At the Finish Line!

After many months putting together all the details we finished the last big project, the backsplash!  We had found back splash tile on sale at HomeDepot for $3.67 per square foot. This was a great deal so we went to great lengths to get enough tile to complete the job! We called and visited Home Depots all over the area and got more than enough to finish the kitchen.

We ended up with a teal glass color tile that makes the teal spots in the granite pop. We used a tile adhesive and a trowel to stick the tile on the wall of the kitchen. For all the edges and around light switches we needed to cut individual tiles. We used a hand glad tile cutter that snapped the tiles smaller to fit the spaces we needed. We also grouted the tile by rubbing it on the tile with a rubber tile float and wiping it off the tile surfaces with a wet sponge. Then we needed to seal the edges where the tile met the granite. We used painters tape first; this created a clean line when we pulled off the tape.

The tile made the kitchen finally look complete! We still have to install the under the cabinet lighting and finish some moldings by the door, but everything else is finally done! We added handles to the cabinets and drawers, which cost about $60 per box at Lowe's and we used exactly 3 boxes. This relatively small cost really made the cabinets look great and blend in with the stainless steel appliances.

This kitchen renovation actually took several months to complete, my boyfriend and I both worked full time and both taking classes so this didn’t help with timing of course. All the late nights and time without a functioning kitchen were worth it. We have a beautiful kitchen and we were able to get nicer appliances, flooring, and countertops by doing all of the other parts on our own!

My Kitchen or Jurassic Park?

So far I have told you about the flooring project, the walls, the paint, the cabinets, the appliances, now we are getting into the fun details!

We began our countertop quest by being set on making our own concrete countertops. We bought melamine boards to cut and piece together a frame to pour our concrete.

We also bought concrete, a mixer and a bucket to test this whole thing out. A DIY post online made it seem like it was easy and simple. Well as I have found out numerous times now, no project is simple and takes way more money and time than planned.

We made a “sample” concrete countertop. It was a small 15 x 20 inches piece of countertop.

After mixing the concrete and pouring it into the frame, we needed to use a vibrating sander to break up all the bubbles that would have been on the top surface.

After a week of drying, the concrete piece was finally ready to check out. The surface was very smooth and it was very cool looking, however… this little piece weighed a TON! We thought about it and decided to save our supplies and sample piece for when we make our bar in the basement using the old cabinets from the kitchen that we saved when we gutted the kitchen.

Now what? We went looking at granite. We ended up at Soulliere Decorative Stone in Utica, MI. I found a couple cool granite slabs I liked, but I feel in love with one that looked like dinosaur eggs. I couldn’t stop thinking about how different and awesome it would look with our black cabinets.

After a few days we decided to go back and ended up picking out the exact slab we liked and ordering it. When you get granite, you usually pick out a slab of it, buy the whole slab and included is the cuts you need and a sink, then the company keeps the scrap pieces.

I thought, as great as our sample concrete countertop turned out, I better leave this to the experts since it is such a huge part of any kitchen.

They cut and installed the granite within a week, it was so easy and they did a wonderful job, and since we had our own sink, they took off money since we weren’t getting the sink that was included with the granite slab. They also made small window sils with the same granite so they would match!

I was very impressed with the company and haven’t had any issues with my granite countertops, except for the fact that if I move I want to take the dinosaur egg counters with me!

Let’s Go Shopping!

Black Friday is the “biggest shopping day of the year”! It is the Friday after Thanksgiving and it usually involves early mornings and more recently even late nights of shopping! Stores offer their best deals during this time to kick-off the holiday shopping season. I used to work in retail and I love to shop, so I normally am in some store or mall on this day….  Not last year!

Last year I spent my black Friday at Lowe’s and Home Depot! Never thought I would be saying that in a million years but that’s where I ended up!

My boyfriend and I went there just to check out the deals that were going on and we got to talking with one of the workers at Home Depot and he was telling us that this particular sale was the best they’ve got all year. I was shocked that this was true for appliances, because generally I associate black Friday with clothes, toys & electronics.

“Just looking” turned into two credit cards later and some awesome interest-free deals!

I ordered a stove, microwave and a new washer and dryer at Home Depot and got two full years no interest on top of the awesome deals they had. I still haven’t seen my same exact appliances cheaper than when I got them.

I ordered my fridge from Lowe’s because I fell in love with the stainless Samsung French door with the ice maker on the door and inside the lower freezer door. Again I got no interest, this time for 18 months and also I still haven’t seen my fridge as low as I got it for. I would recommend anyone in the market for appliances to check out Black Friday sales. My fridge was not easy getting into the house the doors had to be removed for it to get into the house since the doorways are super small, true for many smaller Royal Oak homes. As much as I love my fridge, if I ever move it's probably going to stay!

 

I didn’t get a matching dishwasher because my dad had given me a gently used stainless one that he bought from a friend. Once my kitchen was all put together, we installed this used dishwasher and it would run and then as soon as my dad would leave, the dishwasher wouldn’t fill with water. It was bizarre, so finally after a couple weeks of my dad coming over and trying to fix it, he bought me a brand new stainless dishwasher and installed that one! Come to find out, we determined the issue as we were disconnecting the used one. The water hose was getting kinked when we would push the dishwasher back into place under the countertop, so it wasn’t really broken after all. After all the hassle we just installed the new one and now I have a gently used dishwasher I am trying to sell! Let me know if anyone needs a dishwasher!

Sand & (Sun) Stain

Throughout my kitchen experience I have been sharing with you, behind the scenes I was not on vacation with sand & sun but busy with the cabinets!  

This was my favorite part, 1. because it saved me literally thousands of dollars (which I spent elsewhere) and 2. It allowed me and my boyfriend to choose the style and color we want.

I bought unfinished cabinets at Lowe’s with my Lowe’s credit card and saved 5% on all the cabinets, which basically covered most of the tax on them.

Buying unfinished cabinets saved me thousands of dollars, I bought all my cabinets and the stain and sand paper for under one thousand dollars. Which sounds like a lot to some people but -  is actually a fraction of what the custom cabinets would have cost us.

We began the cabinets when we first started renovating the kitchen and started an assembly line in the basement. We had to sand them all and then stain 2-3 coats on every part. We took the drawers and cabinet doors off as well. After staining each layer, we needed to sand the surface once it dried with super fine sand paper.

Once all the black stain was on and smooth, we needed to apply 2 layers of polyurethane.  We found that water-based poly was best, easy to clean and use compared to oil-based. After the poly we had to once again sand but this time with fine steel wool to make a super smooth finish.

I would recommend this process to anyone looking to save money; however, prepare for long nights and “one more door”. One more door always turned into getting to bed at 2am.

Because of all the time and brain cells this project consumed, I did find help with the flooring by hiring the same company that refinished the rest of my house when I moved in. This allowed for me to have consistent flooring throughout my home with the same stain color, it also made the house feel bigger and easier for cleaning the floors with one surface type. There are real reviews on Tile vs Hardwood on Zillow's Advice Thread. I did choose hardwood floors for my kitchen over a tile option, which is becoming more popular on shows on HGTV.

I love the floors and am super happy with my decision! (makes mopping a breeze & no worrying about dirty grout lines!) I also love my cabinets, well worth the work and the money savings allowed me to get the new flooring and shiny/sparkly things I will share later!!

 

If Walls Could Talk...

When we took out all the cabinets from our kitchen, we realized that the upper cabinets were hanging on the walls without any screws supported by a stud. All my heavy, very breakable dishes were sitting in a cabinet that very well could have broken off the wall at any moment. I was frustrated, but relieved that we took the old cabinets down before anything actually did break.

Behind the old cabinets was another surprise, this time it was a good one! There is a switch we never knew what it was for; it was wired behind the cabinets, a perfect set-up for under the cabinet lighting. I was debating on if I wanted to invest the additional money into lighting and the extra time, but now that it was already set up with the electrical, why not?

Since I wanted to make the kitchen more functional, I decided on additional cabinets on the wall that previous was bare. In the new design, I also planned to put the fridge on that wall. So I would have extra cabinets on both sides of the kitchen and more room for the fridge.

Both entryways of my kitchen have pocket doors, which are common in older homes.  If we wanted to put cabinets on the other wall, we need to have studs behind the drywall, not a pocket door. It was kind of freaky to tear down my plaster walls and remove the pocket door and add 2x4’s and new drywall. Once everything was torn down and the studs were in place, and new dry wall was up, it wasn’t so scary.

After all the construction was complete and all the walls were smooth, I decided to paint the walls. I had a gallon of this light blue, almost teal color. I loved the color and was excited to paint the kitchen that color since we had already started picking out color schemes for the backsplash and countertops.

The blue paint went on the walls. It was pretty, but I hated it for the kitchen once all the walls were that color. It reminded me of a bathroom, not at all how I wanted my kitchen to look. Hours of painting were wasted, but I couldn’t live with that blue color in my “dream kitchen". So… countless paint swatches later, we chose a cobble stone color from Lowe's. Lowe's has this new thing called My Lowe's which keeps track of all the colors and various home purchases, which is great because I don't have the time and brain power to keep track of all the details. The color matched perfectly to one of the colors in the countertops we decided on. I am excited to share the rest of the process in the coming weeks!!!

 

Peeling Away History

My house was built in 1954. Every time one of the previous owners decided on new flooring for the kitchen, they must have just put the new flooring right on top of the existing flooring.

The first layer was the glossy, very slippery when wet, tile. I had fallen twice, and broke a toe nail because the floors were super slick. It had turned into a major safety hazard since the backdoor was right there, and in Michigan any time it rained or snowed (which is all the time) the glossy tiles would get wet.

The gloss tiles were mortared onto several layers of linoleum. Once the gloss tiles were broken off the ground, which took hours, we took a break and left the old linoleum flooring for about a week. Since we knew that once we took out the rest of the flooring we would need to take out the cabinets. The older layers of floor went underneath the cabinets. Since we were not ready to say goodbye to our kitchen sink and counter space yet, we figured one more week would be best.

 

Once we decided to take out all of the flooring, we took it down to the sub-floor and could see into the basement. When we took everything out, flooring and cabinets, my step dad realized that a previous owner cut out some of the sub-floor and support beams underneath the sink area for some reason. We needed to correct this. He added 2x4’s in place where the support beams had previously been cut out. We added ply wood where the subfloor was missing. In doing this, we had to drill out 1” holes for the plumbing to still be accessible for the sink.

For all the tile and garbage we couldn’t put most things out to the curb on garbage day so we bought this big green bag sold at Home Depot and Lowe’s that are made by Waste Management called Bagster. We fill the bag and schedule a pick up time online with Waste Management and they come collect the whole bag from the front yard. It ended up costing like $30 for the bag and then $100 for them to pick it up, but it was worth the hassle of finding somewhere else to take it, which was probably going to cost money as well. I would recommend the “Green bags” to any one working on a project where there are bulky items that cannot be put out with regular trash. The Bagster @ Lowe's

We took the bottom cabinets we removed to the curb on garbage day (my city picks up bigger items, as long as there are no drawers or any some parts attached) because there were many oil stains inside and the configurations weren’t best for the space. In the corner of the kitchen, instead of using a lazy Susan or cabinet designed for a corner, there were two cabinets glued together and there was a ton of wasted storage space.

So we scrapped the lower cabinets but we decided to keep the upper cabinets for a possible bar in the basement, a future project I am thinking about starting this summer J.

Hidden Passion

I love shopping and “girly” things, not getting my hands dirty or breaking a sweat. Little did I realize that mindset was going to change…

Two years ago I began looking for an apartment, as many mid-twenties people do. It was time to leave the nest. On my quest for the perfect apartment I found that apartments are small, outdated, expensive, a terrible investment, and they don’t allow for customization.

After realizing renting just wasn’t for me I switched gears and found a realtor and began house hunting. This was a scary step for me. Scary was a good thing, it allowed me to test my comfort level and discover a whole new part of me and something that today, I am truly passionate about.

8 months into the stressful and nerve-racking process, I found “the house” and with every penny I had to my name- I signed on the dotted line, what felt like hundreds of times & then I got the keys!

It was mine, all the white walls, gloss tile, and nasty old carpeting.

After new paint was on the walls, old carpet was out, hardwood was refinished, I knew the kitchen was the next project I was ready to tackle. I love watching HGTV; all the shows where they renovate kitchens are really inspiring to me. I was determined to upgrade my kitchen and I wanted to do it on my own.

I wanted to turn my kitchen renovation into a Do-It-Yourself project because it made the project actually affordable for me and I knew that this wasn’t going to be the only house project or kitchen I would have to upgrade in my lifetime and I might as well learn now.

I spent a lot of time planning what exactly needed to be done. I had my parents help me with the layout and design and together we decided on where everything would go once the project started. Research and planning is key in any home project prior to actual starting. A kitchen is a huge aspect of daily life and I knew without proper planning it would be disastrous! I took numerous trips to Lowe’s and Home Depot and visited their online sites pricing out and making lists of everything I would need.

The DIY kitchen renovation began.