Fun with Photoshop

My dad used to dream of the day when we could just literally Photoshop the world around us. Hole in the wall? Grab that rubber stamp tool! Dead limbs on the tree? Lasso and cut!

Anyway, we're not there yet, but...really...so close.***

I can't decide between 2 very different lights for the bathroom and, even thought the bathroom isn't painted, and the mahogany-walnut colored cabinet isn't in place yet, I was able to see into the future!

Well, you know, a very ragged, badly dropped-out, cut-and-paste sort of future:





***Note:Wall color? All wrong. It will be closer to color of dark tile. Size and position of lights? I used what used to be there as a guide. In other words, likely all wrong as well. Brownish-red blob on the right will be the new cabinet. Shut up-- I'm working with a dumbed down limited color palette.

More kitchen decisions

Well, today Adam is plugging away at the particle board countertops, I think. He's down there working, at any rate, and that's our next project.

We're going to need all the help we can get with the granite tile counters, though, so I've been trolling the internet looking for How-To's and Tips.

I found this Reader's Digest article with a lot of detailed info and pictures. And we've already received some tips from Jennifer at Tiny Old House-- much thanks!!

I'm also working my way through the counters section of the 10k Kitchen Remodel blog. The problem I'm running into here is that we're using 12" square tiles and he used much larger rectangular ones, I think. We're also not bullnosing the edge, but rather will choose wood trim to match the cabinets...

And speaking of cabinets, we're also considering new doors. We currently have the red oak standard stock cabinets you can get at any big box store, with that yellowy finish and raised panel doors. They're just not really my style. And, I would have loved to do dark cherry cabinets, but dark cabs, dark counters and medium to dark floors might be a bit too much, even with our bright yellow walls.

So. When we sanded the upper cabinet bases, we found that they are a nice pinkish color naturally-- the "red" of red oak, I suppose-- so we're choosing to clearcoat. As for doors, I found this company: Advantage Cabinet Doors. At $5.25 a square foot for oak, they are wicked cheap, and they carry the shaker style recessed panel doors that I like. They also come unfinished, so we could use the same thing on them that we use on the base. Anyone out there heard of them or used them before? They're cheap enough that I think I'm willing to give them a shot!

Also, I think we're leaning toward this backsplash from M-Boss:



We just have to decide whether to order it already clearcoated or whether to buy it in the mill finish and go through the coating process ourselves...My understanding is that we'd have to oxidize it fist in lye??? If anyone reading this has done it before, I'd love a recap of your experience, and whether you think it's worth doing it... It's a difference of $6.50 uncoated vs. $11.25 coated per panel, and we need around 10 panels if we just do the backsplash area, another 6 or 8 if we decide to fill in the space behind the stove.

I think the shiny aluminum will be a nice way to bring everything together. It will work with the Silver Mist appliances and reflect the green and gold of the Uba Tuba and yellow of the walls.

I might be getting a little ahead of the game here. We should probably focus on one thing at a time, but sometimes, I just can't help myself!

Then again, the best laid plans...

I had a little delay getting started yesterday. Once I got going, I decided to strip the remaining block of wallpaper above the toilet, then I could paint the bathroom, paint the kitchen, and slap one more coat of poly on the kitchen floor on my way out.

Those are small rooms. Simple plan, right?

I should know better.

The wallpaper peeled right off, at first. About 15 minutes into my project, I decided to document this ugly stuff for posterity:



2 1/2 hours, one spray bottle of water, 3 different paint scrapers, one box cutter, one smearing of joint compound, a half a roll of paper towels, and an overuse of the f-word later...



Ta-da!



So I didn't end up having time to paint the bathroom...But on a more productive note, I got one more coat of poly on the kitchen floor, and a coat of Yellow Frost on the kitchen walls:





Now we begin work on removing the particle board countertop, installing plywood, and finally installing the granite tile...Any tips here will be especially welcome, particularly involving laying out the 12" squares!!!

I love it when a plan comes together.

This jetlag business has its benefits; I was up, showered and dressed by 7 this Saturday morning. And our early start yielded a lot of good results.

We chose our base shoe and found the cheapest price.

We picked a red paint for the bathroom: Spanish Tile from Lowe's Valspar red tinted base colors. Also narrowed it down to 2 yellows for the kitchen. We got quarts of each and tested them. I've been left to make the final decision, which I believe will be Yellow Frost from the Waverly Home series at Lowe's. Perhaps tomorrow will yield pics of some painted rooms...

We got the remaining top kitchen cabinets hung:



There's still A LOT that we couldn't solve here...one cabinet simply has to hang a bit lower than the others. Hopefully, we can hang one set of doors a bit lower and one set a bit higher so there's not a huge discrepancy in the door heights.

We got the floor gaps filled; we investigated the kitchen floor crack and it is not NEARLY as bad as I expected. It seems to expand and contract with the weather and isn't something we really need to worry about. Knock on wood.

Then, while wandering around Home Depot pricing base shoe, we found a wall cabinet for the bathroom on clearance (!!!) and I ran across two $35 wall sconces at Lowe's that I like almost as much as the $85 ones from Rejuvenation. Well, with the $100 difference taken into account. I'm still talking myself into needing them in the first place. I just have a completely irrational hatred of the existing bathroom lights.

And last but certainly not least, we MOVED the first van load of our crap.



Now we're getting somewhere.

Yuck!

This stuff is gross...



But it's also miraculous.

See, we have a lot of baseboards that look something like this:



Somebody took off the baseboards and didn't really get everything quite straight when they put them back. This created a number of gaps, up to 1 1/4" between the baseboards and the floor. When there was carpet, it wasn't so much of a problem. Now without it, I can see grass outside through some of these cracks. I like to wave and say hi to the outside when I walk by.

Now. A smart person would simply remove the baseboards and lower them to match the floor and square up with the corners. However, a smart PO wouldn't have done this:



(Excuse the sloppy paint-- we're not done with the trim, yet) So...they didn't bother to remove the baseboards to do the drywall, they just went up to the tops of the boards and stopped. Sigh.

Anyway, just one of the things that has to be added to the list of stuff we can't control. I simply don't have the energy or time to REdrywall the whole house. So we used 5 cans of the expandable spongy goo to fill the gaps. When it dries, we'll trim it and install a base shoe-- actually, a door casing that has a profile mimicking that of the primary baseboards.

I've begun reminding myself that we are the POs for all future owners; they'll be shaking their heads about all kinds of things that we've done out of frustration, exhaustion, and as a consequence of everything that's come before us.

At least now we won't be bleeding money through the floors by running the heat pump with one giant crack running around the entire perimeter of the house.

Oooh, shiny!

Tonight we will choose: a pale yellow for the kitchen...

a red for the bathroom to match the dark red tiles.

Also, while killing time in Lowe's after collecting all these lovely paint chips, I stumbled across a Moen 7 function shower head, originally priced at $50+, now on clearance for $12.50.

Sold.

Back to work

Well, for me at least. Adam finished putting the final coat of poly on the floors this week. I've been in London with my sister, so I just saw the final product this morning. I think they look great. He tells me that there's a crack in the kitchen floor, where some of the boards move. I couldn't see it, but maybe that's just because I hadn't had my coffee yet.

Now, before we move in, we need to:
-secure the kitchen floor boards so there's no more cracking
-put the final coat of poly down on the kitchen floors (It got an extra coat of shellac, so it's one step behind)
-paint the kitchen and
-reinstall and paint the kitchen trim so that we can...
-install the appliances
-begin the kitchen counters and secure the cabinets so that we can...
-begin finalizing the plumbing in the kitchen
-install base shoe over the gap between floor and baseboard and paint the trim in the rest of the house (no more drafts cooling the floors whilst the heat pump works overtime)
-finish packing 10 years worth of accumulated stuff and cleaning 10 years worth of accumulated grime

And I think that's our list for moving in. It's my new year's resolution, I guess. I don't mind working on the kitchen after we move in, but I want to have the appliances available to use. We're broke enough as it is, so we don't need any more excuses to eat out. Replacing the trim is going to be a chore-- the sheetrock is a different thickness than the plaster and lathe, meaning we'll have to trim and shim and jockey the old pieces into place. And with a gas stove and a fridge with a water line hook up, it kind of needs to be done before the appliances are put into place. Or at least, it'll be a ton easier if we do it before. Things like refinishing cabinet doors and some of the countertop tiling can wait. We have a rolling butcher block cart that can suffice as counter for a bit. I was also a little worried about the poly cracking on the kitchen floors, but to be honest, there's so much going on there, that's the least of those floors' problems. We ended up just shellacking over the water stain-- it made it somewhat darker, and it's totally obvious, but I think once we get our island in place and the dark counters installed-- and with all the nail holes and linoleum stains and the runner I use in front of the sink and...well, there's just so many problems, that in the end it seemed silly to worry about the a water stain, albeit a huge one, in an overall "rustic" floor. We'll probably put down thresholds in the doorways to demarcate the kitchen as "different" and "special."

Embracing the Crazy in this house.

Anyway, now that I've had a week away from the house and some general vacation time, and a chance to actually miss this project, I'm ready to get back to it.

Onward and upward, I suppose.

And Happy New Year, everyone!