one I liked and modified it to be all black.  

This one is more semi-flush mount whereas the one that was there was a hanging pendant.  As seen below when I was trying to decide if it was going to be enough light since it was much higher than the hanging one.   

I figured it would work and took it into the garage to turn the brass to black with some good old matte black spray paint.  Let it dry, removed the old light and hung this one.  Loved it!  

That light has been up for awhile- maybe since May.  I ordered a new fixture for over the island but didn't install it until my dad and aunt arrived.  The island pendants were the same as the light over the sink.  

It's one of those kits where you buy the lights and then you can change out the globes.  I think I've had maybe 4 or 5 different globes with these lights.  At one time even made my own from blue Mason jars.  Took those down years later when all of a sudden EVERYONE and their mother was decorating with blue Mason jars.  They have served their purpose but I was over them.  Below is the light I bought that fits the space and my taste much better.  And yes, it needs to be cleaned.  My whole house is covered in dust.  You can't really tell in this photo.  So many finger prints.  

Since I have shown you this photo- I guess I now need to show you the new door trim and the barn door that we made.  

First- door trim.  All of my doors came with that super ugly trim that came as a package with the door.  Very cheap looking.  I came across a photo on Pinterest one day of a door being trimmed out and fell in LOVE with it.  I showed it to my dad and was like- How hard would it be.... you know how those conversations go.  And he was like Yes, Kristi, we'll do it when I'm there.  Didn't seem to comprehend that the kitchen alone has 5 doors, 6 total downstairs.  That's a lot of wood and caulking.  SO MUCH CAULKING.  

Here is the before, basic bitch trim that came with the door packages.  

So gross.  Oh Shit!  I forgot.  I painted the walls white.  I hated the light gray they were before, from the minute I painted them 4 years ago.  You can't really tell in the photo below but the gray had this icy blueish tint to it.  NOT what I was going for.  So I figured while I was doing the kitchen I might as well paint the walls too.  

I went with the same white that I've been using in the laundry room, the pantry, and the powder room as well as the upstairs living room except in a Door and Trim paint.  Since the laundry, pantry, and powder rooms all come off of the kitchen (first three doors in the above photo) it made sense to do the kitchen in that same white (called Bowline by Nautica).

  

Four coats of white later, I couldn't figure out why I hated it.  I loved Bowline in the other three rooms that are literally right off the kitchen.  But in the kitchen itself, fucking hated it. I finally had to walk away from the walls to stop stressing over why I didn't like it.  Then one day standing there trying to figure it out, it dawned on me.  The doors and trim. They were a completely different white-ish color and it was throwing me off from the white I liked to the white-ish that I hated.  So I painted the doors (again had planned on redoing the trim so I wasn't going to paint that just to remove it).  You can see the huge difference in the whites on the powder room door below.  

Below photo- the left door is painted and the right one isn't.  

Below photos all of the doors are painted, except for the missing pantry door.  

It was so much better now that everything was the same color.  Notice the ceiling fan above?  I have that fan in the kitchen, living room, and two spare bedrooms.  The two downstairs are too small for the areas they are in and the globe is tinted yellow so it casts off a tinge when the lights are on.  I wanted something more updated so while my dad was here he installed the new fans I had purchased.  They are matte black (to go along with the new kitchen lights) with dark brown blades with a bright white light that has 3 options for brightness.  Love them.  

OK so walls and doors are painted.  Now back to the trim.  Below is the new profile for the door trim I'm going with.  

It's super simple, much more modern than the more ornate trim that was there before.  The plan was for my dad to help me with the pantry door so we could get the barn door installed.  Then once they left, I'd do the remaining doors myself.  But with the bullshit delays on the countertops, he basically ended up doing all 6 doors downstairs for me.  Love him.  

Then came time to build the barn door for the pantry.  Let me tell you guys, I had no door on the pantry for so long I almost debated even putting a door back on it.  Super convenient to just walk in and out.  But as pretty as my pantry is, hiding some of the mess was the deciding factor.  Organized and pretty mess, but still a mess.  The original door for the pantry had been in my garage for a handful of months, along with the barn door hardware that I bought last Sept.  

We knew we'd need to make it taller and wider so once the door trim was installed on the outside of the pantry, we measured for exactly how wide and tall it needed to go.  I basically wanted the trim completely hidden when the door was closed.  I also knew exactly what I wanted the door to look like- very similar to the island that is 3 feet away from this door.  This is where I got to do math.  I can't do a project without getting math involved.  Had to make sure those slats were the same size and evenly spaced out.  It came out perfectly!  After we made the door the correct size (below photo), we attached a sheet of 1/4" luan to it to cover up the frame cutouts on the face.  Then we started adding the slats.  

Eventually we framed it out, which you'll see once it's hung.  For reference below is an old photo of the island.  I wanted the same kind of slats for both.  

Once it was painted and the track was installed, we hung it to make sure it fit and it fit like a glove.  

If you zoom into the above photo you can see the slim trim around the door.  

Then we added the handle and checked this one off the list.  

  Guys, it's so damn sexy.  Literally everyone that has been in my house since it's been installed has commented on how sexy it is.  My aunt is as obsessed with it as am I.  It came out exactly how I envisioned it in my head.   I love it!  

You'll also notice the missing baseboards.  I decided that I might as well change out the baseboards from the cheap builder grade crap that was there to something a bit more substantial and updated. Simple again.  I just used a 1" X 6" but it looks so much better that what was there.  After taping, wood filling the nail holes, caulking, and priming 6 doors I finally finished and am so happy with how they came out.  

One last thing for this post.  The kitchen nook table.  Dear god that poor table.  I bought it new 13 years ago and it was white with white chairs.  Long gone are the chairs.  But that table has been aqua and dark gray.  Well as you can see in a tiny little glimpse above, the cabinets are no longer gray.  So that meant the table had to be painted AGAIN.  

I brought it out to the garage and sanded it and used the sprayer to try to get an even coat on it.  And I seriously don't know what is wrong with me but I can never get paint sprayers to work properly.  This thing was dripping and splotchy and all sorts of messed up.  After trying to wipe off the wet paint and then sanding it down AGAIN, I was over the table.  I got the pedestal base painted and hated the black on it. I used the same door/trim/cabinet paint that I had used with the gray but in black it was like a mirror image.  It was so shiny- absolutely not what I was wanting.  

This is after the dripping mess and this paint is dry.  SO SHINY.  

I ended up stopping at the base and didn't do anything with the top.  This is so embarrassing.  This is what the table looked like for months.  Hot Mess Express.  

Then it dawned on me.  I didn't want the table top to be black, I wanted a wood table top (ie butcher block).  I felt there was going to be too much black in the kitchen and didn't want more with the table top.  I remembered my mom had a table from when we were in middle/high school that she was no longer using.  So I asked her for it and brought it back to Indy with me in July.  It was a yellowish colored wood top, old with a few nicks and scratches, which I didn't mind since I knew I'd be sanding and staining it a darker color.  Here it is after sanding off the varnish and original stain color.  

I then did some test samples on the bottom of it to see which color I liked best.  After picking one, this is how it turned out.  

What.  The.  Ever.  Loving.  Eff.  It was tragic.  So I sanded it again and re-stained it.  And hated it.  Then sanded it again and re-stained it.  Slowly but surely the wood started taking the stain.  

Still wasn't happy with it.  But in the meantime, I removed the old bracket and ring from the old table top and installed it onto the new, wood one.  Then installed the top back onto the base.  

Pay no attention to the bottom cabinets! We aren't talking about those yet.  

After sanding it one more time in place, I did one last attempt with staining it and this is where it currently sits.  

It's significantly better than where it started out as and I'm done trying to make it perfect.  It just needs a clear coat and I can check this one off the list too.  

Man, going back and looking- this was a LOT.  And there's still so much done and so much to do!  But you are getting an idea of where the kitchen is going and what it's going to look like!  I'm so excited to finish it (hopefully in the next couple of weeks).  Then I can check the entire project off the list!