Phase II of the Kitchen - COMPLETE!!!

Coming back from summer "hiatus". . .

If you have been following my kitchen makeover journey, you may know that I wanted to convert my kitchen from it's previous adobe look, to a more rustic farm kitchen. Phase I started with a new color of paint for the walls. I started the cabinet makeover in Phase II, in April, when the weather was still a bit chilly and definitely dreary. Once summer hit I could not justify spending time indoors while the sun was shining. I resorted to projects that could be one outside. Don't worry, I had plenty to do. I improved my front garden, and put in some flowerbeds in the backyard, with assorted perennials. I also worked on some furniture as I have a covered porch, including some chairs and a hall tree.

Well the weather officially turned last weekend and I couldn't delay the kitchen any longer. I finished this up last  to Saturday and Sunday but had to wait for some drawer pulls that I ordered on Amazon.

Here is the final result:

The bottom cupboards went very quickly but that might be because at this point, I'm almost a master at this. Between the kitchen cabinets and assorted smaller projects I have been using a lot of chalk paint. I do have some tips that might be helpful:

1. There are many recommended ways to clean or prepare the surface before you paint kitchen cabinets. For kitchen cabinets specifically, there is the issue of grease and other substances that do make their way on to the surface. I recommend using a cleaner like 409. I just sprayed it on and then wiped off and let them thoroughly dry before continuing.

Even the cat's stool got refinished!

2. I had pulls on all my doors and drawers. I decided that for the doors, a know would do. I just used regular Spackle or patch to fill the extra holes. A light sand was important to blend textures. I didn't overdo it as the chalk paint hides minor imperfections.

3. Three coats of paint is much better than two for the doors and drawer faces. While two coats was plenty for the frames, I found that for a deep color the faces just needed more paint.

4. Don't be alarmed if the color seems "off" while you are painting. . . I found that Empress Silk looked significantly different between coats (think really kind of pink first coat) and the colors really evolved into the  multi-dimensional effect that chalk paint is known for.

5. Wax not only protects the surfaces (especially important in a kitchen) but really adds to the look of the cabinets. I used both dark and clear soft waxes, getting the dark wax in all the nooks and crannies to add depth.

6. Hardware was just as important as the change in color. I tried to use the old existing hardware for the drawers but it just didn't work. I found some really nice birdcage pulls on Amazon that weren't too pricey. The pulls oiled bronze finish complimented the glass knobs well. 

This kitchen is finally coming together with the completion of Phase II.

There is a "Phase III" but it will have to wait a little bit. . . Phase 3 is replacing the counter-tops and the sink and that involves a little bit more technical skill than I have, especially with the way the sink is placed within the intersection of two counter-tops. I was originally thinking that we would go with a wood counter like a butcher block but I think a white granite type material (I don't care if it's synthetic) with green and gray veins might be a nice touch. I'm contemplating a copper sink rather than the white enamel I have because it's very difficult to keep clean but I might be dreaming in both these cases. I would really like a sink with an apron but I don't think it can work with this space unless we go much smaller.
 

I really can see how far we've come when I look back at a picture from the previous owner's listing. I forgot how this place looked when it had white appliances. That was an easy way to update rather quickly as we already owned black and stainless steel appliances that we moved right in. We also replaced that metal vent under the kitchen cupboard to the right (on the floor) with a wooden version that we were able to also refinish with the chalk paint.

Accessories really became important too. I have moved vintage martini shakers and old milk bottles up into the open spaces above the cupboards. Gone are the wine bottles and decorative olive oil container that had colorful peppers and spices.

Since I have to wait for Phase III I"m going to move on to some other room's walls and perhaps update our trim throughout the house. I'm also contemplating a glass tile project for the staircase. 

Peacock Chair

I'm not exactly who you would describe as a spiritual person and most of the time I get through life with a sense of pragmatism. It's not often that furniture speaks to me. Yes, you heard me right, this chair spoke to me. Now before you suggest that I'm having delusions or that I must have imagined it, let me tell you just a little bit more about this chair.

First, I have to say I have a thing for old chairs. Our dining room is an assortment of chairs that have either been rescued from the curb on a trash day, or have been "discovered" at a garage sale. I won't pay more than about 10 bucks when I discover them, unless they have already been refinished or have a lot of potential (character). I honestly don't remember which kind of find this particular chair was, just that I know I obtained it last summer and it sat around for a while as I tried to figure out what to do with it.

What interested me about this particular chair were the lines of the chair back. I liked the little cut out and I thought it had a little bit of grace to it. I knew it wouldn't be one of my dining room chairs (assorted pastel spray painted varieties without any added adornment). I just knew this one was going to get a little extra treatment and attention to really emphasize those curves and lines.

I waited until a fall day and went outside with a can of red spray paint. Wait, this chair is purple, what happened? That's when it spoke to me. . . I was halfway through painting it red, when I very clearly heard "I want to be purple". Hmmm, this was strange, but I put that can of spray paint down and reassessed this chair. And then I saw it, the cut out in the center of the chair back. . . right above it. . . there were a pair of angel wings. This chair deserved to be purple and I envisioned right then a pair of angel wings made of peacock feathers.

It's not often I have an epiphany when I paint or visualize my next project. Art to me is more of an organic process where the thoughts or vision come to me over time, or often while I'm painting, it gradually appears. The last significant epiphany that was this memorable took place during my master's project, circa 1998, so we are talking about 17 years or so. Because they are so rare, I really think of these as something to cherish and appreciate.

While the epiphany came last fall, and I certainly listened by putting down that can of spray paint and going out to get a new can in purple, the actual process of painting this chair took a lot longer. I would paint a section and then let it sit for a while in plain sight while I contemplated what to do to it next. I have also been working on other projects over the course of the past few months (as well as working and being a Mom) and took many breaks from this chair. Obviously those peacock angel wings came first, and then the stages of the moon with the silhouette of an old tree. Later came the full peacock on the seat of the chair and then the abstract Buddha symbol in the cut out. I played around with decorative dots, doodles and stars throughout the process.

This chair may have started out with an epiphany but it took  a very long time and was not an easy project to complete. However, I am really happy with how it came out and I am very glad that I didn't rush the process. After all, if a chair takes the time to speak to you, you should take the time to listen. . .

Home: Kitchen Makeover Phase 2

Rustic Farm Kitchen

Phase 2 - Cabinets

 

As we progress into Phase II of this home project, I'm rethinking my label of "Rustic Farm Kitchen". Those chickens are not going anywhere but maybe it's not the defining component of what we are going to achieve here. As I look at my cabinets they may be a nod to a barn red color but the color is Emperor's Silk and really is a little brighter. I'm thinking we are going to now call this "Vintage Kitchen" or just call it "My Kitchen". My Kitchen works for me because really this is going to be more about me, and what I like, than any genre. In most situations, I don't have a label or a time period for what I do in this house. I just do what I like. Color makes me happy, repurposing makes me feel that I am at least trying to be green, and I get a kick out of old stuff.

If you are reading this for the first time and have not been following my adventure you may want to go back to Phase 1 which was all about wall color. This post today is dedicated to cabinets. Cabinets are a bitch. Yes, I'm saying bitch because they truly are. As I write this I have exactly one set of overhead cabinets done but I'm so proud of them I'm not waiting until this whole Phase is complete. Rather, my plan is to update this once they are all done. I estimate that will be at least a month. Why? I told you, cabinets are a bitch.

Now as I say that I should mention that I know I could have had it much worse. The original plan to paint over the wood was nixed after I found out most of our research demonstrated best practices that included TSP to clean them, sanding them, priming them one way, sanding them again, priming them again, sanding a final time, and then painting. Then there was talk about using saw horses to keep the doors level. It was funny, even with all these steps, the article at This Old House (which is very informative) describes this as a weekend project. I'm not convinced that it can ever be a weekend project because my first set of overhead cabinets took me more than one weekend.

After nixing the original describe plan of action above, I was going to give up but we thought about perhaps spraying the cabinets instead. In asking around on social media to see if we could borrow a sprayer, I found out from a friend about chalk paint. If you are like me, I pictured that paint you use to make a chalk board. That isn't what this is. Chalk paint is a specially formulated paint that you can use in different applications and has a chalky finish. You can then wax it to protect it for applications such as - wait for it - kitchen cabinets.

The advantage to chalk paint is that there is no preparation involved, so those cabinets that I am describing as a bitch are really not as bad as they could be. Half empty vs half full. . . I cleaned them with 409 as opposed to TSP because the idea of harsher chemicals and trying to protect the rest of my kitchen was overwhelming. I did not have to prime. Prepping was limited to filling some preexisting holes for the original hardware and sanding those small spots. The rest was really two coats of paint (some areas did get closer to three) and then two coats of clear wax with some dark wax for distressing. This still took a full weekend and some hours over the course of this past week. I write this as I am starting our second set of overhead cabinets.

Rather than complain though I'm going to rejoice. I love how these look! Technically this is not a Before and After Shot because these are two different sets of cabinets in our kitchen but it's good for a comparison.

I made the choice to not paint the inside of the cabinets. Instead we taped off the cabinets with frog tape and did the outer surfaces of the boxes once we removed the doors. Of course the green paint is not the best look and it's hard to see what the finished project was going to look like but this is the cabinet boxes before waxing, with two coats of Annie Sloan chalk paint.

Looking at this photo I realize that the macro lens was not really ideal as I took this photo from
below. I am sorry for the skewed image but you can get the idea. I also happened to notice that I'm in that reflection of the microwave and I apologize for that too. Really, after painting a kitchen I don't really look my best. 

Back to the paint. There are apparently a lot of versions of chalk paint on the market. Michael's sells their version, along with the accessories but I made a decision for this project to use the one with the reputation behind the name. I know that there are recipes to make your own by adding plaster to latex paint but when doing so many areas of a kitchen I would be concerned about matching it up every batch. Annie Sloan chalk paint is water based, with pigments. It goes on matte, with a chalky finish. There are different ways to apply it but for the look we were trying to achieve (rustic, vintage, distressed. . . ) I put this on with a soft bristle brush and rather than going in one direction we purposefully applied in different directions for texture and cross hatching. Texture is key later for waxing. Brushing took a little longer than perhaps rolling but rolling wouldn't work for this particular task or look.

Waxing is a little bit time intensive and I wanted three coats in areas that would be touched a lot, mostly the doors. I skimped with two layers of wax on the top of our cabinets. Here is a good look at the difference between the door coated with clear wax, and then the addition of the dark wax on the door on the left. After putting a layer of clear soft wax down, I pushed the dark brown wax into areas with grooves, and then wiped back until I achieved the amount I wanted. I didn't want to overdo these cabinets that they looked dingy but I did want a distressed look and to tone down the red a touch so it wasn't too bright and stark, or too modern.

None of these materials - the paint or the waxes - is exactly cheap but I think that if you are going to make a commitment to redecorate a kitchen the paint is a lot cheaper than resurfacing cabinets or replacing them. The sweat equity of priming and sanding also factored into my decision to use the better paint. I think it was a wise investment.

In speaking about investments, there was also the expense of changing out the knobs. As you can see the original hardware was sleek and modern which really wasn't going to work with our new palette or style. We chose knobs for the top cabinets rather than pulls. I actually located these knobs that have a vintage feel from Cost Plus World Market.  They have plenty of variety to choose from and they are relatively inexpensive compared to other vendors. These ran us about 4.00 each. We still will have to decide what to do with the lower cabinets as I'm going to want pulls. I was originally thinking a matte black but I think with this knob, we can go with an antique metal such as bronze if it has enough of a patina in the finish.

As I mentioned before I have one set of overhead cabinets done. I have the second overheads washed and I'm almost through taping them. The doors have already received patch for pre-existing drill holes and painting for all the surfaces begins tomorrow. I am hoping to get the majority of that work done this weekend.

Stay tuned. I will add photos once this phase is complete!

 

 

DIY: Tiki Torches

Custom Made Tiki Torches

Repurposed Liquor Bottles with Plumbing Supplies

 

We thought we were really smart when we splurged for the extra-large Tiki torches at Target. We bought the Island Kings and they were not cheap, and we needed at least seven of them for strategic placement around our deck.

Yes, they looked nice that first summer and we were completely enamored with anything that we could come up with that made our deck a nightime oasis. But over time, the honeymoon period ends and you realize you have a problem.

Tiki Island Torches  Purchase

There are many problems with them. . . things you figure out after you make your first purchase and realize how you could do things differently:

1. It doesn't matter if you buy the special stakes to keep these secure when you have sandy ground under your lawn. These poles are never straight, especially over time.

2. Having a large reservoir is fine and dandy but if you can't tell when it's empty, or that you have overfilled it, it's really a pain. Overfilling leads to ridiculous flares and sizzling that is scary around a wooden deck (as well as plant life, bird feeders, kids, etc.).

3. Metal containers rust.

I could go on. I really did like them when we bought them but we knew we needed something different. Our first prototype was completed today and it's been a work in progress. For right now I just have a couple of snapshots but I plan on really zooming in and providing some more pictures as we continue in our quest to make ten of these and get into the details of this project. 
While I will continue to update this in the next few weeks let’s start today with some of the basics.

Vessels:

I like using that word every once in a while but I guess “container” would do. We really thought long and hard about the bottles we were going to use. The original plan was to use wine bottles but we realized that we would either have to put a layer of shellac on top of the labels or come to terms that once the labels came off (rain and sun would be hard on them) that the bottles themselves wouldn’t be all that unusual. A wine bottle is a wine bottle after the label is gone.

We decided for liquor bottles instead. The thought was that some of the markings are etched on the bottle and the shapes of each kind of liquor  would make them all a little bit different beyond just the color of the glass. Before you go and comment that I must have a problem with having all of these at my disposal, I must tell you I have a friend who waits tables at a local comedy club and was kind enough to get me these. I didn’t drink all this liquor to start this quest!

Mechanics/Engineering:

I live with MacGyver. I don’t know exactly how he figured this out but we used different plumbing supplies to create the attachments and posts. We have a piece of ¾ PVC pipe (about 1.5 feet deep in the ground, that was then surrounded by concrete. I don’t want to have wavy poles every again! We even used a post level when we drove them into the ground. To make this easier, we sliced a 45 degree angle on the bottom to drive this in easier with a mallet.

To this base, we added a PVC female adaptor to “receive” the copper poles we made out of copper ¾ inch pipe.

PVC 3/4 inch female adapter

The bottom of the copper pipe has a copper ¾ inch male adapter to fit into the PVC.

3/4 inch male adapter

On the top of this copper pipe is another ¾ inch male adapter that screws into a floor flange that is attached to the bottom of each bottle with silicone glue.

Floor Flange

Pebbles:

We used glass pebbles inside each bottle purchasing them from Michael’s with a weekly coupon deal (30% off all regular prices merchandise this week!). We had a more limited selection due to the size of the neck of each bottle but were able to purchase some peach, clear and silver pebbles. The glass pebbles were important to fill the bottom of each bottle so that the torch fuel isn’t at the bottom where the wick can’t reach.

What’s nice about these bottles is we can see when we fill them and know ahead of time when we need to refuel.

Wicks:

We bought wicks for the Tiki torches at Lowe’s in two packs. These are “Long Life Fiberglass” wicks that should last a long time. To fasten the wicks into the bottles we placed through a copper ½ inch to 3/8 inch reducing coupling. This allows the wick to be pulled out through the coupling, and the whole piece sits on top of the bottle opening. We did put a couple of layers of Teflon tape around the bottom section of the coupling to make it more snug as this will prevent water from getting in when it rains. We also added a ¾ inch copper end cap to fit on top of the wick when not in use, again for protection against the rain. We will have to figure out how to leave these somehow attached to the bottle.

Home: Kitchen Makeover Phase 1

Rustic Farm Kitchen 

Phase 1 - Wall Color

For years, I have had a Mexican cantina theme in my kitchen. Think adobe colored walls, fun and festive chilies, and a good dose of kitsch. Many of our kitchen elements came from our former home and because it still worked (largely because the walls of the new kitchen were a similar color) we continued the decor. I am a firm believer that there are some advantages in delaying painting until after you have moved into a new house because it takes a while to see what you may want to do. I know that if I had painted before we moved our own belongings in here, and made it our home, I would have regretted it. Blank canvasses don't speak to me and it wouldn't have had our personal touch until our objects made the move.



Now its two years later and I'm ready to tackle this kitchen. Say goodbye to hanging chili peppers and old bottles of decorative cooking oils. I want a completely new look. Inspiration? Sometimes Pinterest, combined with Facebook, provides that first spark. I recently came across this pin on a friend's Facebook page and it just resonated. Who knew I wanted a country kitchen? Really, I have decided I prefer "Rustic Farmhouse Kitchen" but there are a lot of the same elements.

My favorite boots.

If you knew me, you might be shocked that I want this kitchen. I'm not country in any way unless you count my love for overly decorated cowboy boots like these. It's funny but somehow, along the way, we have managed to collect a few chicken related items that have ended up in our kitchen, along with an old depression style glass butter dish with a cow. How did this happen? I'm not really sure but as I looked around my "before" kitchen I did notice that a lot of farm elements had crept in over the last two years. We have more than one vintage scale in our house, doubling as candelabras, as well as a metal basket that alternately holds bread and root vegetables, so I decided to embrace it. It is kind of ironic but when I saw the original posting of our house when it was listed, there was a huge rooster in the dead space behind the kitchen sink that I sort of made fun of. Now, since I'm embracing this whole new look, I have bought my own rooster to go in that same spot. Mine's cooler by the way, he even has red Christmas lights in him so he glows. Incidentally, because I have been toying around with this for a while, we have begun adding red accents in the kitchen already. . .

Now this kitchen makeover is going to be a big project with at least two more phases. The largest and scariest part of this is going to be painting the kitchen cabinets. This really is the catalyst to all of this. These cabinets are completely serviceable and overwhelmingly boring. My plan is to paint them much like the original pin, so that they are a dark bright red. I am unsure how those in the picture were painted but I know that I'm going to use chalk paint and it's going to be an adventure. One other funny thing to note, I was going to go out and get the magazine issue that was referred to in this pin but realized later that this was a magazine issue from 2010! It is not likely that I could find it. . .

Because we know we are going to be using chalk paint I decided to really strategize how to take on this project and I decided the walls would be our first step. That might seem counterintuitive but I thought the walls were equally important and I didn't want to put painter's tape on those cabinets once they are completed to mask them for the walls. Because of this I painted the walls first and will wait at least a month for them to completely cure before I tackle those cabinets.

As you can see from my "Before" and "Phase 1" photos, I decided to go for a bright color called "Pageant Green" by Behr in their Marquee line. I was going for a Robin's Egg Blue and this color really did it for me. I actually had painted the inner panel of a cupboard to test out chalk paint colors and took that with me when I went to look at paint swatches. Of course you won't be able to see my vision with the red cabinets until it's completely done (next phase) but you will have to trust me on this.

Now you may wonder why I didn't go with a buttery yellow wall with these planned red cupboards. . . After all that kitchen in the pin was pretty nice and those colors did look good together. Two reasons: 1. I just can't copy someone else's kitchen even if we have a lot of similarities. I couldn't do it. 2. My daughter commented that red with creamy yellow looked like McDonald's. While I don't think that is quite the McDonald's decor, I couldn't get that out of my mind.

I did want to add that the Behr Marquee paint was worth the extra money for this project. One coat of paint covered those adobe walls. I was able to do this whole kitchen with less than one gallon of paint because it had such good coverage. I chose an eggshell finish as a gloss would look a little out of place with the chalk paint shabby chic cupboards we have planned. I honestly think we spent more money on frog tape than we did on the paint (3 rolls!).

I do think that the kitchen looks better already. I like color and there's a little more of it without having adobe walls with wood cupboards.  Cupboards are definitely next and we have done a lot of research that I will share in our next post about this project. Stay tuned for Phase II that should be sometime this spring. It's going to involve a lot of chalk paint, tape and brushing!