An Easy Approach to Word Art (and a New Stove!)

Many, many moons ago our stove died.

This was not necessarily a travesty.

We were hankering to replace the old stove with a new stainless one to match our new dishwasher, oven hood and refrigerator. Really, we owe the old girl our gratitude (especially for the fact that I was still able to sell it for $20!)

However, finding a replacement was no easy task. There is reason to believe that the entire kitchen was designed around this awkward stove placement.

We measured and measured and went off in search for the perfectly sized and positioned oven.

One that would fit into the tight spacing, and still let us open our drawer and cabinet door without needing to open the oven door first. If possible, we also wanted a stainless steel top (not black) and metal knobs (not plastic). We are nothing if not specific.

(For appliance hunting, we usually look at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Sear’s, Sear’s Outlet and BestBuy, as well as some online retailers.)

The winner was the lovely KitchenAid from Lowe’s (which we had them “Meet and Beat” to the BestBuy price. We also had a coupon. God bless the man who invented coupons).

I am lovin’ my double oven! And this stovetop (with 5 burners) can be removed and turned into a griddle! (We love breakfast, so this was definitely a perk.)

The small space was begging for a small piece of cheery word-art, so I made this sign out of one of our old drawer fronts, similar to this project:

I’ve given word art tutorials before:

• Upcycled Cabinet Door Artwork Tutorial

• Weathered Wood Block Artwork

But this was the EASIEST way I’ve ever transferred the text outlines before… with chalk!

1. Paint your background. If you like the weathered look, see my tips from this tutorial.
2. Print out your words!
3. Rub chalk all over the backside of the paper.
4. Tape the paper on to your project and trace the letters firmly with a ballpoint pen.
5. Remove paper to reveal the transfer of the chalk lines.
6. Paint inside the lines.
7. I added some shadow lines with a pencil to give it a little pop.

I love that it matches my taxi-yellow Kitchen Aid!

And check out where we snuck our microwave back into the kitchen!

We installed the outlet when we tore our downstairs bath to pieces. We purchased a Panasonic microwave from Amazon.com and it is SO QUIET! I love it.

I apologize for the helter skelterness of this post. Do people still say that? Or am I turning into my Mother?

All in all, thank you for all the sweet vacation well-wishes! I think my brain is still on vacation though… that does not bode well for the grammatical accurateness of this post!

Oven Problems & Microwave Cakes

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I have this thing where I can’t bring myself to buy store-bought desserts.

I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t do it.

Usually this is a good thing – I don’t buy them so I don’t eat them.

But it was somebody’s birthday recently

And, of course, our oven chose to die. And I mean croak. 20-minutes-later-the-frozen-pizza-is-still-frozen kind of dead.

To eliminate confusion: this is not an after photo. Just re-using photos here people!

The oven breaking was unfortunate for a few reasons:

1. It was actually kind of new and the only working appliance that came with the house
2. We were hoping to sell it on Craigslist and make a few pennies
3. We weren’t planning on buying a new oven right now.

Such is life. Certainly such is the renovating life.

Anyways, back to the topic of cake. Specifically, birthday cake.

I “pinned” this recipe from Taste of Home ages ago for Moose’s b-day and bummed when I thought I couldn’t make it anymore. (There are bits of chocolate cake in one of the trifle layers – hence the oven problem.)

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Welp, I have officially made “microwaved cake”. It wasn’t bad. Not great, but not bad.

We are now in search-mode for our next oven. But, like most of our projects, we are presented with a bevy of issues we inherited with the house.

I am pretty sure they built this entire kitchen around the stove.

Seriously. The oven fits quite snugly between the window molding and the cabinets.

More importantly, we are extremely constricted in our stove options due to the height we need the oven door handle to be. It has to be tall enough for the drawer to open underneath it. If we decide to go with the double oven or a warming drawer that has a handle we also need the handle to be relatively flat, so the cabinet door can open easily.

Also, if we end up choosing a gas stove (which we both prefer to cook with) we will need to run a gas line across our basement – adding cost to our project.

Ideally, we’ll end up with something like this:

(The Sprite sign is random, but one can only justify spending a minimal amount of time photoshopping their own kitchen photos.)

We will build an endcap on the left-hand of the stove and maybe some funky non-flammable and easily wipeable artwork.

Due to our handle restrictions, right now we are leaning towards the fancy double stoves (and no! not just because they are swoon-worthy to a baker like me!), because the top handle are more likely to give us the height clearance we need.

Until then, I’m not baking a single thing. : )

And before I forget – a note on switching from a wall-mounted microwave to a hood:

So far I love it. Our microwave was mounted really low, so it’s nice being about to see into the pots on the back burner. While we eventually will put a small microwave in our pantry, the old clunker is downstairs on the basement workbench.

I’ve discovered the main reasons I use the microwave are to reheat my coffee and melt butter. Now I’m just trying to drink my coffee faster, and a little less butter never hurt anybody!

What kind of stove do you have? Any recommendations?

Kitchen: Before and After Photos

As I mentioned here, I promised to do a before and after kitchen post. We’ve been enjoying our new kitchen! Last night I made scones in preparation for tomorrow’s Irish celebration! You can find the recipe for scones I posted last year here.

This weekend I’m going to make Corned Beef and Cabbage for the first time – we’ll see how it goes! And a Happy St. Patrick’s Day at that!

And now, down to the kitchen nitty-gritty. As I said in my last kitchen reveal post, we’ve spent a solid 10 months renovating our kitchen and we are done with phase I. SUPER exciting.

For those who are curious as to what the phase II kitchen reno entails:

• Add tile backsplash
• Add crown molding and shoe molding
• New stove and a cabinet/countertop endcap to the left of the stove
• Add outlet inside pantry and install small microwave

This is the kitchen on the day of our initial walk-through:

Although you can’t really tell in this photo, the countertop was peeling, the backsplash was rotted out, the cabinet hinges were coated in layers of thick paint, the faucet leaked everywhere, the sink was beyond stained, the dishwasher was broken, and there was only a big copper wire where the fridge was supposed to be.

We repainted the insides of the cabinets and had new custom-size cabinet doors made. Buying an older home = standard sizes usually don’t match (like IKEA cabinet doors).

We replaced all the windows in the house with new double-panes from Harvey’s. That includes these two in the kitchen.

We (erm, my husband) ripped out the old countertop and had this one installed. So far we love our granite countertop. It is sturdy and easy to clean. And while I don’t make a habit of putting hot cookware directly on the counter, it’s nice to know that if I do, it won’t be a problem.

We chose an undermount large basin stainless steel sink (through our countertop people) and got the faucet on clearance at Lowes. I love our large basin sink. While some prefer to  have the divided sides, I love being able to place an entire cookie sheet or cast iron skillet flat on the bottom of the sink. We also had to install a new garbage disposal.

We took down the ceiling fan in the kitchen immediately. We’ve since added four recessed lights, track lighting over the sink and this rail lighting from LightingDirect over the island. Plans for undercabinet lighting are in the future.

Obviously we tore down all the (several layers) of wallpaper. We put in all new light switches and outlets. We painted the radiator, and lots of other small tasks.

We tore out the old, broken dishwasher and installed this new one we got on sale at Lowes.

Then we took down our old microwave and put up the range hood. We had future plans to install a small microwave in the pantry and will backsplash underneath the hood and cabinets.

That big wire you see was the water line for the old fridge. Not only would that space fit a very small fridge, but it would eat up a ton of floor space and make our already small kitchen feel even tinier. I wasn’t crazy about losing the line-of-sight to the deck entrance, as well as to the dining room. No thank you.

Instead, we purchased and refinished this sideboard, and I think it fits the space perfectly. Plus, a little extra cabinet space never killed anybody. Behind that we installed the beadboard wallpaper and chair rail molding.  We also purchased and refinished an island for a central workspace and seating area.

So where does that leave the fridge?

We decided to knock out a wall that led to our hallway coat closet. We sacrificed the closet in order to be able to recess the fridge into the wall. We looked at refrigerators FOREVER to find the right size – we bought a counter-depth fridge – to maximize the recessed space.

Then we added new molding so it looks like a seamless addition.

Last but not least, there was the pantry.

I am KICKING myself because I don’t know if I took a before pictures of the inside of the pantry. Probably because my pants were on fire to rip it out!

All the insides of the kitchen cabinets were this dark wood color.

But inside the pantry was a labyrinth of swinging doors and cabinets that pulled out. And… get this… it was all shelving for cans. There were probably 200 little compartment shelving pieces that swung out in various directions for canned good storage!!! Can you tell this kitchen was built in the 1950s?

It was kind of cool… but we have an average 10 cans in our house at a time. There was no where to put a bag of sugar! Or a box of Golden Grahams! Or a box of Mac and Cheese! It would not do. So we ripped it out. And then we repainted.

And we added new shelving units on the inside.

Sorry my pantry isn’t picture perfect – but it doesn’t have to be!!! I have pantry doors now! I had to look at this mess for months. Talk about visual overload.

To read more about our kitchen adventures, check out some of my older kitchen reno posts:

• How to Remove Wallpaper Part II: Going Downhill

• Boom! That Closet is Outta Here!

• Old Cabinets Made New: Part I

• DIY Chalkboard and a Blue Kitchen

• Recessed Refrigerator Progress

• Cabinetry Conundrum: Part II

• Photoshop Dreamin’

• Island Inspiration

• The Kitchen Call of Paul Revere

• A Kitchen Cabinet Teaser

• Kitchen Progress: More Demo and New Countertop!

• Doors, Handles, Knobs and Toes. (Knobs and Toes.): How to Install Cabinet Door Knobs

• Beadboard in the Kitchen

• I’m on (Kitchen) Island Time!

• Let There be (a Kitchen) Light

• The Kitchen is DONE!

I’m linking this post up to Beneath My Heart’s “Best DIY Projects of March” Linky Party

The Kitchen is DONE!

Phase one is DONE.

After, oh, only 10 months. Yes. We started our kitchen renovations a whopping ten months ago. No wonder I’ve been so anxious to get this over with.

I first posted about our kitchen here when I posted about removing the wallpaper.

I can remember standing in our kitchen for the very first time when we looked at the house.

I must have a good imagination.

It was small. It had a huge creaky ceiling fan. A dank, old, dark pantry. A stained sink and chipping countertop. And the wallpaper. Oh my, the wallpaper.

We tackled the walls and cabinets with a vengeance. We ripped out the inside of the pantry. We knocked down a wall and made a cubby for our recessed fridge. Then we looked for the perfectly sized fridge for six weeks. We ripped out a dishwasher full of magenta water. Yuck. But enough of that. You’ve been hearing about that for ten months now.

Before we get to the final pics, here are a few renovation highlights.

I’ll do a before and after post later this week. You betcha I’m going to savor the flavor of this project being finished!

And now on to the phase I finished product:

Nary an exposed garbage can in sight:

Those last pesky cabinets that we procrastinated on:

I think I can cook here!

There’s miscellaneous paraphernalia on the fridge. We officially live here now.

And the beauty only lasted a week or so.

We just ripped out the microwave last night and I think we’re ready to order our backsplash tile!

This is the hood we got on clearance. The microwave (which is on the brink of death anyways) is now plugged in the basement until we buy a smaller one we will tuck inside the pantry. I will not miss that old clunker.

Do you know the definition of sadistic? Two words. Kitchen. Renovations.

Kitchen Projects left:

- Crown Molding
- Undercabinet lighting
- Shoe Molding
- Backsplash
- Endcap to the left of the stove
- New stove. Eventually.

I’m sharing this post with:

How to Frame and Mat Custom-Size Artwork.

Until you have artwork on the walls, a house will never feel like a home.

At least in my book.

You would think my house would feel like home due to a few facts – 1. I work out of our house (there I am home all the time), 2. we are always working on renovation projects (investment much?) and 3. that, you know, I live here. But for a long time it didn’t’ feel like our house. I finally realized that, apart from the dining room and living room mantle, we had nothing hanging on any of our walls yet. And why would we? We are still in the process of sanding ceilings, spackling walls and painting. That had to change.

On our trip to Cape Cod to celebrate our anniversary last summer, we purchased some prints in a local art gallery in Chatham. It was appropriate, after all, since the gift for the first year is supposed to be “paper” oriented.

We bought a few pieces by Robert Edward Kennedy. We purchased one watercolor print and three graphic prints of towns on the Cape. We like our walls adorned with pieces that mean something – the watercolor was of somewhere we had been together in Nantucket, and the three graphical prints were all places we had been together in Cape Cod – Hyannis, Falmouth and Chatham.

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But, there were a few problems.

1. We couldn’t find three prints we wanted with matching matting colors.

2. Even if there were three prints with matching mats, the size was not a standard frame size.

3. We are too cheap to get our artwork framed and matted custom.

No problem! I declared. I will just find frames at a store that we can slip the artwork into.

But there was a problem with that too.

The prints were not standard size prints – not sized to fit into any standard frame (like 8×10 or 5×7).

Due to all of these problems, the prints got put in the sunroom and were forgotten about. Until recently.

I bought three 8×10 frames (at $10 a piece) from Target and I decided I would cut my own mat.

As an art student I learn how to cut mats in high school. The only problem was, I didn’t own proper mat cutting equipment and didn’t want to buy it – wouldn’t that defeat the whole purpose of saving money?

So I decided to give it the old college-try, and just use a razor blade.

I measured out what I wanted the new opening to be (measure several times and cut once) and proceeded to (very lightly) cut out the excess. Always measure, draw and cut from the BACKSIDE.

This was a 5×7″ opening I cut to be about a 6.75×8″ opening.

Because I wasn’t using a traditional cutter, I was unable to get the traditional beveled edge that mat openings usually have. But I can live with that. : )

Miraculously my whole scheme worked.

Tips for cutting a new mat:

1. Use a brand new razor blade. The sharper the better.

2. It’s better to use many long and light cuts and a few deeper cuts.

3. Use a metal ruler or straight edge and cut against it. Hold the ruler down on to your pencil line very tightly. Tight enough that your fingers hurt. If the ruler moves, you will not have a straight line.

4. Measure, measure and measure again before you cut.

It’s not perfect, but I don’t think anyone will notice.

We decided to put them in our kitchen. And I love them.

And it’s definitely starting to feel more like home.

What kind of artwork do you have hanging in your kitchen?

Have you ever custom framed anything?

Let There be (a Kitchen) Light

Remember our kitchen renovations I vowed would be done by August (2011) and then January (2012)? Erm, about that… since it’s almost March.

We aren’t finished, but LET THERE BE LIGHT!

After 10 months of cooking in the near-dark, we have installed our kitchen lighting. (!!)

In case you have forgotten what we started with, we removed an old ceiling fan. I won’t even pretend I was involved in this process. : )

Can’t say I’ll be sad to see you go dusty fan and naked lightbulb. I will not miss chopping vegetables by the light of the microwave. Nope, not one bit.

After months of looking for kitchen light fixtures (I wish I was kidding), we finally decided on purchasing this Kichler Semi-Flush Rail Fixture from LightingDirect.com.

yay!!!!

We chose the Antique Pewter finish – although ORB (oil rubbed bronze) is all the rage, I can’t get away from this look. Plus it matches our appliances and hardware nicely.

I like the combination of cottage and industrial elements this fixture has. Another plus – we needed a rail lighting with one center hookup that would fit in the same spot that the fan did. The light is about 30″ long, just shorter than the island directly below it. The little lights can be tilted to direct light in different directions if that’s your goal.

Money saving tip:

When purchasing products online, always look for an promo-code.

Within 5 minutes of searching “promo code for LightingDirect” on Google, I found a coupon code that saved me $25.

I didn’t even have to break a sweat.

In addition to the rail lighting fixture over the island, we had four recessed lights installed. They make a huge difference.

Everyone says that lighting makes the room and now I understand. Because when the room is well-lit, everything looks bigger and newer.

Mamma mia.

The lights are very hard to photograph… use your imagination.

We also got these white raffia stools from Amazon. They came disassembled, but I put them together within an hour. One of them is not quite perfectly balanced, but as they were quite inexpensive compared to what else I found, I am happy with them. It’s my new favorite place to sit!

We’ve been busy enjoying life and our kitchen has fallen to the wayside this month (oh the shame!). We have two more cabinet doors and two drawer covers to install, as well as some molding, but then we will be 95% of the way there!

While I’m on topic, our Phase II kitchen plans are:

- Take down the over-the-stove microwave (our current one is almost in the graveyard as it is)

- Install stainless steel oven hood (we found one on clearance!)

- Install tile backsplash (I just bought a sample of one we are looking at…)

- Crown molding and shoe molding

- Eventually buy a new stove and run gas line (?)

Measuring Cup Cabinet: Variations on a Pin

Ever since I joined Pinterest there is ONE idea I saw from here that I knew I needed to replicate. Now is the time!

I found this pin and I think it is genius!

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This weekend was finally the time to make it happen.

I have dedicated the cabinet next to my oven as an easy-access supply station.

While I have other measuring cup/spoon sets near my mixer, I thought it would be very useful to have another set on hand right next to the stove.

However, I made a few changes to the original idea.

First, I was definitely NOT planning on putting any nails or screws into my new cabinet doors. Maybe someday, but for now these are my clean, brand new beauties and I will not bring a blemish upon them!

So what’s a girl to do? 3M hooks of course! (A college kid’s best friend. I got my room deposit back ever year, thank you very much.)

I purchased two packs from Target of these mini wire-hooks (actually called “utensil hooks”) for $6.00.

I also opted to skip the measurement labels – don’t most have them printed on the cup/spoon anyways?

Then I just eyeballed it and made sure that the door would close okay with hanging the cups in certain locations.

If you have never used 3M hooks, they come with sticky tabs. One side is for the hook and the other side you stick to the wall. (No worries about confusing them, it says “wall, wall, wall, wall, wall” on it.) I like 3M hooks because you can remove them from anywhere without any damage. Perfect for my new cabinets!

Inside the cabinet is where I keep my olive oil, my Misto (my favorite kitchen “thing” ever!), my timer and a few other frequently-used cooking odds and ends. I also keep my salt and pepper grinders in the cabinet.

I store them on top of two of those little tea bag holders to keep any stray grounds of salt and pepper from spreading all over the cabinet.

And that’s how I created a easy-access cooking supply station next to my stove for $6.00!

 

I’m on (Kitchen) Island Time!

January beware! We are kickin’ kitchen booty and we are almost going to meet our goal of having the kitchen finished by the end of the month! (Knock on wood!)

In the process of kicking kitchen booty, I think I have lost approximately 12,857 brain cells. But it was all worth it.

Yes! We refinished our sideboard and kitchen island!

We purchased both pieces as raw furniture from the Mill Store.

We took the following steps to paint the bottoms:

1. Break out the wood filler and fill any holes. (The island actually came with towel hooks on the side and 2 shelves installed in the bottom, but we want to put stools under the island so we took them all down. Hence all the holes.)
2. Sand ‘er down with a fine grit sandpaper. I used 220 grit paper.
3. Prime the furniture. I used regular primer on the sideboard and a few of the dark knots ended up showing through after a few months. I ended up going back and priming them with Killz primer.
4. Paint the furniture. I used a small cabinet roller and our Valspar semi-gloss paint in Swiss Coffee to match all the trim in our house as well as our kitchen cabinet and pantry. I did four coats of paint letting it dry in-between coats.

Letting the stain sit.

We took the following steps to stain the tops:

1. Sand ‘er down one more time with a fine grit sandpaper.

2. Stain away! We had initially decided on Minwax Golden Pecan stain. This was the same color stain I used on my desk upstairs. I stained the top of the sideboard and we looked at it for a few days. Unfortunately, due to the different lighting and paint color in the kitchen the stain looked too orange. So we sanded ‘er down again. Getting most (but not all) of the stain off. I had given it 3 coats of stain, so we probably took off at least two coats. We picked out a secondary stain color, this time Minwax Special Walnut.

We then stained the Special Walnut stain on TOP of the Golden Pecan stain (we also stained a based layer of Golden Pecan stain on the island top to ensure they would match).

Once we knew we were happy with it we proceeded to give the tops each four coats of stain. We left some layers of stain on for as long as 30 minutes to get a dark and rich tone.

3. We lightly sanded with a fine grit steel wool sponge.

Post-Stain, Pre-Poly

4. Polyurethane time! We used Minwax Clear Poly in Satin finish.We applied four coats of poly, waiting 4 hours in between each coat and lightly sanding with a fine grit steel wool in-between coats.

Staining and Poly tips:

• We used only the cheap foam brushes.
• STIR both thoroughly. We used plastic spoons.
• To wipe the stain I used a variety of clean, old socks and promptly threw them away.
• Do NOT shake the poly. It will be full of bubbles and your finish will feel like sandpaper.
• Wait the full 3-4 hours between coats of poly. Otherwise it will get gunky.
• Make sure you have the airflow fully circulating. I wish we could have done this project in the summer with all the windows open. We left our microwave vent on all day to help get rid of the fumes.

We are in LOVE with how it turned out.

I love having the dual countertops and the contrast between the cool granite and the warm butcherblock.

I just ordered stools this week!

We love how they turned out and we love being able to finally use our island space!

Today we celebrated and we cooked and baked and ate! And I’m officially on island time. Woot!

Beadboard in the Kitchen

Our kitchen has come a long, long way from where we started. (Hoorah!!)

But there still are a few spots where it iss… showing it’s age, shall we say? A few gray hairs.

The wall where the sideboard is (where the refrigerator originally went – can you believe it?) was a disaster when we were taking down the wallpaper.

There were big strips of glue remnants from who-knows-what, in addition to cracks, lumps and gouges. I would love to know what was there once upon a time!

We did our best to patch it up with spackle. And we did a pretty good job. I don’t think anyone who has been in our kitchen has ever noticed the remaining “gray hairs”.

But while working in the kitchen this weekend, we had our strong worklight on and that baby cast light so bright that all the flaws in the wall were screaming “LOOK AT ME, KAT! YOU MUST FIX ME OR I WILL DRIVE YOU CRAZY!”

It’s like looking at your pores in a magnifying mirror. Don’t look too closely.

But I knew they where there. And I couldn’t leave them. So I started to spackle some more of my almost finished kitchen.

I sanded it down and touched it up with our wall color (Olympia, “Astral”).

Then I did something … impulsive.

I put up beadboard wallpaper. And I love it.

Usually before we make house decisions I think about it for weeks, if not months beforehand. I thought about this for, oh, an hour?

We added a chair rail to finish it off and matched it to the height to the countertop backsplash.

We love it and it looks like it’s always been there.

Since I already had most of the supplies on hand, this project only cost us $10 (for the pre-primed molding).

And did you notice we stained the top of our sideboard? More on that exciting project tomorrow!

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Linking this project up to:

Doors, Handles, Knobs and Toes. (Knobs and Toes.): How to Install Cabinet Door Knobs

I lasted posted about my kitchen a week before Christmas and set our goal to be D-O-N-E with the kitchen by the end of January. So far we are on track and are about half-way through our remaining list of to-do items!

We installed the rest of our cabinet doors with the exception of the two underneath the sink. We still need to replace some piece of wood before can finish that up.

Along with new cabinet doors we also purchased new facings for our drawers. Those have been installed along with the handles.

I like that our handles are hefty and slightly retro. They feel nice and sturdy. We will be using these vertically as pantry door handles (when we get there). We got them from Lowe’s.

Then we installed the knobs on our cabinet doors.

First we decided where on the door we wanted the knob to be – low, middle or high on the shaker border. We chose the middle (and I reaffirmed my choice after consulting my Kitchen Pinterest board and liking this one best).

We ordered these amazing little templates off Amazon (here) to avoid unfortunate mathematical error when it came to drilling our cabinet doors and drawers. I won’t lie. Regardless, I had to go in the other room when me started drilling the first one.

We marked the hole with a pencil and pre-drilled the door with a bit similarly sized to the screw that came with the knob for a snug fit.

Then we inserted the screw by hand and added the knob in front.

And we have ALMOST all our cabinets DONE!!! I can’t believe it! I love it.

Buying new cabinet doors instead of ripping everything out was a huge time-saver and our kitchen looks brand new.

Can you believe it used to look like this?

Other news in kitchen-land:

We (*ahem* Moose) rewired all our outlets and lightswitches in the kitchen so they are all crisp and clean.

We (*me!) finally found and ordered a ceiling light for over the island. It should be here in a week or so.

Moose also installed our over-the-sink track lighting. Let there be light! I can finally see what I am cooking.

We bought it on sale at Lowe’s back in the summer.

Hold up, did I say “over the island” a few sentences ago? YES I DID!

We also recently purchased a raw wood island from The Mill Store.

(Yep… I’m really going to miss staring at my trash can and having kitchen cabinets all over the floor… I just don’t know what I’ll do with myself when it’s over. Maybe you’ll find me eating spaghetti off the floor.)

The island has yet to be painted and stained, but this is the general idea – except white legs, no casters and we remove our shelves to store the stools underneath:

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Once we choose a stain for the top of the island we will also stain the top of the sideboard (which has been covered up by plastic placemats for the last 6 months).

What do we have left?

- Install new sink task light
- Find, purchase and install ceiling light
– Put in new wood pieces under the sink
- Finish installing drawer panels
– Finish installing cabinet doors (except for 2 more)
- Add cabinet door hardware and pantry door handles
– Stain top of sideboard
– Add quarter-round under granite
– Toe-kick
– Install hardware to attach dishwasher to the granite
– Repair and paint molding on doorframe
- Find and purchase and paint/stain kitchen island and stools
- Finish re-wiring the outlets and put switch plate covers on
– Finally take off the protective film on the dishwasher! After 8 months!

Sadly, we’re already starting our phase II kitchen list. But that can wait. Woot!