Kitchen Reveal

It feels a bit anti-climactic to have this big kitchen reveal because I've been living in it for a few weeks. But y'all haven't seen it yet! Finally got it clean enough to take a few photos. TA-DA!

Shall I remind you what it looked like before?

I wish these before pictures really showed how terrible the cabinet doors were before. A few of them are quite literally glued back together! Now, I will say, there's some tweaking and trim that needs to be painted. The bottom right door under the sink is practically falling off. I basically need to cut off a piece of wood and replace it so the poor door isn't hanging on by a thread....but I've got a few things on my plate.

I did add this awesome little hidden gem beneath the sink. Can't even tell it's there!

And just a few more photos to round things out...

Haven't finish the bar yet!! But the rest of the house really needs some paint... so I am required elsewhere at the moment!

Backsplash — Intimidating?

Before we put our last house on the market, we had a small repair that had to be done. The house was in pristine shape—we had really cared for it! But the tile in the master bathroom hadn't been installed correctly by the builder and a majority of it had come loose over the five years we lived there. Some of the tiles were basically just resting on the floor. Well, the tile guy wanted $1,700 to repair it, and we knew we wouldn't recoup that cost. So, my ever awesomely-helpful father helped me rip up the floor, save the tiles, and re-set and re-grout them. Two days on our hands and knees.

I say all this because I kind of work the "see one, do one, teach one" model when it comes to home projects. Generally speaking, my dad shows me how to do the first project, and the second one is on my own. I haven't taught a whole lot yet, but my day is coming! So, in my mind, floor tile and backsplash are all tile. So, clearly this one is a solo event!

Guess what? Mosaic tile is a lot easier than floor tile! Now, my disclaimer is that this assessment is solely based on my experience with my particular mosaic. It's not based on a standard tile. 

Here is my tile. 

The thing I didn't plan on is that my mosaic has three different heights on the tile. There also appears to be three (maybe four?) different versions of the tile (which I didn't know until I started installing—whoops!) Not crazy ridiculous but certainly more complicated! Except that means there really isn't a pattern! Yay! Nothing to mess up!

When we re-tiled the bathroom floor we used a pre-mixed mortar, but my research said it's a bad idea to use the pre-mixed stuff on glass tile. Apparently it tends to discolor over time. So, I got this big bag from Floor & Decor where I bought the tile...and then I read the bag. It said nothing about glass tile. It said a lot about heavy large tile. I got cold feet and ran to Home Depot for this glass tile mortar. I don't know if it's superior, but it's white and it works. Of course, half way through my first wall, my contractor (who was working on the shower upstairs) says, "I've got extra mortar. Do you want it?" And he dumps his perfectly mixed thin mortar into my bucket. Messier than my thick slop, but I learned a little something! 

I did the bar first...and honestly, I wish I had done it last. But that's okay! I opted not to get a tile saw. Could I have used one? Yes. Did I need one? No. I used these awesome glass tile cutters that did a great job! One thing I also realized is that the texture on the tile actually offered a lot more wiggle room for me as well because imperfect cuts aren't massively obvious. I also don't actually need any spacers. The mosaic fits together perfectly and extra pieces just pop into place. I occasionally needed something to lift a sagging fill-in piece but not often. I did get these little lifts to help keep them from settling onto the counter, and that turned out to be a great plan on my part! All things I really hadn't considered when I picked my tile! Glad I didn't go with subway tile! But I'm sure it would have equally had its own quirks. 

This was definitely a time-consuming project, and would have gone a lot faster with a second set of hands. But honestly, it wasn't hard. What was hard was when my babysitters weren't available and my husband went out of town for work, and I needed to finish installing the tile. My kids rock. A Chick-Fil-A breakfast and working 10am - 6pm. There were snacks. But tiling while yelling, "Do not run in the house!" and "Let me just finish this part right here!" is nothing in comparison to "I ran out of mortar and have four square feet left to install! We're going to Home Depot!" and having to promise suckers. But they did let me finish. Bless them. ❤️️

The down side to spending so much time up-close-and-personal with my walls... the realization that not all of my wall sockets are white. Ugh. This was before I grabbed one of those live wires by accident (you're supposed to turn off the breaker, but I like living on the edge!) 😜 don't do what I do. Be safe. Turn off the breaker. But of course this meant changing out all the outlets. Not hard but not what I had planned. Not fun.
Had to use these outlet spacers when I put the outlets back on... again... not hard. Just not fun.
Overall, tiling isn't all that bad. I kind of liked it. I'd do it again. Floors hurt your back a little more than kitchen backsplash, but many floors are a lot smaller!!

The Kitchen Island

I promise, pictures of the whole kitchen are coming sooooon. But I painted it, and then decided I didn't like the color and just painted again. The details are killing me ya'll! That, and I don't constantly work on our house, of course! So, today... I give you...THE ISLAND.

Oooohhh, the island! This has been my favorite project so far. Maybe because it's been much easier than I thought it would be! It also seems like a big deal because it's a giant piece of the kitchen in the middle of the room! My island went from a very small 4ft x 2ft island that just didn't make any sense for the size and space in the kitchen... to a whopping 7.4ft x 3.4ft island with an overhang for stools.

To make things simple, I bought a prefab base cabinet. It felt like cheating, but in the interest of time, it was actually the best idea I've had. I just screwed them together in the front, but the back had a small gap because the front of the cabinets stuck out on the sides. The gap was just big enough for a piece of base molding I had left over from my cabinet project. Maybe not the most professional shim, but it worked! Then, I went to Home Depot and had them cut a piece of plywood to fit across the back of both cabinets. Perfect fit! The minute it went on, it looked like one cohesive island. At that point, I started to realize my plan was actually going to work. But I didn't want just a cohesive island... I wanted a pretty one! I put my 1x4s and my trim pieces on the ends to match my cabinets. I want the end result to at least look like "custom cabinets" even if they aren't.

The new cabinet was slightly off at the bottom and I had to add a 1x4 so that I could put the base molding on. But...lesson learned... don't pull pieces of flimsy pre-fab board off the baseboard and toss it if you aren't absolutely SURE you won't need it. You might end up being like me and have to cut plywood to go across the front before you put on the molding. It's not pretty, and I'm glad no one will be looking under my cabinets.

Side note: I wish I had used MDF on my cabinets instead of the 1x4s. It would have required less sanding on my part.

Trim

The bane of my existence. Okay, not really. It's not difficult, but it's definitely time consuming. I'm not math-oriented. I have a journalism degree. Math... it's just not my thing... except when you're a DIYer. Then, it kind of has to be your thing. For instance, when you're standing in Home Depot and think, "I know exactly how long that island is! I'll just cut it in the store." Except, I didn't consider the fact that this is trim. Trim requires corners--not flat ends. So, back to my pre-existing problem of not buying enough trim.

But the back of the island needs some trim to cover the plywood too! But I had lofty ambitions of these rectangles across the back. Multiple rectangles means a lot of math. This was my original plan... and then what happened when I realized my drawing was pretty, but my math was all wrong. And even after all this, my math was still wrong, and I redid it another ten times. The good news is, it did eventually work and my fudged math looks pretty good.

Electrical

***Like all things electrical, flip the breaker off before you start working on it. Call an electrician if something isn't working right or you just don't think you can do it. It's not worth the risks of burning your house down or electrocution.***

The ends of my original island each had an electrical outlet. When I added the second cabinet, I covered one of my outlets...literally. Just forgot about it. Luckily I was able to pop the blue box back into the cabinet. But my wiring from the floor was now under my new cabinet. I wanted to minimize visible holes, so I made one through the base back toward the old cabinet. Then, I ran the wire back through the original hole.

I ended up talking to my dad about the best way to run the wire, and then talked to the guy at Home Depot about what I needed. He sent me home with everything. And then, I put in an outlet after that and discovered all I needed to know about wire gauges, and what was being used in my kitchen. I planned it out three more times and took everything back. I finally landed on this pre-wraped  wire that made everything easier to work with and kept it all neatly together. I then ran all the incoming wire to one box and split it out from there to my two outlets by drilling a hole through my middle walls. Then, the indimidatint part of cutting the outlet box in the side of my sparkling white Island. Seriously, that part was hard after all my hard work on this thing! I didn't want to fix any mistakes. But I did it! Worked out fine. Anchored all my wire to the walls and VOILA! I have this little outlet tester I use that I plugged in to check the outlet. Flipped on the breaker and...NOTHING. Nada. No power. I started thinking about how my island was already anchored down, and how I was going to need an electrician. Then, I realized my wine refridgerator wasn't on either and realized the GFCI had flipped. That's that little button on outlets in your kitchen and bathroom that flip when you do something stupid like overload the outlet or throw you hair dryer into running water. It also flipped when you flip the breaker. Pressed button. WE HAVE POWER!

Trash & Recycling

I remember being a kid at people's houses and discovering that some people keep their trash can hidden away in a cabinet. You know, the ones you have to ASK where their trash can is, and you know you've been to their house a lot of times when you already know where it is. It's an odd measure of friendship. But I always thought it was cool for some reason. And being on Pinterest doesn't help because I wanted mine to pull out or tip out or something "convenient" like that. To add to my plan, our recycling requires that we use these blue bags trash bags to hold our recycling. I don't like the idea of walking to the garage or laundry room to recycle, and if I'm going to hide my trash, I should hide my recycling too. I set off to make these drawers, but I will tell you, it was an EPIC FAILURE. Too heavy, too complicated. I finally bit the bullet and got two of these Rev-A-Shelf Double with the door mount kits. While not super seamless to install... it worked. And it's one of my favorite parts about the island.

Final Reveal...

So here it is... my island!! With a gorgeous slab of granite on top!