New Kitchen

Welcome to our new kitchen! After 6 months of hard work, washing dishes in the basement and cooking on a hot-plate, it is finished.

Last week I was off for Spring Break and we worked day and night painting, cleaning, unpacking boxes, moving things and finishing up all of the final details.

Here are the pictures. I am no professional photographer, so some of these pics are a little dark. Also, I apologize in advance, but this will be a long post :)

BEFORE
This is what the kitchen looked like when we came to see the house prior to buying it.
Metal cabinets with a wood-grain overlay, wall paper, heavy draperies and brown shag carpet!

AFTER
All fresh, clean, new and white!

The left-side before.

The left-side after.

Vintage locker baskets sit on top of the cabinets.

My collection of vintage Pyrex. I will really be using these - a la Rachel Ray.

Going Green - Vintage dish towels will replace paper towels.

The right-side before.
There was a window on this wall. We bricked it in.

The Right-side after.

With the window gone we have more storage and counterspace.

Wood shelves built by Mark.
After years of collecting cake plates and vintage glassware, I can now display these beloved treasures on the shelves to use and enjoy.

I don't want to have very much sitting on the counters.

These vintage canisters are the exception.

After cooking in such a tiny space for so long, I am really enjoying having room to work.

Undermount deep-bowl Stainless Steel sink. Didn't Mark do a great job with the Corian?
Our old kitchen didn't have a garbage disposal. Now we do!

A new, smaller refrigerator. The older refrigerator has been put in the basement to store soda and other groceries that don't fit in this European-sized fridge. We decided to go with this small refrigerator for now because it doesn't take up much space in the room.

A school house light.

The milk glass globe was purched for $1 at Construction Junction.

The cast-iron mount was purchased on ebay.

The ceiling was covered in v-board wood and painted white for a cottage look.

Knobs.

After much thought, we chose these drawer pulls and knobs. We found them on the internet.

We had previously purchased an original (from the 1800's) version of this drawer pull a few years back from an estate auction. When the kitchen cabinets came we looked at several different styles of pulls but didn't love any of them. Remembering that we had some old hardware in the basement, we looked at what we had. Liking the look of this pull, we wished that we could find something similar to it. Lo and behold, after searching around online Mark found someone on ebay selling exact reproductions of that original pull.

A "spice rack" sits next to the stove. Miniature drawer pulls, that match the larger ones, are on these drawers. I am using this to store kitchen gadgets. 

These knobs match the pulls. They have a raised floral design. They were purchased from a different company.

Some people questioned our decision to use open shelving instead of door-front cabinets. This pantry makes the open-shelf concept livable. It holds a lot of dry goods, paper products and groceries. Oh, by the way these cabinets are Martha Stewart brand - sold at Home Depot.

A countertop to sit and eat at. It folds down when not in use because it is located between two doorways.

The shelf above. I asked Mark if he thought it looked like Cracker Barrel in here...he said "no". Thank goodness.  (No offense to CB - I do love your Hashbrown Casserole -)

Trying to be organized...I've always wanted a chalk board in my kitchen.

Fun Stuff....
I've had boxes of things sitting in my basement for 5 years. That is how long we have lived in this house. Knowing that we would be tearing out the kitchen eventually, I never unpacked much of my kitchen wares after we moved in. On Saturday, Mark brought up all of the boxes. Let me tell you...It was like Christmas in here!
Everything was washed and then inspected to see if it would make "the cut".
I picked what I wanted to keep and the rest is to go. Some has already been given away, some will be donated and some will be for sale at an upcoming flea market.

Here are some of the things I decided to keep...

Jadite tumblers scored at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store and a set of vintage Anchor Hocking mugs.

A vintage paper towel & wax paper holder. This was bought on ebay. It is mounted on the wall and holds a real roll of paper towels.

Mark converted this old shortening tin into a garbage can by adding wheels to the bottom and a handle to the lid. This baby cost me $3 at a flea market last year.

An old wooden recipe box holds some of my late Grandma Kate's recipes.

A recipe for one of her famous Italian desserts, Polenta Dulce (Sweet Corn Mush) written in her own handwriting.
I plan to make some of this soon, now that I have a place to cook again.

Thank you for visiting and allowing me to brag a little about this space. It has been a long time coming, but well worth it. Thank you to Mark (my honey) who did ALL of the work.

Check back tomorrow when I lay out how much this project actually cost. I am going to tally it all up and share it with the world. That is one thing I love about blogs, you can learn so much from real people and real life situations. So I want to pass on what we have learned throughout this process to you.

Until then,
KayteeJane

Umbrella Cheer

I have some strange and quirky collections. One of them has to be my collection of vintage umbrellas. About a year or two ago I began picking these up at estate sales. They are usually pretty affordable. As it has been raining steadily here for the last 2 days, I felt that a post about umbrellas was in order.

This is one of those clear plastic umbrellas were you can look up and see all the raindrops gathered on the outside. What makes this one great is the cheery yellow flowers inside.

This next one is a very shabby umbrella that I got for free at an estate sale. I think they were happy that I took it away for them. From the outside it reminds me a bit of Mary Poppin's umbrella.

The real surprise happens when it is opened up.

 

A soft canopy of floral fabulousness. Very romantic indeed!

I guess you can't judge an umbrella by its cover.

I love this next one. It forms a wonderful shape when opened up.

This one is smaller than the rest. It was probably one of the earlier compact umbrellas for ladies on the go.

Bold stripes brighten the day.

Even if the umbrella itself isn't all that spectacular, sometimes it's the handle that makes it worth the purchase.

So be on the lookout for your own vintage umbrella.

You will wonder who the lady was who owned it before you.

If nothing else, it will make you smile on the most dreariest of days.

KayteeJane

Kitchen Counters - part 1

In my last post I shared that to hire someone to do our kitchen counters it would have cost $1700. Originally we were going to put butcher-block counters in, but after reading some testimonials from people who have butcher block counters, I didn't think I would be happy with it. My dad had some large pieces of Corian that he wasn't using so he offered them to us for our kitchen. I like the look of Corian so we decided to go with that. So, the $1700 was for installation only - not including materials.

Because we are trying to do this kitchen on the tightest budget possible - we decided to tackle this project ourselves. Before beginning, Mark watched lots of You Tube videos on how to install Corian. This project was intimidating at best. When we mentioned to people that we are installing this ourselves they looked at us like we are crazy. Maybe we are.

Here is the Corian after cutting the various pieces to size and laying on the cabinets to check for fit.  

Here is Mark cutting the hole for the sink.

When you cut Corian it makes a lot of white plastic dust particles. It is a messy job.

Here he is cutting the holes for the faucet. 

Here is where our undermount sink will sit when it is installed.

This is just the first part of the project. To finish, the Corian will need to be glued at the seems, sanded and polished and affixed to the cabinets.

A rough estimate of how much it cost us to install this product ourselves: $600 - This includes having to buy all of the tools that were needed to cut, sand, glue & finish the job. This also includes the cost of a Stainless Steel under mount sink & a new faucet.

Total Savings: $1100

In many cases it is well worth it to hire a professional to do a project that you are unable to do yourself. But there are times when it pays to do it yourself...to take a risk and try your skills. When you complete a project such as this, you feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride knowing that you did it with your own 2 hands.

KayteeJane

Recent Happenings

As usual, life is very full around here. I apologize for not posting this past week. Here are some of the happenings that have been going on.

Kitchen progress…

Here is what it looks like now.

We are slowly progressing towards the finish line. The hard thing about this particular project is we are doing EVERYTHING ourselves. And when I say everything, I mean absolutely everything. We were going to hire someone to install our countertops, but when the bid came in at $1700, we decided to once again, do it ourselves.

Mark built shelves to hold our dishes and my mountain of “collectibles”. Next we need to paint the shelves, finish the counter top, install the sink & faucet, install the oven and then we will be finished. 

Can I get a Hallelujah! Amen.

Some creative time…

I hosted a baby shower in my home and these were the favors that we gave out. A card with seeds and a plant marker inside.

I have always wanted a tree branch in a pot. Years ago I saw the idea in Martha’s mag to be used as an egg tree in the spring. Each year I look for the perfect tree branch and each year I have trouble finding one I like. Well this year I was successful. Here it is in use holding the cards/favors.

Next I will decorate it with eggs for Easter. The possibilities are endless.

More Craigslist…

I swear, Mark is better at “junking” than I am. If you all only knew him way back when. :) On Sunday evening he just up and left the house with only an “I’ll be back” as an explanation. Later when he returned, this was on the porch. It is a metal garden cart from the 1950’s. It is in perfect shape. He paid $10. We plan to put it in our yard to hold flowers in the summer and pumpkins in the fall.

And finally, you just have to smile..

I caught my daughter reading on the couch one night. I guess high-heels are in style no matter what you do. :)

Until we meet again,

KayteeJane