Kitchen Make-Over: Part 5

*Today, I'm excited to to tell you that Phase 1 of our kitchen remodel is complete!  I'm letting Mr. Chadwick tell his side of the story today, so I hope you welcome my first "guest blogger."  Don't hesitate to leave him comments at the end of the post.  I'll make sure he gets to read them.*

Chop block countertop...say THAT 4 times fast. Fun, eh? I built my sweet wife a walnut chop block to sit atop the replaced cabinet that you might have read about in previous posts on our kitchen adventures... Well, the woodworking bug has hit me. Hard. I enjoy it a lot, and my favorite part is when I get to use the router!! Here's my story:

One day in a land far away...wait. Sorry. Not a bedtime story for my 2 year old.

The short of it is that we were experiencing some trouble with the drop-in range that came with the house we bought, and a wonderful couple graciously GAVE us a free standing range. Cool beans! After many thanks to them and some help from some friends, we discovered that the new range was a bit too wide...so, out with an end cabinet, which didn't survive, and in with a pre-built, no-top-attached cabinet from Lowes. At this point, the only power tools I had handy for a countertop project were a circular saw and a jig saw. Not bad, but not great either. Earlier I mentioned, "my sweet wife," and here's just how sweet she is: She told me to "have at it" with this countertop.  ...  excuse me? did I hear you correctly?? Should someone pinch me? Maybe Shakespeare had it correct after all: "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream," because I just might be dreaming here. Well, I thought back to my days in shop class in 9th grade, and I remembered that Walnut is absolutely gorgeous wood, along with Oak and Poplar, so I took to the drawing board and designed a striped, mixed wood chop block. The image in my head was stunning... my wallet reality was not so stunning. So I scaled back my design to only one species of wood - Walnut - and it was probably for the wiser, as this was my first detailed home improvement project. The hardest part was finding the Walnut. I called 3 places before I was given the name of a local, small-scale sawmill, Butler Adams Lumber, who told me he had what I was diligently seeking. I loaded up Little Man, and headed out of town. It was a gorgeous 25 minute drive to the most agrarian part of the county, and the store room of lumber was just as nice. I picked up 11 board feet of a well-sawn piece of Walnut, had him chop it in half so it would fit in my Durango, and left the sawmill awestruck that trees I see everyday could look and smell THAT wonderfully... I remembered that it had been quite some time since I had experienced lumber that made me happy. A Porter Cable palm sander, Porter Cable orbital sander, a Porter Cable router, and some chop block oil later we had ourselves a nice countertop. (I'm fast approaching poster child status for Porter Cable) Here's what I learned:

1. Plan everything. On-hand materials, needed materials, budget, and look for ways to cut cost and keep quality.

2. Enjoy what you're building. It's going to be an arduous chore if you do not.

3. Practice your cuts. Our chop block has a nice characteristic gash in the back because I decided it wasn't hard to make a bevel cut with a jigsaw on a piece of hardwood...hence the reason I now have a router, which corrected most of my mistake. (Upon purchasing my new favorite tool, my ever-wonderful wife looked at me and said, "Happy Father's Day, Birthday, and Merry Christmas!") It actually wasn't too expensive, AND I got it on sale! :)

That's basically it. Enjoy the pictures!

*Again, a big thanks to my sweet darlin' for all of his hard work on this gorgeous counter top and for taking the time to share his story here with all seven of you.  Phase 2 of our kitchen remodel will start with painting the walls (whenever I can bring myself to do more painting...*

What Matthew Wouldn't Do: 2

When you pull up carpet that's not original to your house, expect to have some extra work to do.  Like installing quarter round and painting the baseboards.  We here at Lankford are hosting Thanksgiving this year, and, as such, our quarter round budget has been redirected to turkey and all of the yumminess that goes along with it and makes the holiday what it is.  However, I couldn't bring myself to host Thanksgiving for 12 people with my base boards looking like this:

Grungy nastiness.  So at (see below time) last night, I decided to tackle this project.

Maybe my next post should be titled, "Love note to a Wooster Brush."  I mean, really, this thing is the bomb-diggity.  Notice my damp rag for mess clean-up.  That's right.  I painted right next to my newly uncovered wooden floors without a paint guide.  Note to reader:  Matthew is ridiculously, hopelessly, meticulously obsessive neat.  I did, however, put a plastic bag under my paint can.

I painted in my pajamas.

Let us now take a look at What Matthew Wouldn't Do:


WMW{n't}D:  Wait until 10:39 p.m. to paint baseboards.  

WMW{n't}D:  Paint baseboards.  Love you dearly, Matthew, but we both know this is true.


WMW{n't}D:  Live in a house with grungy baseboards.  Karen is much more thorough than that.   And by thorough, clearly I mean "she would have thought through this process better than I did."


WMW{n't}D:  Post photos of himself doing a project he wouldn't do.  


WMW{n't}D:  Post photos of himself in pajamas.  


WMW{n't}D:  Fall in love with a paint brush.


WMW{n't}D:  Use a paint brush.


WMW{n't}D:  Paint without tape or a guide.


WMW{n't}D:  Paint. (Are you seeing a theme here?)


WMW{n't}D:  Leave small traces of paint on the floor even though they will be covered later.


WMW{n't}D:  Take photos of a coffee maker so he'd know what time it was.  


WMW{n't}D:  Take photos of a coffee maker (unless, of course, he had just made some really awesome coffee that spewed forth peace, happiness, and rainbows).

At 11:36 I found myself done with the first touch-up coat and ready for bed.  I also found myself host to way-faring company (read: my in-laws) who found it very funny that I was in the floor painting at 11:30 at night.

Much better, yes?  Now all that's left to do is the second coat and then feel free to bring on the turkey.

The Great Room Floor: Phases 2 and 3

That's right, Phases 2 and 3!  We got up early and got to work.  Blair did a great job pulling out and cutting the carpet for Phase 2.  This really is not an easy job.  The carpet is heavy, and wrangling it out of the house is not just a jar of jellybeans.

Phase 2 finished, the floor vacuumed, and all the furniture put back in place.

Little Man inspects our work.

Here's what's left.  Hello, Phase 3.

Moving the Phase 3 furniture.

The only glitch we found in the room was this spot of slightly uneven, lighter wood.  We noticed when we moved into the house that there was a "patch" on the wall that had been well done, but was still obviously a patch.  I always assumed it was an old air register.  No.  The original house had a bar here that was varnished around.  The 1963 owner probably had some storage there and served her food from it.  I'm not really sure what to do with that spot.  Awkwardly placed chair?  Try to match the finish?

All done!  Everything back in it's place!  No more carpet, no more tack!  We still need to install quarter-round in all of the rooms (except our bedroom) and paint the baseboards.  That will have to come later.  So will a better picture of the finished product.

My hands are rather shaky after the day of work.  

The Great Room Floor: Phase 1

With Blair on Fall Break this week there exists the possibility of getting much accomplished.  After completing several small (but important) tasks this morning, we began Phase 1 of the great room floor redo after lunch.  The great room is just that - a very large large room.  It is made up of the (rarely used) living room and the dining room.  After the disappointment of the office floor, I was slightly nervous about tearing up this carpet.  Upward and onward though, right?  On to bigger and better things, right.  Right.  Due to the fact that there is soooooo muuuuuch carpet in that large room and the fact that carpet tack is difficult to get up and can take foooreeeeverrrr (Sandlot, anyone?), I thought it would be best to divide it into thirds, remove one section of carpet at a time and all of the staples and tack that accompany it.  That way a certain Little Man would be less likely to get into the trouble he's been looking for all day.  Let's face it, he's a small-Blair-child and as such, is always looking for trouble.

And now, what you've all been waiting for!  The before and mid-way pictures!

 No, I have not already decorated for Christmas.  This is from last year.  However, I have been listening to Christmas music all week....

Pre-vacuum

The edge of Phase 1

Tomorrow, we begin Phase 2 and hopefully Phase 3, getting the entire room done.  Can't wait!!

The Office

No, not the TV show.  The one here in our house.  The one with major storage issues.  And ugly carpet.  Well, used to have storage issues and ugly carpet. Shall we revisit?

 Blair and I spent Saturday (our 6th wedding anniversary) revamping it. Blair started Friday night by pulling the carpet up.  It was dark when he did this, but we could see that the floor in this room was NOT in the same beautiful condition as what was in the rest of the house.

Saturday morning he was nice enough to take it out of the house for me so I would have the floor free and clear for staple pulling and the removal of the carpet tack.  With the carpet out and the sun shining, we realized just how bad the floor did look.  Apparently, that room was originally carpeted where the other two bedrooms hadn't been, and at some point one of the previous owners of the house had it shampooed.  This left water stains all over the wood.  At this point, however, it was too late to turn back, so onward I pressed.  Now, for those of you living under a rock, it is football season.  Glorious, glorious football season, and I just can't bring myself to face a new week without having first spent my Saturday immersed in some good old SEC ball games.  I spent most of the afternoon running back and forth between the den and the office watching the game and pulling tack up during commercial breaks.

Thank goodness this tack was older.  When the room was re-carpeted, the original tack was left (probably to save money), and this older tack came up like a dream.  After a very thorough vacuuming, I took a very fine sandpaper and lightly sanded the top of the water-stained floor boards.  This helped soooo much!

It's not perfect, but I think after some floor polish it will be tolerable.  I spent Sunday evening moving the furniture back in, which includes this dining table I bought with three chairs at a yard sale (more on that later).

The table helps to cut some of the visual clutter, and I think I may make a skirt for it to completely conceal the tubs underneath.

We've now done all three bedrooms and the turnaround hall, leaving us with the "great room" which we're going to do this weekend.  Here's hoping it looks like the first floors we did.

So, so busy!

The last couple of months around have been really hopping with activity.  I did a terrible job of keeping track of how much produce I put up this summer, but suffice it to say...There was alot!  I have jars in the kitchen cabinets, on the kitchen counters, the utility room cabinets, and the floor of our closet.  And there's still more to do.  Hopefully all of this hard work will equal a slightly lower grocery bill this winter.  We shall see if all of Blair's hard work tearing up the backyard to create a garden is a monetary success.

Our little house was built in 1963.  There have been only four or five owners from then until now, and the last ones did a great job on remodels.  When we bought the house, it was not just live-able, but nice.  So for eight months, we did nothing to the inside except for rearrange furniture in an attempt to find it's best possible location.  (The landscaping was an entirely different matter.  A matter for another post to be exact.)  Blair has actually quit trying to remember where things are.  Then one day, a lady stopped by.  Said lady informed my dear, darling husband that her husband built the house.  In 1963.  And it has hardwood floors.  That are gorgeous.  We had assumed all long that it did indeed have hardwood floors (it was, after all,  built in 1963), but we had no idea as to what condition they might be in.  Blair had no intention of doing this when he told me of his conversation, but he planted a seed.  And that seed began to germinate in my mind.  Two weeks later, Blair takes Little Man out for a quick shopping trip while I'm cleaning up the dishes from supper.  I get about half of the dishes done, and I decide it's settled.  I simply must know what is under that carpet.  But where to begin?  There are six carpeted rooms in the house, one of which is a "great room" (meaning a ridiculously long room in a 1963 ranch house).  I decide the best option is to go to the back corner of the house and lift up a section of carpet that resides under a piece of furniture.  That way, if this all turns out to be a terrible mistake, no one is the wiser.  But...how does one go about tearing out only a small section of carpet?  Hmmm....Blair will be home soon, so I must decide quickly....Ah Ha!  Grab an Exacto knife!  Where is the Exacto knife??  I know where we kept it in North Carolina, however we have moved twice since then.  Fortunately, it was still residing in the same basket.  Alright, here we go.  I picked the corner farthest away from the door, slide the piece of furniture over, cut carefully, carefully....AHHHH!!  This house that was built in 1963 has gorgeous hardwood floors!  That are, indeed, currently covered with ugly carpet!  Out with the carpet!

                         If you look carefully in the bottom right corner of the photo, you can see my camera strap.

 By the time Blair got home I had pulled up most of the carpet in the corner, lost my nerve, and recovered the corner with the carpet and the furniture.  Then I took a shower and finished the dishes.  Cue Blair.

The next conversation went a little like this:

Me:  Hey, Blairrrrrr????
Blair:  Yesssss??? (With an eyebrow raised).
Me:  Ummm.....
Blair:  What did do?
Me:  Remember when that lady stopped by a couple of weeks ago and said her husband built the house?
Blair:  No.
Me:  Well, the house really does have hardwood floors.
Blair:  Ok.
Me:  Wanna see?

After getting his "I don't really care what you do" approval, I then spent the rest of the night pulling out carpet, and staples, and tacks.

The next morning we decided that we really didn't like the wall color with the tones in the floor, so that meant we had to repaint (which I wanted to do anyway).  The floor was in great condition except for right up at the wall, so we installed some quarter round up against the baseboard which I then painted.  Since the wall was a different color, I had to repaint my chest of drawers.  

And then I decided to recover the headboard for our bed while I was at it.  

                                                        And, yes, I do make the bed every day.

It's amazing how one thing leads to another and another and another.  The only thing left to do in our bedroom is new window treatments, and we'll have a whole new room.  

While I was putting everything back together in our room, I noticed the color scheme from my watch box (the Fossil watch I got in NYC):

                                                                   Cute little birds!


Somehow I unintentionally stole the colors from this to plaster all over our room.  I love it!

The carpet is now also out of the hall and Little Man's room.

                                                                                    The hall with carpet.

                                                                    Half-way there!

                                                                The carpet is no more!

                                         Little Man's room had the same carpet as the other two spaces.

                                                       His room has REALLY great lighting.

 We're planning on doing the office in a couple of weeks, and then right after that, the Great Room (aka the Dining Room and Living Room).  I'd really like to have the whole thing done by Thanksgiving since everyone is coming to our centrally-located 1963 house this year, and who wants to eat a large meal in a partially-carpeted house?  Actually, I'm pretty sure no one will care (as in 100% sure), but it would still be nice to have it done.