Around the House, Kitchen Update

I don't know how I ever found the time to blog so steadily for three years.

It just doesn't seem to be happening lately.  My office is moving in about five

weeks and designing the new office, planning the move, building a new

corporate identity and building a new website has really taken up a lot of

time the past several months.  But here it is November so I've been

trying to get the house and kitchen ready for Thanksgiving guests.

In particular, I wanted to get the floating shelves stained before the holidays so when we

had a few warm days where I could have the windows open, I decided to get them finished.

Above was the before.

And here they are freshly stained to match the old bin drawers.

I'm happy with the color but I think I want to ding them up a litttle

bit and apply some dark wax that I'll leave in the dings.

My mom visited last week so we drove out to Hudson, NY to pick

up a few new things for the shelves.  If you haven't been to Hudson, NY,

it's really worth the trip.  The town is just packed from one end to the other

with great antique shops, art galleries, restaurants and cafes.

My mom also has great knack for arranging things.

I caught her a few times moving things around on the shelves.

I'm sure these will evolve but I'm really happy with how this looks right now.

I still have to paint the windows before I can call the kitchen done but the snow

outside tells me that I'll have a lot of time indoors coming up to get that done.

Hope to show you around Hudson, NY sometime soon.

Tile, Grout, Lights and Floating Shelves

The tile I chose is made by Horus Art, the style is Tiffany in Biancho Crackle.

It's a nice soft white...with a little dash of cream.  I thought it was perfect.

But let's talk about your grout feedback.  It was really fun.

via SA Decor

                          According to your feedback about gray grout:

                          Pro:  Wouldn't look dirty

                          Con:  Looks dirty

                          Pro:  Looks like your favorite oyster bar

                          Con:  Looks like a Soviet butcher shop

                          Pro:  Adds interest

                          Con:  Too distracting

                          

                          Does that clear it up?

There were some of you that have used light gray in your bathrooms

and others that wished they had.  Some of you liked both.  And one

anonymous comment said if I used gray, our romance was over.

That's pretty serious stuff!

Overwhelmingly, though, most of you said white.

Mill Valley Loft, Remodelista.com

I'm in camp that likes both but I think they each have their place.  I see dark

grout as being industrial, even restaurant, perfect for a modern, loft-like space.

One commenter also suggested it's a vintage look and I can almost see it in

a place like The Breakers kitchen in Newport, Rhode Island.

It's also a great way to add pattern in space with clean lines.

Michelle's Mill Valley Kitchen, Remodelista.com

 I wanted a nice, clean look that didn't detract from some of the other unique details

I've put in the kitchen.  I love a lot of different styles and I'm slowly learning

I don't have to cram them all into one room.  So I'm doing white.

The light fixtures are all installed.  This is the Circa Milton Road pendant

and in the background is the cutie patootie E.F. Chapman Marine flush mount

in bronze also from Circa.  I'm not sure yet whether I'll have a table or island

underneath it.  I'm hoping my dining room table will work so I can turn

the dining room into a keeping room/den/library.  We'll see.

I chose the Milton Road pendant (by Thomas O'Brien) because 

its flutes beautifully echo the flutes in the columns in the cabinets.

I ordered another light from Circa for over the sink but it was very

backordered so I bought a backup which is the Franklin light from

Schoolhouse Electric.  I'm not in love with it and, yes, it's crooked.  I'm

pretty sure it's the shade, which incidentally fits horribly into the bronze

ring, so Schoolhouse is sending me a new shade.  Stay tuned.

In the last post, and a few photos back, you'll remember the blue tape

I put up to mark where floating shelves would go.  I wanted to show you

how those were made.  Holes were bored into the studs just slightly smaller

than the diameter of the 3/4 inch rebar.  And then the rebar is banged in to

the holes.  It's extremely solid. 

The shelf planks also have holes bored, just slightly larger so

they slide on easier but are still fairly snug.

These will be painted either white or light gray, I'll have to experiment.

Should I do white or gray?  I'm just kidding.

I'm off to pick up my tile and white grout.

A Color Adjustment

It was fun reading all of your comments and suggestions.  I tried not to reply

to any comments that would sway you one way or the other. I don't think

there's any one right or wrong answer but I was surprised  to hear so many

people suggest dark navy or black.  By the time I had done the post...

...I had already gotten a sample pot of Farrow & Ball Down Pipe.

The color is meant to imitate lead and I thought it would give an  industrial feel.

I should also add that I REALLY wanted to use Farrow & Ball.

I had gotten as far as buying a quart of Lamp Room Gray and painted one

of my window casings before deciding it was a little too blue for the cabinets

but I absolutely LOVE the paint!  It's got a beautiful consistency, paints on

smoothly and dries to a beautiful finish.  I'm completely sold on its quality.

In the end it was the perfect gray that I won out.  I didn't feel I was too far

off.  During the day, the old gray was reading a little lavender.  I went back

to the historical colors and found a gray that was a little darker and drabber

and I think it's perfect.  Benjamin Moore Chelsea Gray.  The darker tone really

highlights the marble and the hue give me the historical look I was shooting for. 

"Christmas Gift" amaryllis is late to the party but she's putting on a great show.

You can see the contrast of the two colors on top of the column on the left.

And the entire column on the right has been painted in Chelsea Gray.

Between the dishwasher and refrigerator is a new cabinet

that will have doors made from the old store counter...painted

in the Chelsea Gray.  I love the contrast of this gray with the marble.

The little wine rack next to the refrigerator has shelves made from the

store counter mahogany that I showed in an earlier post.

And you also get a glimpse of another color I've painted in the

small recess next to the refrigerator.  

(Oops, the flowers have moved over to this shot.  That's bad styling.)

Above the counter next to the refrigerator, I've designed a little built-in cabinet

that will house a small microwave, a TV and leave a little extra room for 

cookbooks and some white pottery.  My thinking is that the dark color

(Benjamin Moore Deep Creek) will help disguise the microwave and TV,

highlight the white pottery placed in front of it AND provide balance to the

black armoire that will go over in that right corner where all the crap is.

We'll see how that works out.

The sunshine pours in through the French doors on winter mornings.

While the cats sunbathe, you'll find me here...painting.

Counters and Storage

Having to decide what one wants to do with their life at the age of 16 is

one of life's cruelest jokes.  If it weren't for earning a scholarship to attend

nursing school, I might have taken a much different path.

If I'd known I could build forms with balsa wood, cut things with

X-acto knives, use a hot glue gun, smell magic markers,

and see the inside of a million different houses, surely I would

have wanted to become a counter templater.

I've never seen this done before and I thought for sure they

would have arrived with laser instruments to ensure a perfect

fit right down to the micron.  But, no, it's still a very old-school

process.  Simple square of wood are made to outline each section of

counter. Smaller squares of balsa wood are lined up tightly against

the wall to follow any small curves in the wall.

And each template is marked with instructions such

as the size of the radius cuts in the inside and outside curves

of the sink and notes where the counter is to be placed.

This is the template that shows a tricky portion

of the counter next to the fridge.  The "No BS" means

no backsplash as well as the one place in the kitchen

where I needed to have a seam in the counter.

This area will end up a built-in for a small microwave,

a small TV, some cookbooks, and other doo-dads. 

Just under the counter, you'll see a gap next to the fridge.

There was a little four-inch gap there so instead of filling

it with a panel...

...the little bit of mahogany countertop that could be reclaimed

from the store counter got cut up to become little shelves

for a wine rack.  With a little sanding and about seven coats

of tung oil, they're almost too beautiful to hide.

My desire to have no upper cabinets in the kitchen

required a solution for adding some good storage.

That proved to more difficult than I expected.

This beautiful piece from Darby Road was too wide

as were many I found over the past several months.

This one was too tall as were most that I liked.  Also

from the Darby Road warehouse. 

I've also been on the lookout for some cool old doors

or window to do a custom built-in piece between the 

dining room and kitchen, but, after a year, nothing. 

I finally found a piece over the weekend that seems

just right to hold many of my dishes and serving pieces at

European Country Antiques right here in Cambridge.

(Sorry for the blurry iPhone photo.)  It's a great place to

check out if you're in the Huron Village neighborhood.

It's just packed with rustic European pieces.

It's nice and deep with really sturdy shelves to hold the

weight of dishes.  I was hoping for something with a little

hidden storage but I could put baskets in the bottom to

hide some of the less pretty stuff.  

I look forward to the day I can have it delivered and

start putting things on their forever shelves.

Kitchen Ceiling and Cabinet Paint Tests

There hasn't been a lot of progress on the kitchen the last few weeks but

the holidays gave me some time off that I was able to step right in and get

some things done without getting in the way.  The walls are now all primed

and ready for paint but most of my time was spent on the ceiling.

The wood planks took quite a lot of prep work, filling and sanding before a coat of primer went

on.  And then I walked around and marked trouble spots with blue tape.  There were quite a few

rough spots, nail holes and dents that needed to be filled and sanded down before touching up

with a second coat of primer.  If you ever decide to put in a planked ceiling, let me suggest doing

as much of this work before installing the wood.  It's neck- and shoulder-breaking work.

And finally on Sunday I put on the first coat of semi-gloss.  It's Benjamin

Moore Decorator's White in Aura.

It's really brightened up the whole room.  This is one of the things about the

old bakery from my hometown that I loved so much.  It seems so clean.

I really want to lighten these cabinets so paint seems pretty certain.

I've been playing with some paint to see what it might look like on the cabinets.

I bought some rosettes at Home Depot--the little things that would go in the top

corners of door or window casings--to experiment with.

I would put a lot more effort in the final finish but these are good

"sketches," if you will, of layering a few different colors.  

I used colors #2 and #5 from the Farrow & Ball paint samples

I made up which are Lamp Room Gray and Mole's Breath.

This is Lamp Room with a wash-n-wipe of burnt umber

acrylic paint that was thinned down juxtaposed against

the Carrara marble counter in my bathroom.

I think it's a little dirty looking.

This is Lamp Room with a little Mole's Breath

brushed in the recessed and then rubbed down to

almost bare wood in a few spots.

I like this one.

This one is Mole's Breath undercoat with a dry brushing

of Lamp Room over the top.  The effect is just a little

bit darker than the previous one.

I also like it.

I want to try a darker gray glaze on these to really highlight

the details.

Here's the three of them next to the stainless.

Excuse the fingerprints.

This is a little section of the cabinets that's had the finish sanded

off a bit.  Ideally, I'd like some of this grain to show through so it

might take a delicate dance of brushing paint on and caressing it off.

I only get one chance to get it right so I'll do some more samples

and perhaps look for a piece of furniture I can buy and experiment on.

Stay warm!

Counter Deconstruction

It's been a long week of playing nursemaid to the cat.

Warum had a little bit of a complication with is surgery but

after two visits to the ER and a second procedure at the dentist,

I'm relieved to say he's doing much better.  Poor little thing.

He has no idea why he has no teeth or why he hurt so much.

Thank you all for the thoughtful comments.  They really helped.

Anyhoo, I've had very little time to get anything done around the house

and the wet polyurethane really put a damper on things anyway so I thought

you might like to see the store counter outside of the cramped Darby Road

warehouse where it was really difficult to get good photos.

Here's the full monty--all 12 feet--of the front side.  It turns out that the top which we thought was

solid walnut isn't really solid.  It's a pine frame with an thinnish piece of walnut set in to that frame.

It was also heavily glued down so there's not a lot of walnut that can be reclaimed for the project.

My goal is to get the finished kitchen cabinets to have the "flavor" of this side of the counter.

All of the drawers have been taken out for the move but the back side has all of these

drawers and shelves that will be put to use as part of the kitchen cabinets.

Once in Sam's shop, the entire piece was broken down.  Here are a few of the drawer units. 

All of the decorative columns have been removed leaving these panels which will become cabinet doors.

So here's a first round of CAD drawings that Sam drew up of the stove wall elevation.

You can see the panel detail is replicated in the doors of the cabinets and one

of the drawer units worked in to the right of the stove.

Ignore the wall above the stove.  We haven't worked that out yet.  I would like

some glass fronted cabinets but they may not be in the budget right now.

This is the sink wall elevation.  Two columns are flanking a farm sink.  One of the drawer units

again being used to the left of the sink and a cabinet with paneled doors to the right of the dishwasher.

You can see the side view of the refrigerator on the very right and the planked wall on the side of it. 

And here's the refrigerator elevation (which faces the stove).

There's a built-in above the counter where I'll put

the microwave, a little TV and cookbooks, etc.

And there was a little room left over next to the fridge where I

thought a wine rack would go.  I'm hoping to use the little bit

of walnut reclaimed from the store counter top as the shelves.

Here's the planking that just went in yesterday.  This is in the

space between the dining room and kitchen.  I'm looking for

old armoire or cabinet to use as a pantry in this space but I 

thought it would be nice to repeat the planking that I used in

the bathroom in this transitional area.

We're supposed to get snow all weekend and I'm kind of looking

forward to it.  I'm going to crank up the hot plate and heat me up

some soup.  And hopefully get some painting done.