Happenings, part four: The Kitchen/Dining Room

So, by now you all know that Shane and I purchased a "fixer-upper" when we bought this house. What you may not know is that the ugliest room by far in our house was our kitchen/dining room combo.

It. Was. Awful.

Here is a shot of the kitchen on Move-In Day: October 7, 2006. Yes, that is my mom in this horribly blurry picture (sorry, it's the only shot I had that showed the entire kitchen) doing her thing--cleaning.

Did I mention it was awful?

Well, give me a couple of weeks, and I was able to make lemonade out of lemons. It wasn't the greatest looking kitchen, but I was able to make it feel like home until it was time to really do something about it! I think the teal panelling the former owners had gone with was a nice touch. What--don't you?

Fast forward to June of 2007.

This was the state of our kitchen the night before I left for Chicago. I went there to live with Lynette and Roger for 7 days while Shane did a miraculously quick "base makeover" of the kitchen. In this picture, all the cabinets have been ripped off, and everything has been cleared out that could be cleared out! That's Ethan in the picture...about 6 months old at the time. (Yes, I'm a little behind on blogging this!)

I said 'base makeover'; that is to say that Shane:

• installed new electrical
• installed new plumbing
• installed new recessed lighting
• tore off the hideous teal panelling and installed new drywall
• finished said drywall (doesn't sound like much, but that one is a three day project in itself!)
• Primed all the walls and ceilings
• installed all the cabinets
• installed all new appliances, a new sink and faucet, and a garbage disposal
• installed all new counter tops
• installed new slate flooring (in the kitchen only)

Any carpenter will tell you that that is a tremendous amount of work to accomplish in 7 days.

Anyway, the boys and I stayed away (seriously, who on earth can live with no kitchen--with three boys 3 and under at the time--for a week?) so that we would not be in the way, and they (with the asthma problems they have) would not have any problems with all the dust and dirt that would be stirred up.

This is what we came home to:

Since the initial make-over, here is the rest of the work that Shane has done:

Installed new sliding glass doors where our double window used to be

Inside view
Outside view

This is the beginning of the demolition of the 'back room' area. We tapped into what was an old attached 2-car garage that the former owners had turned into part of the house to extend the dining room out about another 5 feet. This is Shane removing the panelling to begin the demolition of the current walls.

Now, before you go too much farther, I want to warn the squeamish (and those who haven't followed my blog for all that long)--you may want to stop here and skip a few pictures if you don't like things that slither!

One of the days that Shane was ripping off panelling was more *ahem* interesting than any of the others had been up to that point. On this particular day, Shane found a little "house guest" during demolition of the walls. His account of the story was that while he was pulling a sheet of panelling off, he heard a 'tssssss, tssssss' sound. (Similar to a rattlesnake, was it Shane? *giggle*) The rest is history. If you'd like, you can read the whole account in my original post, (complete with lots of pictures!) entitled: "There's a WHAT in my wall?"

Did I mention that that was an unbelievably interesting day!?!

Once the excitement of the snake was behind us, the demolition of the wall between our dining room and back room began! Most of the pics from here on are of the dining room; the kitchen already was semi-completed. Only the finishing touches remained for the kitchen.

Panelling and insulation gone
Studs and header coming out
All gone!

Beginning the drywall on the ceiling. The new drywall is on the left; the old ceiling tiles in the middle; and the ceiling in the old 'back room' area (that we ripped into to give more space in the dining room) is all the way on the right.

Old, yucky ceilings are all gone now! Only new, beautiful drywall remains *giggle*

Hey Julie--remember that stuff you uncovered in your MIL's kitchen? Here was our old dining room floor (the 'white' tiles). How hideous is this? And to think....it was covering up even more hideous brown tile underneath!

This is always an exciting day for me--drywall going up!

Taping and mudding of the drywall begins
Three coats later, the sanding can start. This is Shane sanding over our slider (and supplying the rest of my house with a covering of fine, white powder in the process)
Drywall DONE! This is also always a great day. I love those smooth, beautiful walls!

*I get excited over silly things....*

Painting begins! We chose a golden color for the kitchen area, and then faux-finished over that; the gold was also the base color for our faux-finished dining room. Shane, by the way, does all the cutting in around the ceiling.
Let it be known that I possess neither the skill nor the patience for that!

However, I am mean with a roller in my hand.

Faux-finishing the dining room begins! (If you at this point are wondering how on earth we are going to do one room in two colors....just hang in there for a few more pictures!)
Finish in the dining room complete

Hanging my plate rack and plates above the sliding glass doors

Okay, I know this may be difficult to see, but we simply blended the two finishes of the two different areas together over the archway and over the slider, where the rooms came together. You can see it a bit in the pic above, too. It really turned out well and we were able to get the feel of two distinctly different areas, instead of one big room--which I love.
Working on some electrical so we could hang our new light fixture

Let there be light! Yay!
The slate tile installation begins....

This particular tile is probably the most difficult tile floor you can install. The tiles are cut from the earth (slate rock) and are each unique and very different from each other--not like installing man-made ceramic tile that comes from a factory! These are all different colors (makes for a very cool and unique finished look) and many are different sizes and thicknesses, which increases the difficulty of installation. Lynette and Roger were able to help lay some of the floor when they were down one weekend.
Cleaning and sealing the floor--this has to be done both before and after grouting on Slate tile. See the color difference on the first three rows that he has completed already?

The new, shiny floor!
Beginning to build the posts for the archway

Posts done, and wood stained

Back to the kitchen:

Cutting the hole for my cookbook shelves

Shane built the two cabinets for this area himself

Shelves are in, time to stain the trim and the door!
Installing the crown moulding on top of the cabinets.....

....and the fancy trim moulding underneath the cabinets
And now, presenting the final result: our finished kitchen!

Here's how the cookbook shelves turned out. I love them--they are one of the handiest things in my kitchen! This door leads to our laundry room, in case you were wondering.

The final touch--my favorite sign in the whole entire world....and only a little bit true.

So, needless to say....I love my kitchen!!

And now, here I am, all done with this post; and I just realized that I forgot to include pictures of the finished dining room! I am not going back and adding them now, so I will just do another post another time.

Seriously, am I the luckiest woman alive that my hubby can do all this stuff for me?!