Fascinated with Fascinators
Kate Middleton may have made fascinators popular in the past few years, but I’ve had my hand in millinery for the past 6 years or so. On our wedding day in 2007, I wore a beautiful fascinator with a birdcage veil. (Photo taken by Mandi White)
Because these head pieces can be very expensive, I started DIY’ing them (my wedding fascinator was in the range of a few hundred dollars). Nothing dresses up an outfit more than a feather and flower softly pinned in your hair. You may remember that I crafted a parrot fascinator for my Halloween costume in October, posted here.
My most favorite piece so far is the one I made to match the cocktail dress I wore to my company Christmas party last year. It had one large red plume feather, a really cool black beaded plume, and a red velvet flower.
Our 2011 company party is approaching this weekend, so I decided to keep with the trend and put my millinery skills to work….that of course being the topic of today’s hat-tastic post!
I went to Michael’s and picked up some supplies, which included:
- A bag of teal feathers to match my dress
- Two large white plumes
- Two festive decorative teal flowers
- One piece of teal felt
- A hair comb
- And of course hot glue
The first step is to secure the comb to the piece of felt with a needle and matching thread. I then cut the felt into a workable piece to glue my feathers and accessories to.
It takes a while to play with everything to get the look you want. I fussed with this thing for about an hour before I plugged in the hot glue gun.
I started with the biggest feathers in the back and worked my way forward to the smaller pieces. The flowers are the last thing to secure, they are the centerpiece of the fascinator. You could also use a button or any other decorative piece you like to make it your own! Because the flowers have wire stems I cut them off with the wire cutters.
After all the pieces are glued onto the felt, take your scissors and cut the remain square so it is not visible from the front. The finished product looks like this:
My dress is obviously teal, but I won’t reveal pictures of the complete outfit until after the party. In the mean time, this is what the fascinator looks like on my head. Keep in mind this is after-work hair and no makeup…my hair will be much bigger when I wear the piece. All in all, I’m really happy with how it turned out! It’s a bit more glittery than I wanted, but it feels good to be festive for the holidays.
Update: Here are pictures from my company Christmas Party. Lots of compliments on the fascinator…who says style doesn’t make it’s way to West-by-god-Virginia?!
Bye, Bye Granite…
Awhile back we post about our decision on Auzul Platino granite for our countertops, found here.
It is with much regret I inform you, our vision has been smashed. Before we went to order the granite a few weeks ago we consulted with a friend. He brought up the question of support. As you remember, we took out a banquette that was strangely situated on the ceiling of our basement stairwell.
Our friend made the comment that our stairwell ceiling may not support the weight of such a heavy surface. We had not considered that. There are support options, but once you go that route it starts to sound like, CHA-CHING, CHA-CHING!!! At the Home Depot we discussed the issue with the design consultant. She went ahead and wrote up the quote again while Ryan and I discussed. Her quote the second time around was about $700 more than our initial meeting. Needless to say we had major sticker shock. That seems to be a theme with this kitchen renovation. We were upset and disappointment after this consultation, so needless to say we left without making a purchase. That put us back to square one. We contemplated several other options including: Corian (which is just as expensive), an acrylic top, ordering new laminate, or matching our current laminate. Because we don’t consider our current laminate awful (we actually kind of like the black contrast against the white cabinets and light grey walls), we have decided it is in our best interest (at this time) to keep the existing top and match the new section with a custom “L” piece. Down the road we can invest in an upgraded surface.
The color of our Wilsonart laminate is Ebony Star.
It has a nice texture to it, so it doesn’t have that old-school, slick laminate feel. We’re not completely thrilled about downgrading from granite to laminate, but we are not willing to take the chance that one day we could walk in our home and our kitchen is in our basement. In the long run, it will save us about $1,500. This is definitely a much cheaper option until we have the time to think about a long term surface. The Home Depot is having a sale starting on Monday so we are waiting until then to order our matching laminate piece. Because it will still be a custom made and installed piece, they still have to come out and template. So that means it will still take about 4-6 weeks to get in, just like the granite. One would think laminate would be a faster turn-around! Oh well.
So there you have it, another woe to our kitchen renovation.
What do you think, would you have scraped the granite surface after a possible support issue and $700 price increase? Are we crazy to install matching laminate? Have you experienced any issues with support in your home?
Stubborn Oven
In just about every kitchen renovation (now-a-days) the appliances are replaced with stainless, right? Well, we were two-thirds the way there, having replaced our dishwasher and refrigerator with stainless appliances over the past 5 years. Our oven is the last man standing. It is very odd. Black body and a white cooktop. Why on earth someone would mix the two finishes is beyond me. 
Our goal was to find a matching unit (for a good deal) at our local Scratch and Dent appliance store. This is the same place we bought our refrigerator about 5 years ago, which ironically, has no visible scratches or dents. When I took the measurements of our current GE (27″ wide and 24″ deep), I noticed that it didn’t touch the floor. Hummmm….we have lived in the house almost 6 years and never realized our oven was a drop in unit. Okay, whatever. Off to Scratch and Dent we go. It turns out our unit is (like us) completely abnormal. The sales associate informed us this is a custom/special order unit. Boooooohissssssss. Apparently, having never shopped for an oven before, the standard size is 30″ wide. Because we can’t afford to lose the four drawers to the right of the oven, it is not an option to take them out and put in a standard, free-standing unit. No problem, we’ll replace it with a stainless 27″ drop-in, right? Not that easy. It turns out GE is the ONLY company that makes a 27″ drop-in. Here is our current unit from the GE website:
Notice how it says “No longer being manufactured” at the top right? I hope that doesn’t mean I won’t be able to find this unit in stainless. Afterall, who wants a black body with a white top, that should be discontinued! With a little more research I found this all black unit here:
Are you in sticker shock? Because I am!! …and that is just a black unit. What in the world is a stainless unit going to cost?!! It turns out that a stainless 30″ drop-in (found here) has the pretty price tag of $1,588!
Major problem. Our special 27″ oven is not even manufactured in a stainless steel finish.
Our options now are:
1. take out the 4 drawers to the right and get a 30″ unit for $1,588
2. take out the 4 drawers and bottom cabinet and molding for a free standing 30″ unit
3. keep what we have
4.see if we can order the black cook top from the current manufactured black model and replace the top
You guessed it, we decided on option #4. I called up GE to see if the parts between the units are interchangeable. Yep, they are. I got on Sears Part Direct and found that we can replace our white top for a black one for about $90 plus shipping.
I now officially hate despise 1964 kitchens. We would love to install a standard 30″ stove but taking out those 4 drawers is just not an option right now. I have too much kitchen/cooking stuff in those four drawers. Even with the addition of the new cabinetry we would be back at square one with storage space, more on that here. Remember what the top of our fridge looked like??
And inside my one and only pantry???
Decision made, the black top has officially been ordered from Sears Parts Direct. I found a 15% off coupon code from http://www.retailmenot.com and the grand total came to $97 including shipping. Much better than $1,588. It will not be perfect, but a black top will look so much better than that awful white thing. It should arrive next week. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it fits!!!
What do you think, should we have taken out those 4 drawers and installed a 30″ unit? do you think the black unit will compliment the other stainless appliances? Do you have a stupid 27″ drop-in oven too??!!!!
Base Cabinet Complete: Minus Doors and Trim
We spent a lot of Saturday finishing up the base cabinet fascia, posted about here. Now that the outside pieces have been primed and painted it was finally time to install them. Ryan was able to borrow his dad’s air compressor to get the project finished. After applying some liquid nail (God’s gift to DIY), he nailed all the fascia into place.
Here is the picture progression/diary of what we did, and how we did it.
With the side in place Ryan was able to put the front in place using the same gluing and nailing method.
Here’s a view of what the nails look like. Yep, that’s a lot of holes to putty! Better secure than not…haha.
I used Elmer’s carpenter’s wood filler in white to fill the holes. This was a very rushed task, as the Kentucky-North Carolina basketball game was about to start in 15 minutes. (We all know how much I love my Kentucky wildcats!)
In case you were wondering, the UK Wildcats won against North Carolina, 73-72. It was Anthony Davis who blocked John Henson’s shot in the last 10 seconds of the game that won it for the Cats.
After the intense game was over and Ryan and I were finished hootin’ and hollerin’, I got back to the putty that had since dried. You guessed it, it was once again time to sand…blah. This time, since there were so many holes I got out the orbital. I had to be careful not apply too much pressure, I didn’t want the paint I so diligently applied (posted here) to get sanded down/removed.
After I finished sanding the filler I put down another 2 coats of touch-up paint. I also decided at this point to paint the underside of the plywood around that curved area.
We have now moved everything off the top of the fridge and into the cabinets. It’s crazy to see the top of the fridge again. We have a corner trim piece (that’s already been primed and painted) that still has to be nailed into the corner where there two fascia boards meet. We’ll probably get to that tonight. In the meantime, the cabinet looks a little bit like this:
All that’s left now is:
- Nailing in the corner fascia trim piece
- adding cabinet doors
- removing the flooring
- installing tile
- replace the baseboards
- make/nail in wainscoting squares
- countertop
- upper cabinets
As simple as that!!! yeah right. Happy Monday!
In Your Fascia!
The cabinet fascia is complete! Yesterday’s post we started cutting the rough dimensions of the fascia boards to cover the awkward base cabinet in the kitchen, more on that here.
After making our rough cuts, it turns out Ryan is perfect (but I already knew that…haha)! Both boards fit snugly into their new homes and fortunately no extra trimming was needed…this time!
To give you a better look, we mocked up what it will look like when the trim is in place. (Doesn’t Ryan look sexy in that protective eyewear?)
Last night we set up shop on the front porch again and were able to get the middle holes cut out for the fascia for cabinet doors. It took Ryan about an hour to do so, but he wanted to go slow with the blade in order to get a perfectly straight cut. He first started by making a small square with the skill saw then made the straight inside edge with his jigsaw.
It then became my responsibility to sand those suckers down to a nice smooth finish.
Notice that planter on the table? Yeah, I should have moved it to another table, rather than just moving it to the end of the table. You guessed it, the vibration of the orbital sander threw that thing on to the ground. But if you know us at all, it wouldn’t be a Bauer project without something broken. Remember when we started this kitchen renovation and the “Flying Pig” (found here) in our office landed on the floor and broke?
We were very upset about that darn thing. It was a memento from our wedding. On the bright side, when I was at TJ Maxx the other day I randomly found a similar ceramic flying pig that just happens to be painted our wedding color! Granted, it’s not quite the same, but it makes up for the death of our dear piglet, rest his sole.
Anyhoo, we have a history of breaking stuff.
After the soil and broken ceramic pot were swept up (I’m getting really good at sweeping pigs and sawdust) I could get the boards wiped down with tack cloth and start my favorite past time, priming and painting. The boards are much easier to paint before they get nailed in, but I will totally have some touch up once the nails are in and holes filled with putty.
The fascia boards didn’t take very long to get painted, so I was lucky enough to apply primer and 2 coats of paint last night.
The paint still needs to completely dry and set for a day or so, but to give you an idea of what the cabinet will look like with the fascia, we leaned them up against the cabinet frame. Hopefully now you can see what train of thought we had throughout this project!
Of course we still need to nail the fascia in. We plan to borrow Ryan’s dad’s air compressor this weekend to git-r-done.
Still on the list:
- cabinet doors
- corner trim
- wainscoting squares (to go under the cabinet doors)
- baseboard trim
- countertops
- upper cabinets
- tile backsplash
- remove laminate flooring
- lay new floor tile
525,600 Minutes…
…how do you measure, measure a year kitchen.
Okay, so it’s really only been 24,480 minutes since we started this kitchen renovation, or 17 days, but it’s feels like much longer. I have no clue why Rent’s “Seasons of Love” popped into my head, maybe because this project is a “labor of love”. You’ve got to remember that we both work 8-5 jobs everyday so we really only have evenings and weekends to work on this baby. And there was an out-of-town holiday road trip thrown in the mix, so I guess it’s not really taking that long!
We started pulling out the quarter round last night. Our intention was just to pull out the quarter round, but the baseboard decided to come up with it. Like Tulipai and Ninka, they stick together, I guess.
The short term plan (after the cabinetry and countertops are in) is to pull up the flooring and replace it with tile. It appears there is just two layers of laminate on the floor, but you never know until you start. We’ll have to keep our fingers crossed on that one.
With the baseboards pulled up, we finally started measuring and cutting the fascia. This will be key in making our weird little box look like a cabinet. Once the fascia is up you will see our plan/vision, in case you don’t already. As usual, we set up our workshop on the front porch since our garage is on the lower level and the front porch is way more convenient. It’s getting dark early in the evening so Ryan had to drag out some extra lighting this time, which means more to clean up, oh well. We’re getting good at making sawdust lately, so I guess that means I’m getting good at sweeping it up!
The rough cuts were finished last night, but there is still more inner-cuts for the cabinet door holes, so this will be a two-day-er. We hope to get this thing together tonight and maybe (?) start painting??? Wish us luck!
An Inside Job.
When we left off with the kitchen project we were “Making Sawdust” (more posts on the kitchen found here, here, here, here and here). Now that the dust has officially settled (for now) it’s time to get some things secure from the inside. Ryan put a few screws in the frame and wall of the custom base cabinet, so she isn’t going anywhere!
In my genius thinking, I thought knew it would be much easier to paint the inside of the cabinet before the countertop base was secure. Had I thought about it more in-depth, I really should have painted the inside of that darn thing before Ryan screwed it into the wall. Oh well, you live and you learn….we just jumped ahead of ourselves, as usual. We know the inside won’t be seen, but since we are both perfectionists, it has to be done.
I know you are very jealous of my couture painting outfit, but you can’t have it. Those zebra print shorts and I go way back to the beginning of my painting days in college. I have an entire shelf in my closet dedicated to DIY clothing. I have tanks, shorts, sweats, jeans, sweaters, and jackets…so I can basically get through the entire year without getting my “actual” clothes dirty. The best part? It all still fits from when I started this section of clothing 5 years ago…bow-chick-a-bow-wow (or as Ryan would say “brown chick and brown cow”)!
Back to painting….so, I have all the interior of the cabinet primed and painted. The bottom shelf wasn’t very graceful when being pushed into position (due to the extra layers of paint) but she eventually gave in.
All that Ryan had left to do was secure it the inside bottom shelf with some glue and nails.
But of course it’s never as easy as that! Here comes Michelle’s part: putty those nail holes and sand for re-touch.
I know it’s really hard to see what I am sanding here, but trust me the white putty inside the nail holes will make all the difference in the inside of the finished product.
And again….break out the paint to make some touch-ups on that bottom shelf. Yes, that is dinner cooking next to my paint below…we are multi-taskers after all! Also, in case you didn’t know (my mother taught me this) you can keeping paint brushes and rollers tightly wrapped in a bag in the fridge. This is very helpful when you have paint/touch-up on going…It’s such a pain to wash those things out! Just don’t forget you have then in the fridge, they don’t last forever, you know!
Now that all the interior painting of that cabinet is finished Ryan was finally able to screw in his counter top base. He drilled a bunch of pilot holes before drilling in the screws, but I neglected to snap photos of that…sorry! So now we are officially with an extra (sort-of) counter space. It’s already being used for tools, dog food, etc…can’t wait to get counter tops on that thing!
It’s coming along. I know I say that every time I post about the kitchen, but day by day it’s really coming together. Rome wasn’t built in a day you know!
‘Tis the Season…
Now that Thanksgiving is officially over I can start decorating for Christmas. I’m a true believer in celebrating the season we’re in and not the one coming up which is why I wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate. Saturday was a warm 70 degrees…perfect for pulling out all that holiday paraphernalia. It took some serious searching to find all the boxes, but after a few trips to the basement and a trip to the outside shed, I had all 4 boxes located.
A little fluffing of the artificial greenery and bows and I was good to go! It’s been the same theme outside for about 4 years now, so putting everything up has become somewhat routine. It took about an hour total, not too shabby!
I decided not to make any new bows this year, although I had anticipated doing so last February, Ha!
You can sort of see our proudly hung UK flag in the reflection of the door above, which I love! (you can also see our neighbors car. She decided to leave it parked in front of our house for 5 days while she had company…they live about 2 houses down, can we say rude?! park in front of your own house!)
Last year we had no place to put the Christmas tree so I took the bottom piece and top piece of our 3 piece tree and created a make-shift small tree with a little duct tape. If fit perfectly on the fireplace hearth between the foyer and living room. We really enjoyed seeing the tree in this space, so I decided to do the same thing again this year even though we have space for a full tree now. It’s out of the way and in the center of our home!
Do you see the embroidered “The Bauer’s” on the tree skirt? This is one of my favorite holiday things. It is a very delicate vintage tree skirt given to me by Ryan’s mother’s about 5 years ago. I’m not sure why I like it so much, I just dig the old-school vibe. Two of my favorite tree ornaments are ones that resemble our pups. I couldn’t help but to take a close-up.
I also really love this flower ornament my mother gave me when I was in college. The lady bug is my sorority mascot, so this also has some special meaning. Unfortunately, while I was unwrapping it this year part of the flower broke off…I was just about in tears.
The mantle is nothing to crow about right now. I assume later when I’m ‘in the groove’ I’ll put up some garland and tiffany blue balls, etc…yep, one of these days before Christmas. I have been on the search for new stockings that I can embroider for about 3 years now, but everything on the market is just so darn ugly. I had plans to pull out the sewing machine and make my own from ideas I pinned on Pinterest, but we’ll see if I actually get around to it. In the mean time, these hand-me-downs from Ryan’s mom work just fine, I guess.
Needless to say there hasn’t been any more progress on the kitchen. Ryan stopped at Home Depot on his way home from work last night for the fascia…I predict this will be a Tuesday night project, we shall see!
And because it wouldn’t be the Christmas season without Clark Griswold….
Making Sawdust.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We traveled to Raleigh, NC to spend some time with Ryan’s sister, her husband and their family. Her husband’s parents were gracious enough to host all of us, including Ryan’s parents as well. It was a lovely time, in a beautiful home, with great family. Of course I can’t let this post go without putting up a picture of Ryan and I with our adorable nephew and niece!
Oh yeah, Ryan taught our nephew how to climb a wall like Spidey (Spiderman)…
Now on to sawdust….when we left on Thursday our kitchen was looking like this. We made it home on Saturday so we were able to put in some hours to keep the project going. Our first small project was getting the NuTone hole patched. Ryan made a box out of 2×4’s so that I had something to screw the drywall screws into. It was way overkill, but hey, we don’t skimp…haha!
Last weekend I hit up the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I was lucky enough to find a drop piece of drywall. I scored this gem for a whopping 64 cents. The same size board sells at Lowes for about 5 bucks (ridiculous, i know).
Measure twice, cut once. I think I actually triple measured. My patch piece fit perfectly, first try…damn I’m good…can I get a booya?!
She’s now tapped and spackled up. It will take a slow 3 coats, as usual. I’m really getting sick of patching, but I guess it goes along with the remodeling teritory. I figure over the next few days I will be able to get in some sanding and re-coating.
While I was busy patching my NuTone hole, Ryan was busy making sawdust on the front porch. He cut and secured a few more support pieces on the base cabinet and got the countertop base cut.
Oh, and take note that I finally got a new globe for the ceiling fan. I broke that darn thing when I painted the ceiling of the front porch as few weeks ago (here). It cost about 12 bucks which irritated me, but some things are inevitable.
Back to the kitchen…so Ryan measured about ten times and set out to cut the base for the countertop. It turned out sooooooooo good. I am super-excited and can now totally envision what this kitchen will look like once it’s finished.
Super-cool, huh?! Here is another view because his work deserves to be seen from more than one angle 😉 You can also see the first coat of spackle on the NuTone hole…
Well, there you have it! We had a relaxing weekend with some family and then we went right back to work…kitchens just don’t go anywhere on their own, you know! Tonight I plan to sand, prime, and paint the interior of the cabinet so Ryan can get the top screwed down. Yeah! Very excited to see some light at the end of the tunnel!
Happy Monday, ya’ll!
NuTone is Out of Tune
Back in 1964 when our house was built intercom speakers were “the thing”. Of course, our house came equipped with a awesome unit. The control center is located in our kitchen. Since NuTone screams old school, it unfortunately does not fit in to our kitchen renovation (although painted grey, it blended nicely into our wall for 5 years…and worked!). You are safe to assume: bye, bye Mr. Control Panel!
Lucky for me, four screws removed, the panel fell easily out of the wall. I really thought several coats of paints would keep that darn thing stuck to the wall forever…we’ll call this my lucky break!
Ryan cut the power and snipped the wires, setting Mr. Control Panel free from it’s 50 year home.
The next step was to tape and cap the wires after we pulled out the metal framing.
We (that’s the Ryan side of “we”) had to cut away a little drywall on the right side in order to pull out the metal brackets.
All said and done, this took about thirty minutes, not too shabby if you ask me. Of course that doesn’t include the clean up.
The next step is to get this sucker patched with a little drywall and mud. Maybe a project for Thanksgiving weekend. We also plan to take out the 2 separate outlets (to the right) and set them into the wall with one 4 prong unit. We will then tile a backsplash to match the existing backsplash on the opposite wall. This backsplash will wrap around to the new cabinet being built on the adjoining wall.
Originally we thought about tearing out the existing white backsplash (that I installed almost 6 years ago) and getting a matching 4″ “Azul Platino” granite backsplash. (Our decision on Azul Platino can be found here). I really like the look of the white tile and adding it to the 2 opposite walls really won’t take much time at all…decision made! Plus, it will save us a couple hundred buck-a-roos on the cost of the granite. Unfortunately, I can’t start on tiling until the NuTone patch is complete, the upper cabinet in built/installed, and the granite is in. So, needless to say the tile won’t come for about another 4 weeks after the granite arrives.
There you have it! We are very excited to take some time off from the kitchen and rest over the holiday with our family. Do you have big family plans for the holiday or are a type A personality planning to renovate through it?! Do you like the idea of continuing the white tile on the opposite wall? Can you envision our finished kitchen like we can??!!! Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels. I will be back on Monday!
Light it Up.
The area in the kitchen where we are building the extended counter was previously a banquette. There was a pendant light that hung over the table that obviously had to go. The before picture below was taken days after we bought the house…before I re-upholstered those awful benches (and then 4 years later Ninka tore it to shreds).
The electrical box in the ceiling was centered over the table so we assumed we needed to move it a few inches back so the new upper cabinets (which aren’t there yet) would have some clearance. At first we thought about installing a can light. We didn’t want anything hanging below the ceiling that a cabinet could possibly get caught on.
After triple measuring, I realized if we didn’t move the electrical box we would still have about 2″ clearance between the light and future cabinet doors…can I say, YEAH?! We hit up a local flea market (that sells displays models), Lowes, and Home Depot in search of track light to match the existing one we replaced about 4 years ago. No such luck. Although we did find something very similar at Lowes. The existing unit is one complete bar with 4 lights whereas the new model (which had the same light shades) was divided in two separate bars. It was a very subtle difference. We decided for $48 it was a go! Ryan got out the step ladder when we got home yesterday and in about 10 minutes he had that darn thing up and running! I love my husband!
It’s amazing how much more light we have in the kitchen just with that second light. I can’t believe we didn’t do this about a month ago. And to think it only took $48 bucks and 10 minutes. Here is a view with both (almost) identical lights. You can’t see me, but I am doing the Happy (I love light) Dance right now!!
Even Tuli (who wanted to be in the picture above) loves the brightness. I never realized how much light we were missing. It’s amazing how much better I could see the meat browning and shirataki noodles par-boiling last night…haha!
p.s. if you haven’t tried shirataki noodles, you are missing out on some awesome 20 calorie faux pasta!
More small kitchen projects are being completed as we speak. I will keep you updated tomorrow on the progress!
Progress in the Kitchen!
This weekend was dedicated to the kitchen renovation (more on that here, here, and here). The next step is creating the base cabinet for the wrap around counter. Ryan and his dad spent the majority of Saturday morning making sawdust in the shop. I ran errands, so unfortunately I wasn’t there to document the making of the unit, but it turned out great!
Here is the finished shell:
This may seem like small potatoes, but we are totally thrilled this project is starting to take shape! To get the feel of how the counter will flow we placed some cardboard pieces on top…
There will fascia that covers the entire front. This will make this unit (and faux bottom) feel like once cohesive piece. Before we can start on that part I had to break out some wood putty and get the screw holes covered.
After a few light coats, it sanded down nicely for a smooth finish. That’s ready for some primer and white paint to match our existing white cabinets.
There was 16 holes that needed this love. Let’s just say, ugh. You may be wondering how we are going to finish the counter tops….well, that was a several day shopping experience in itself! Since we are putting so much work into the kitchen we knew we wanted to replace all the counter tops rather than matching the (not-so awful) laminate. At the Lowes, we found solid surface tops that were acrylic and cheap. It was just not us. We decided we liked the Corian surfaces at Home Depot. But then the kitchen designer suggested some granite….she was able to put us in granite for just a little more bucks per square foot. So you guessed it, we went with granite.
The winner???
It’s called “Azul Platino”. It’s a light grey with black, white, cream, and flecks of silver. It matches the grey walls perfectly and compliments the white cabinets and brushed nickle pulls perfectly!
We are very excited about the decision. I think the beautiful granite will flow nicely with the rest of the granite that we have in all the baths throughout the house. So there you have it. Our progress in moving along. I can’t wait to get the guys in here to template the tops. It should take about 4 weeks or so to get it all in…boo! In the mean time we have lots more to get finished before they arrive!
Happy Monday!
Moving on Up
The color of our kitchen is Benjamin Moore’s Wickham Grey. It is color matched to Olympic no VOC paint. This paint is environmentally preferred because it’s no VOC (the chemical that causes paint odor). So if you have kids in the house, animals, or just don’t care for that awful paint smell this paint is definitely the way to go!
Last time I posted about the kitchen project (here) we were in the process of moving an electrical outlet. Because our kitchen counter top will sit 34″ the existing wall outlet needed to be moved on up. Ryan did so by cutting through the drywall to move the wires and box. In the past few days I have been mudding and sanding the wall.
After three light coats of mud (and sanding between) we end up with this:
Next step was to prime and paint (cleaning rollers is the worst, isn’t it?).
As I mentioned earlier, the paint color is Wickham Grey. I mark all my cans of paint with the color brand (“BMoore” stands for Benjamin Moore) and where I painted the color. If you like color like we do, and you paint often, this is a very useful tool for when you need to touch-up. As you can see from this can, I also painted Wickham Grey in the basement bath.
With the Kiltz primer applied, the hole is virtually invisible.
Once the primer dried, it was time to (finally) paint! If you know me at all, painting is my favorite pastime. I haven’t figured out why I like to paint so much but I think it has something to do with instant change. I love change. I also like moving objects and furniture from room to room every now and then just to mix it up. The paint turned out seamless, but would you really expect anything else from Mrs. Bauer? haha! You would never even know there use to be a crazy hole there and now we will be able to use this outlet for a crockpot, etc.. on the new counter.
I am very happy how this easy, but time consuming project turned out. Now that this small obstacle is out of our way we are ready to resume building the custom base. Unfortunately the Kentucky basketball game is not being televised in our market this weekend, but that means we will have lots of uninterrupted time to continue this project. I will keep you updated on Monday with our progress.
Happy Friday!
DIY Chevron Art
It’s no secret that I LOVE chevron (that contemporary zig zag pattern). It was only time that I created my own artwork applying this pattern to a canvas. My supplies included a 24×36 artist canvas, paint, and frog tape. The canvas was marked $44.99 at Michaels but I used a 40% off coupon. The frog tape and paint I already owned, so the cost of this project=FREE!
I took a zig zag pattern, printed it out and went over it with my frog tape. I then cut it out to use as a template for each line. After a bunch of measuring I came up with a spacing.
I then traced the pattern at the spacing intervals that I measured and marked.
After all the tracing was finished I ended up with a canvas that looks like this:
I carefully cut the frog tape to fit in each line. This process was very tedious, but luckily I had my Kentucky Wildcats on TV to keep me company during the one hour taping process. (and they won the game against Kansas…woot, woot!)
After it was all taped the canvas looked like this. Next step was to get out the paint and cover the lady!
The acrylic paint I used was Artist Loft brand in Phthalo Green.
I planned to put a second coat of paint on the canvas when I got home from work, but decided I liked the look of the brush strokes against the clean white chevron stripes. I carefully tore away a few tape pieces just to make sure…you guessed it, I likey!
The home for this canvas is on the main focal-wall in the basement. It’s a really long wall with a picture frame montage above the sofa. Yes, that’s our keg-o-rator to the left of the sofa. It hasn’t had a keg in it for a few a months. We took it apart to clean the lines and we (that’s the Ryan part of ‘we’) haven’t put it back together yet. The black and whites are pictures of the pups, a rafting trip, and the recent photo shoot we had with Mandi White.
Here is the after…I think I need to move the canvas a bit to the right and down slightly to line up with the bottom row of frames. I was just so excited to hang the darn thing I didn’t even measure anything out (dumb, i know). A short and sweet weekend project.
Overall, I am very pleased with how the chevron art project turned out. I am especially glad I did not put that second coat of paint on the canvas. I really like the texture the brush strokes add to the well defined white zig zags!
What do you think? Should I move this pieces to the right about 4-6 inches? The keg-o-rator is moving to a new home so it doesn’t necessarily have to be centered over the unit. Do you like the texture of the brush strokes? Do you love chevron as much as I do? Have you painted anything chevron lately?
p.s. If you are wondering about the kitchen project, we are still in the process of mudding and sanding the drywall from the outlet move. We are on coat #3. Hope to have that primed and painted by Friday so we can start on building the base cabinet…first things first!
Framed.
The cabinet and counter extension in the kitchen obviously needed a detailed plan. Ryan took his measurements and we have ended up with a base cabinet that will (hopefully) look like this.
Because our garage is in the basement and our kitchen is the floor above, Ryan decided it would be much easier to create a make-shift work shop on our front porch. This actually works out really well for many of our projects except for the days when it’s snowing…buuurrr!
After some sawing and hammering we have a frame for the custom-faux base cabinet!
On that back wall there is an outlet which of course had to be moved since the counter top will sit at 34″ to match the existing counter on the adjacent wall. Ryan got out the saw and shimmied his way up the drywall with the wiring and box to get that sucker up a few inches to sit above the new counter top.
Of course this ever so slight move requires some patching…ugh. We got out the mesh taping and some mud and started this 3-4 coat process. I’m usually the drywall mudder and sander since I’m a perfectionist….which is why I say, ugh! Here is coat #1 that Ryan so graciously started for me.
It wouldn’t be a Bauer project without a casualty (just like the fan globe on the front porch ceiling painting mentioned here). The adjacent wall to this part of the kitchen happens to be our home office. On that wall in the office sits shelving with some diplomas, nick-knacks, and sentimental items. When Ryan was banging his hammer we heard a crash. We inspected and found our little flying pig (a memento from our wedding) went crashing to the floor….poor piggy, rest in peace. I loved that thing 😦
And that’s a start! We are hoping to get Ryan’s dad over this weekend to start building the base cabinet. Off to look at some counter top options this evening. We will keep you posted on the progess!
Kitchen Aid (the renvo that keeps going and going…)
We knew when we bought our home the kitchen was going to need some a lot of work. Our home was built in 1964 and the last time the kitchen saw any love was probably around the ’90’s when the laminate floor and appliances were replaced. We considered this a wonderful blank slate for the future!
First things first. Immediately I enlisted my mothers help to paint the cabinets on day #5 of owning the crib. This painting project started before we moved in (thank goodness). It required oil primer and a lot of sanding and patience. I set up the living room as my painting area with the help of plastic drop sheets.
A little priming and I was ready to go!
We decided not to paint the inside of the cabinets, just gave them a good cleaning.
Of course after we finished painting the cabinets and replacing the hardware, the backsplash was the next to go up. This was my “practice” job before the bathroom renvo that I posted about here.
After reupholstering the banquette seating, painting the walls a light grey, adding new lighting, and replacing the floor, my kitchen looked like this as of Sunday afternoon.
The banquette area below has always been a useless area for us. We always eat in the dining room. In the past 5 years we had major plans for turning this area into extended cabinetry and a wrap-around counter. Because our littlest pup Ninka lives in this area when we are gone (we still can’t trust her in the house) it has received some rough wear-and-tear, hence the torn upholstery on the bench (major boo!) Ninka just hasn’t learned.
Since the seating is obviously ruined (yes, i know it would be easily reupholstered) we decided to move forward with the transformation of the banquette into badly needed cabinetry and counter space. The way the seat was designed is actually quite genius. The stairs to the basement are below this area so there is a strange angle that we will have to custom build to fit the space.
The first step is to build a frame for the new cabinetry. The bottom part will be two faux cabinets. The section between the counter and faux cabinets will be a odd sized custom built cabinet. Lucky for us, Ryan’s dad has a wood working hobby (that I mentioned here) . We are enlisting him to help build this odd base cabinet.
So why do we need to eliminate this breakfast nook and add storage and counter tops??? Well, lets just take a look at the inside of my one-and-only food storage pantry. I can’t believe I am revealing this mess to you all….
My dishes are housed across the way. That cabinet also holds pasta. Because all normal people keep their pasta and taco seasoning with their dishes…
And the spice cabinet above the stove, well, that is just embarrassing!
Worst of all is the mess above our fridge. Since I am type A, always wanting control and order (mentioned here), this makes me twitch ever time I look up. It has to go………
So needless to say, we are very excited about this whole kitchen reno. It’s been a long time coming. Stay tuned for our progress!
Dancing…I Mean Painting…on the Ceiling
Lionel Richie had me groovin’ this weekend. After 6 months and 4 painters that never showed, I started exterior painting myself. Why are painters, contractors, handymen, etc… so hard to get to show up??! Makes me livid. Painter #4 promised to show “tomorrow” for the past 5 weeks. He told me to buy a $100, 5 gallon bucket of paint (which I opened to paint some windows) and still hasn’t showed up. I just want to scream!! Saturday was a beautiful 70 degree day so I pulled out my $100 bucket of paint and decided the paint the four pillars on my front porch.
I scraped and primed the pillars before the painter was “suppose” to start. Now that winter is fast approaching I felt it necessary to get a coat of paint on the girls before it starts snowing. What turned out to be a pillar paint job turned into so much more, hence my Lionel Richie-themed title.
Hiding behind that bush on the right is a little ceramic yard ornament….you guessed it, a pug…haha!! It was an anniversary gift from the in-laws. Pugsy, as I refer to her, fits well into the shrubbery. She protects against those flower eating deer. Yeah, I wish.
So once the pillar painting started, that led to the underside of the trim getting painted. Once the under part of the trim was painted, the inside trim needed to be painted. Once the inside trim was painted, the ceiling needed painted. It was a vicious cycle. So yes, I ended up painting the ceiling of the front porch. I had been meaning to do that for the past few years. This obviously was the time to do it. It took a painstaking 4 hours, but well worth it in the end. I can’t help but to keep dancing looking up at the ceiling!
You may have noticed that there is no globe on the ceiling fan. Yep, you guessed it, a casualty in the process. The darn extension rod that connects to the roller had a slight encounter with a fan blade. The globe was completely knocked off and shatter everywhere mid-paint on the front porch. As Michelle says, “phish-posh”…until I went to the HD (Home Depot) to replace it and realized it was ten bucks (I figured $5)!! The kicker??? It didn’t even fit! Hopefully Lowes will have a better match….there is absolutely no way I can live without a globe on that thing.
Oh, I forgot to mention that A) because there is no globe and B) the light reflects off the newly painted ceiling…it is ridiculously bright out there at night. At least it will detour any thiefs if the alarm system suddenly stops working….brraaahaaahaaa!!!
Stayed tuned later this week…We have a huge ginormous project in the works!!!! I am bursting at the seams on this one (5 years on the ‘list’!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Oh, and in honor of some Lionel Richie….Let’s Dance on the Ceiling!
Happy Monday:)
On, On, U of K!
I know I usually only post once a day, but today is special. Its the official start of the 2011-2012 University of Kentucky basketball season!!! UK opens it’s season tonight at 7pm against Marist College. Lucky for Ryan and I the game is televised on our My Network TV, unfortunately it is tape delayed until 1130pm…BOO! So in the meantime we went to the storage shed and recovered our coveted UK flag. We grabbed the step ladder and prepared to hang it out front for basketball season. Usually I’m not a ‘flag’ person, but when it comes to UK basketball I can’t help but to display my undying affection 🙂
Ryan unrolls the flag in preparation to hang.
She’s a beaut! It’s been since March since we’ve seen each other, but she looks just as good as I remembered…haha!!
This is the start of something special. #2 UK, who has the #1 recruiting class in the NCAA, along with Coach Cal, is ready to take on the season! With the NBA lock-out still in progess the UK boys have had some AWESOME pick-up games on campus. Among the NBA’ers on campus to hoop it up over the summer: Rajon Rondo, Eric Bledsoe, DeMarcus Cousins, Nazr Mohammed, and LeBron James. We only wished that we could have witnessed one of the games. Needless to say, the presence of NBA stars in Lexington should have offered a valuable experience to our current Cats! C-A-T-S…CATS, CATS, CATS!!! here’s wishing my boys luck for the 2011-2012 basketball season!!!
Summer Pick Up Games…..and to think I lived across the street from this court 11 years ago…did I just say ELEVEN?!!! wow…time flies.
BLEED BLUE!
(I’ve got) Personality.
| My Physical Therapist (I’m working out a back problem) referred to me as “Type A” the other day and I was appalled! I went online (of course) to research Type A personality and took a quiz found here. Discovery Health website described Type A personality as: |
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“According to the scientific literature, the Type A Personality construct describes someone who is aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time. The defining characteristics of the Type A Behavior Pattern (TABP) are a strong drive to succeed, hostility, competitiveness, perfectionism, a desire for recognition, wealth and advancement, difficulty talking about feelings, and a sense of urgency and impatience. More up-to-date research has found that there are actually two main types of behaviors in the TABP: Achievement Striving and Impatience-Irritability.” |
I took the short quiz, knowing each question that I answered I was failing. My results:
I’m definitely not dissatisfied with others or the world…maybe just the paint color I chose for the kitchen (wink wink). I know I can be intense, impulsive, and “go-go-go” all the time and I’m just gonna chalk this up to a serious obsession for DIY and design…braahaaahaaa!!! At least I didn’t score a perfect 100%.
I found these funny (and true) comics here and here. At least I can laugh about it!
Happy DIY’ing this weekend!
Buh-Bye Drabby Drapes!
Its taken almost a year of searching for the perfect drapes for my basement slider, but I finally found the solution this past weekend. I’ve ransacked Homegoods, Marshalls, and T.J. Maxx for the past year trying to find the perfect set of drapery panels for the basement. Because I’m thrifty and I know that these stores once had what I was looking for (at the price I wanted) I was very stubborn looking looking elsewhere. What I want: cream color, grommet, lined, 95″ panels. 95″ is actually too long, but 84′” is too short so I decided that I would just go with 95″ and give them a hem with the handy-dandy sewing machine. For the past 5 years Kentucky blue-ish tab-top panels have hung in the basement. I acquired these in college and they “worked” for the time being…
My mom suggested that I check JC Penny’s. To my surprise they actually have an awesome selection of window treatments. I found several panels I liked, but of course none of them were in stock. I am the “I want it now!” kind of girl and was unwilling to wait for shipping. After doing some math, and using a coupon, I settled on a really cool cream set with a herringbone pattern that had to be ordered. I bought them at the store on Sunday and Wednesday night they were on my doorstep…not to shabby JC Penny, I must say.
The panels are priced at $60 per panel, but because I’m so thrifty I got them on sale for $29.99 each. And you guessed it, I had a coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase. I asked the clerk if she could ring them up separately so I could use the coupon 4 times, but she totally surprised me and just price adjusted each panel to $19.99. Because it was all purchased together I spent enough to receive free shipping! JC Penny just moved up several spots up on my rank!
After unpacking it all I started to carefully hang them to make sure I really liked it…don’t worry, I had several photo-texts with my mom and my friend Krista to get second opinions on this one (unlike the console table I posted about here ).
After my consults I decided they were a go. Next on the list, breaking out the ironing board and pressing them. What a daunting task, and of course Modern Family was pre-empted by the CMA’s last night.
Finally (about 2 hours later) they were ironed and hung…and i really like them. you really can’t see the subtle pattern from these pictures, but they are perfect. I almost feel like they blend in too much with the walls so I’v been contemplating painting the walls grey with the left over gallon from the console project.
I still need to hem them. I just used some safety pins for now. I learned a really cool trick online about how to “train” your drapes by tying them together. I hope this works!
So what do you think, should i paint the walls grey since I already own the paint? Our office is a light grey with cream drapes and I love it. Do the drape panels blend into the walls too much? Also, the because of the bad lighting (I was just so excited to get my package in the mail I couldn’t wait to take pictures in the daylight) the colors are not true to life. But they are not that far off….let me know your thoughts.
Michelle
beforeandafterdiy.com 
