Wall Cabinets are in!

My parents came over on Sunday and my dad and Mike worked so hard on getting the wall cabinets up. They did such a great job. I am so grateful for all the help they have lent on this project. It has made everything so much less stressful.

I took today off so I think I am going to try to mount the doors... by myself... haha. Fingers crossed I can do it!

Here are the pics. I am so excited! I think the addition of the high cabinet was such a good choice!

We are going to swap out the cabinet above the fridge for a wider one so it meets up completely with the others. So that will look a bit different.

New (Looking) Fridge

So I got the stainless steel paint kit on Thursday and dove into the project Friday afternoon.

After the first coat, I was certain I had made a huge mistake. I even warned myself based on reviews I had read but it was hard to look at it this way.

While doing the second coat, I decided it would be a great idea to kick the can of paint over. Ha. I freaked out a bit and tried scooping as much as I could back into the can. So I'm sure there's hair or dirt in the paint now. Haha

After the second coat, I was still worried that this was a bad idea. I was pretty cranky after that coat because all I wanted to do was paint it but I needed to wait until the girls got to bed.

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! The third coat was our turning point.

And the fourth coat.

Final product with the top coat. 

Overall, I'm pleased. It's not anywhere near perfect and in person you can tell it's not real but I'm still so glad I did it. I'm probably going to spray paint the handles black. I think that would look nice.

Painting, Painting and More Painting

I have painted four days in a row now. Tonight's adventures will make it five. I am pooped. Luckily, it will feel good when it is over. Plus, we really like the new color. 

After I get the second coat on our big wall, I will be doing even more painting. This time, I'm painting... wait for it... the refrigerator. 

I know. You're probably sitting there thinking I have lost my mind. The problem (first world problem) is, we have a white fridge. We are not fans of white appliances but we are also not fans of getting rid of things when they work perfectly fine. 

To solve my "problem", I found this stainless steel paint.

It actually has good reviews so I figured I'd give it a shot. I can't fathom dropping over a thousand dollars on something we don't need so I'm hoping this is a good solution. I'm planning to do this Friday and/or Saturday so I will post pictures when I'm done!

Sink and Faucet

Sink and faucet: Check! 

For the sink, we decided to go with a single basin in stainless steel. We currently have a double basin and find that we don't really utilize it. Here is what I selected:

It is Vigo brand and supposedly will never rust. It also has a limited lifetime warranty.

Here is our new faucet:

It is a Delta Charmaine. I chose it because it had great reviews and has a magnet in the faucet connection piece. I've seen too many that don't stay after you put them back in to place after pulling out the sprayer. 

I also went to the paint store today and got a couple of gallons mixed so I can start painting the walls. Things are moving along!

Painting a White Ceiling White

There are few things more fulfilling in life than painting a white ceiling white. Trying to figure out where you last left off when you look away to get more paint is such an exciting adventure. It's like trying on wedding dresses when everything starts to look the same.

I only wanted to paint the new areas but I went for the whole room. It had to look uniform, right? I almost threw in the towel about six times but I finished! I was even rewarded with white dots all over my arms, face and hair.

Took me about two and a half hours. I'm pooped! Next painting job: walls!

Drywall is Done

The day before my parents left, they surprised us while we were at work. They went to Home Depot and got all the supplies to start the drywall work. They hung the sheetrock, taped and mudded. They did a great job.

The drywall guy came Thursday and Friday to complete the job. The finished product is wonderful. This guy is amazing at what he does. He even fixed little dings in our walls that I forgot to ask about and he got rid of the telephone jack that I wanted gone. 

You wouldn't even know that there were soffits there!

Unfortunately for me, I just realized that I will have to paint the ceiling. I think I knew that all along but I just really don't want to do it. So now I must determine if I will do the entire room or just try to paint the newly textured spots with a paint that matches the existing white. Decisions, decisions. The lazy girl in me says to just paint the new areas.

The paint color I'm leaning toward for the walls is Ethereal Mood by Sherwin Williams. It's more brown than I was expecting but I think that is ok. The great thing is that if I hate it, I can always change it.

Painting will probably need to start tomorrow. That way we can start mounting wall cabinets next weekend. 

Electrical Moves, Countertop Selection, and Demo

We toyed around with the idea for a while but once my dad said he could move the light switch to the other wall, we went ahead with the plans of putting in a high cabinet on the wall next to the refrigerator. 

The switch was moved to the blue wall to the right. It's still taking some getting used to and my hand keeps going to where the switch used to be, but I am so excited to be able to finally utilize this dead space.

The selection of the countertops was a big back and forth process for me. I'm a very frugal person so I was inclined to just go with the inexpensive Ikea countertops. After quite a while, we decided to do granite. We figured that we are going this far with the project, we might as well have something we really like. Here is a picture of what we selected:

So Mike and my dad started doing demo a couple of weeks ago. Because Ikea wall cabinets are 15 inches in depth (standard American cabinets are 12 inches), we needed to remove our soffits. That was a great excuse and honestly, we may have just removed them anyway. This required some adjusting of electrical wires. Mike and my dad did a great job! 

Side One Before:

Side One During:

Side One After:

Side Two Before (You're probably wondering why we didn't want to keep these beautiful cabinets...)

Side Two During:

Side Two During: 

Side Two After:

That was tough work... well not for me! But what a relief that it is done. On to drywall!

Kitchen Fun has Begun

After a couple of years of trying to make our kitchen look better... and ending up making it look worse - we decided to bite the bullet and get new cabinets. We looked around a bit and decided to go with Ikea. 

In March, I designed our kitchen using the Ikea kitchen planner tool. I took my design up to Portland and met with one of their kitchen people. Turns out, my plan wasn't going to work and we had to make a few adjustments. I made a few more tweaks and pulled the trigger in mid-April. 

Just a few days later, our kitchen arrived in roughly 672 boxes. Ok, it was only 127 pieces. However, I had to go through and count each and every piece to make sure. They give you 48 hours to report if anything is missing. I also did my best to separate the pieces by their corresponding cabinet. The picture really doesn't look that impressive but here it is:

During this time, my parents were staying with us. While I was at work one day, my parents put together all the cabinet frames. What a relief! Working full-time with two little ones makes it much harder to pull off something like this.