Painted kitchen and a Dutch door.

So I managed to sneak away today with my oldest boy to go over to the house.  When we got there we discovered that dad had gotten the first coat of paint on the entire kitchen!  I am in love!  I love the crisp white with that dark gray. It looks almost blue in some lights. Dad even put a strip of his crown molding up to see how it looks. I took a moment and took some pictures of the room.

 

He even painted the tops of the stairs

 

 

He also painted inside the glass cupboard the gray color. The insides of the other cupboards will be white. 

When he made these tall pantry cupboards (there is this one by the stairs and one by the door on the other side of the room) the original plan was to have four cabinet doors on them but because the pantry by the door was so close to the door, the molding would prevent being able to attach doors to the top part of the unit so we decided to leave both cabinets open on the top and put doors on the bottom. That gray on the doors is the other gray I posted about picking up. That's our accent color and will be in the panels of the cabinet doors and on the island. 

The other project we have been working on is a Dutch door. I had always thought it would look nice to have a Dutch door leading from the back porch to the kitchen and mentioned it to dad. He took my idea and ran with it.  

He cut the door and made a really nice ledge for the middle. He stained it the same color as the banister on the stairs. 

Then he set my boy and I to painting it. 

Once the paint dried we were able to hand the door and see how it looked. I love it. Just think about how nice it will be if there were a dog in the house or small children in the house. You could keep them out of the porch but yet still be able to greet company as they come in. I love it!!  

In the above picture you can see what I mean by the molding not allowing the upper part of the pantry to have doors. 

Back to the Dutch door!  

Look at that beautiful wood ledge!  

Well that's all for this week anyway.  I don't know if I will have any time this week to get back before the weekend but I will definitely try! 

Staircases and paint colors.

I'm super excited to write this post.  I have written in past posts that there was a second staircase that opens into the new kitchen and that we opened up the wall on one side to make it look more open. My dads friend had a bannister, post and spindles that he donated to the cause so the staircase looks great.

Problem was, the bannister was stained one color, the spindles a different color and the post was just unstained wood. It would be impossible to try and match everything. So I took it upon myself (with Dads permission) to sand down the bannister and stain it in my favorite "English Chestnut" stain. Sanding down the bannister didn't prove to be too hard. I used a rotary sander for most of it.  The spindles on the other hand were another story. Trying to sand those down by hand right down to the wood so that we could apply stain would take hours and hours and it would just be too much work. So.... New plan. Stain the bannister and post and paint the spindles and trim in white.  It ended up turning out beautifully. 

 

Now what to do with those ugly stairs?? Well first thing that needed to be done is to tear up those dark brown whatever they were. Grippy things. Lol.  Once those were pulled up and the tacks pulled out, I put wood putty into the hoeles and cracks and primed the whole thing white. Including the trim that ran up the sides. 

Regretfully I forgot to take a picture of the staircase primed. But here's the plan. The trim and the instep will be painted white. Originally we wanted to find a brown paint that would complement the stain of the bannister to put on the tread or top of the step.  We even got some paint swatches that we liked last night.  But while we were at the hardware store though, Dad looked over the cans of discounted paint (the mistints) he found two cans of gray paint for ten dollars each. One of them was a light gray that will complement the green sink he had for the bathroom and the other was a much darker gray that had almost a bit of blue in it. Both grays complement each other well so we decided to put the light gray in the bathroom and the far gray in the kitchen. We painted a little bit of it tonight and I love it but I digress.... Back to the stairs.  So original plan was to paint the stair tread brown but once I saw that dark gray I began to change my mind about it. I think I want to put the gray on the top of the step. Dad is thinking the same. So I took a picture of the colors on the primed stair tread to show you all. What do you think?

 

And so there we are.  And since I'm so excited about this color, here is a sneak peak of the kitchen color. Keep in mind that the paint was still wet, it was dark outside and we were working by the light of the dim kitchen light and a spotlight when I took the picture. It looks a bit darker than it actually is. I will hopefully take better pictures tomorrow. 

The cavity where the fridge will be. 

Above the trim near the ceiling. Oh and look I did take a picture of the primed stairs!  I love how the dark gray looks with the white of the trim and the cabinets. 

Dad is also toying with the thought of painting the panels of the cupboard doors the light gray for an accent. He did a couple of the doors to test it out. What do you think?

Well that's all for now. I will take some daylight pictures tomorrow and post them!  Hopefully tomorrow we will get all the crown molding that Dad hand made up and the room will really start to look like it's coming together!  

Kitchen cabinets are in!

So I haven't posted since before Christmas for obvious reasons.  Also my dad caught a bad cold and just didn't feel like working at the house a whole lot.  That being said, he is back at it and I've actually been able to go and help him out three days this week.  We've got all the kitchen cabinets in except the island.  We worked on that last night but didn't completely finish it yet.   The doors for the cabinets all still need to be made but those aren't a major priority right now.  Dad with the help of a friend, made crown molding for all the tops of the cabinets and boy do they look great!  I'm so excited to see the finished kitchen.  It's going to make some woman a very happy girl!  I'm a little envious for sure.  Here's some pictures!   The room is a bit crowded right now with some scaffolding in there but I managed to get some good angles of all the cabinets.

This is a pantry that hides nicely behind the door to the back porch.  It's directly across from the counter that will hold the sink so I am envisioning someone storing mostly food in this pantry.  Beside the pantry, Dad built a lovely bench under the window that is more than 5 feet long. I could lay down on it!  He made the top of the bench out of I think a desktop or counter top so it's all finished and can either be left as is or have some cushions made to go on it.   Under the bench will be drawers I think.  Unfortunately the picture of the bench is on my dad's camera which I don't have at the moment so you can just see it partially.

This is the other side of the bench, the first top cabinet has a spot where a microwave can go (where the drill is sitting).  The lower corner cabinet is huge and would be perfect for putting pots, pans, cookie sheets, and other baking pans. Someone had given dad an old entertainment centre that had some glass doors in it.  So for the upper corner cabinet we basically built it around those doors so it will have some lovely glass doors on it.  I actually sanded those doors down yesterday so that they will be all ready to be painted when the time comes.  The space where the broom is sitting is where the stove will go.  It's hard to see but dad also built a small cabinet that will go right in front of the brick chimney.

The other side of the chimney will go the refridgerator.  There was a cabinet built to go over top the fridge and also another large pantry beside the fridge for more food storage.  There's that scaffolding that is in the way but yet useful to build stuff on.  Plus Dad will be making more crown molding for the ceiling and the ceiling will need to have cracks and holes fixed in it so the scaffolding will need to stay until that's done.

Directly across the room from the wall with the chimney on it more cabinets!  The middle of this counter will be the sink, hence the reason for the higher middle cabinet. To the left of the sink will be a spot for a dishwasher to be installed. On the right, will just be another open cabinet. All the cabinets seen here were made from white melamine and faced with pine.  The cabinets will all be eventually painted white.   I don't have a picture of it yet but we built an island last night for the middle of the room.  The island itself is 2 feet by 4 feet and will have 5 drawers  plus a sliding drawer for a garbage can in it.  The counter top will most likely extend out another foot so that the top will be 3 x 4 and will have a nice bar like spot for sitting and eating.  I will try to get a picture of it next time I am over there.

I forgot to get a picture of it as well but see that little 2 foot space between the door to the bathroom/laundry room and the stairs?  Well there is another cabinet that will be installed in that space as well.  This cabinet is not the standard width of other cabinets and only sticks out about a foot.  This will be a great place to have a phone or a charging station.  It will have either a drawer and a cupboard under neath or just one cupboard with shelves in it.  Pictures for that next time!

Thanks for reading and sharing in our adventure!  More next time!!!!