The former occupants even had honey oak furniture to match, but to each his/her own. (YIKES!)
So a couple of months later, in October 2013, when we federal employees received a three-week vacation compliments of our Congress, my mom and I spent our time trying to get that wallpaper off. It was horrendous. I'm pretty sure that they adhered it directly to the sheet rock. At one point, my mother said that we should have left it on because it would have been additional tornado protection. Grit and determination took that paper off!
Over the past 18 months, and not knowing what to really do with the kitchen, it just sat there while we worked on other rooms in the house. Our friend, David, painted the living room and dining room. I painted the master bed and bath, DD1 bedroom, DD2 bedroom, DD1&2 bathroom, DD3 bathroom, created a craftroom, built lots of storage shelves (with the help of two nephews) and downsized stuff considerably as I went.
OK - I have to throw in a few pics of craft room pics here cause it's pretty awesome if I say so myself!
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| Sewing center |
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| Altered art books |
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| Sewing center and cutting table to the left |
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| Jewelry table |
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| Scrapbooking and photos |
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| Other misc art tools and supplies |
Needless to say - it's not so neat anymore (sigh)
*******
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when our friend, Alan, arrived. Alan does general contractor work, and he's DH's best/long time friend. And, he can fix anything! So our major kitchen surface renovation began. Alan first took the monster box from the center of the ceiling. YAY! Gone! I hated that thing! It could have been it's own room! After I removed the black tile from the wall behind the stove, Alan fixed the bowed wall surface. He also did fun stuff such as sanding a basement wall, putting up sheet rock so my office video isn't showing the lean-to sheet rock background I was using, putting under and over cabinet lights in for me and moving a ceiling fan box so it's actually over our table. (I say 'for me' because DH really only wanted him to do a little sanding and painting.) Alan has also been my consultant on a couple of other projects (translation - listened to me ramble about the light I am making, painting counters and staining cabinets and how I'm going to do all of that). My creative genius coming out. He's a really great listener and gives me a lot of uh-huhs and you can do that, and what-abouts.
After numerous trips to Lowe's and Home Depot in the last couple of weeks to get this, that and the other, and ordering from Amazon and buying from Target, I am FINALLY ready to get working! (Alan's been moving along doing all of the aforementioned stuff. And, let me tell you, under-cabinet lights!!!! Gotta have them and they are fan-tab-u-lous! (I've missed them since we moved here.) I leave one on every night just because I can!
OK - so moving right along. Friday evening, I installed a new ceiling fan and it was like WOAH - let there be light!
I basked in that glorious light and throw my hands open wide every time I turn it on. (I also sang an off-key 'let the sunshine in' and threw in some alleluias for the first 24-hours!) And I sold that UGLY ceiling fan for $20 on Saturday night! Nobody's wanting that ceiling monster, imagine that! I envision a ReStore visit coming up.
I also spent a few days in the past couple of weeks searching the WWW for how-tos, and I've listed what I want to do, the steps to get there, what I needed/did buy, etc. I'm all organized and ready to tackle the first step of my part in this kitchen reno. Alan ultimately gets the walls, ceiling and tile. I get the rest. Are you saying 'what else is there'? Well, my friend, there is a lot, but I won't throw a spoiler in here today.
Rolling on to today (Sunday, 1/26/15) -- I took 26 doors off of the cabinets and removed all handles and hinges including nine drawer handles. This was followed by washing all doors, drawers, cabinet framing, and hinges and then sanding and cleaning the dust off all cabinet framing. In the midst of this,I was rearranging stuff, selling/delivering stuff on FB and fixing roast dinner stuff before the girls head back to school. (That's a lot of stuff! Yes, I am insane, and at this point, I am dragging!) Tomorrow (if I can get out of bed and after a day of office work), I plan on sanding all doors and possibly start staining! What gets me through this you may ask? My motivation is knowing that this is my ONLY option to NOT looking at honey gold cabinets with faded gold handles and hinges for as long as we live here. (Sorry, if you have and love honey gold, I'm happy for you. But, I don't. :()
I would love to post a pic of what my kitchen looks like at the moment (not!) but let's just say that if I liked to cook, I would be weirded out about it. Good thing I don't and I'm not!
More to come!
B
