One of the most fun parts of a kitchen renovation is knowing that you are going to have a really awesome kitchen at the end of the... experience. With know that, you also get the fun of picking our all the new finishes. My favourite part. Below is a snapshot into what our finished kitchen will consist of. When you get to see it go from this stage (on "paper") to the completed stage is when all the hard work really pays off.
There you have it! Stay tuned for the big reveal... I'm really excited about that one.
What do you think of the finishes we've picked? xo Jena
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It was a combination of not having much paint left from the rest of the house and just wanting to get the cabinets up (fairly desperately at this point), but I did a really great first coat of paint after the primer coat, and that was that. I used every drop of paint we had, and I had just enough to paint everywhere except behind the cabinets. But who needs paint behind the cabinets? Not this girl. What I needed was a kitchen. We were so close at this point to the fun part of actually installing the kitchen. Those kitchen cabinets had been built for three months already. I kid you not. Uh... I may have been a little excited, and probably wouldn't have done that if I were to have foreseen the many days of climbing around cabinets in our basement. And in the laundry room. And in the spare room.
What do you think so far? It's not done yet, but definitely coming together! xo Jena
In a flashback to my last drywalling attempt, we decided that this time we decided we needed some professional help. Our good friend Blake of Blake Richards Construction turns out to be a drywalling wizard. Not gonna lie, he made it look like art while he was doing it. He is also very good at anything construction related... Like installing windows and kitchens. And of course drywall. It was awesome to have a totally gutted kitchen, and then to suddenly have a drywalled kitchen. It felt like the most progress we had since we had started the renovation because the change was so obvious. After the coat of drywall primer, it really looked so much more complete than it had in months. At this point, I would definitely say we were on the home stretch. I could almost taste the glory.
How wonderful was it going to be to have a functional kitchen again. Washing dishes in the bathroom was getting old, and I was VERY ready to be on that final dash for the finish. Yay! What was the best part about knowing your kitchen reno was almost complete? What had you missed the most? xo Jena Trying to do a kitchen renovation, almost entirely by ourselves has been slow going, but in our defense, we've done pretty good. We're trying to keep sane using various methods, which I'm sure will be turning into a future post. A few examples might be wedding crashing, Thanksgiving dinner, and road trips to far away places to pick up semi-important things. In addition to that, I've realized I'm not all that helpful at the hardcore DIY projects. Note to self: keep those small projects going, maybe not so much the big ones... Then again, I did do the insulation all by myself, so maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit!
Totally embarrassed that I made such a rookie mistake, I ran to the bathroom to wash it off before Adam noticed, lathering on the soap and water. Mistake #2, second time around. Again, I realized this mistake the second I run my hands under water. It wasn't going well. After scrubbing for about fifteen minutes, I decided it was time for confession and Google. Confession; only because I needed someone who didn't have spray foam all over their finger to Google the remedy for getting spray foam off their fingers. At least Adam was pretty cool about it, Googled it and let me know that you should definitely not use water, as it sets the spray foam faster. Then some sort of concoction of nail polish remover, pumice, dish soap and tears might help my situation. But probably not. Sweet. So if I can pass on one lesson to you today while DIY-ing, it's that you should not touch spray foam. And if you do, for whatever reason, you should feel better by knowing that you aren't the first person to do this. I'm told it wears off. Kinda like how your skin wears off. I'm hoping that it will be gone by at least Christmas. Happy Lesson Learning! Xo Jena Side note: A day later, hours of picking dried spray foam off my fingers, and five rounds of using Mary Kay Satin Hands treatment, my fingers do not look so bad! (Thanks Ellen!)
The title says it all. This post is how to paint grout. It's really quite easy actually. I'll take you on a photographic journey of the two steps of painting grout. Basically went with a wax on, wax off approach. Just that simple! But first, some background...
Anyways, back to the bathroom tile, it's as easy as slathering on this grout paint with a toothbrush. Don't worry about how much gets on the tile, unless it's a porous time, then maybe just try to get the right grout! But if it's porcelain or glass, have no fear- it's like oil and water. It just wipes off.
I am so happy with how it turned out!
And it was such an easy little project, with awesome results. Have you ever tried to paint your grout? Is that something you would have even thought to do? It's such a great option, especially to freshen up old, yucky grout. Happy Grout Painting! xo Jena
Every day our kitchen is coming together more and more. It's been awesome! We were kind of at a standstill as we needed the door in before we could really progress. So we made a day trip to Calgary to pick up the door (and countertops!!), which meant we could start ripping down the wall guts (drywall, vapour barrier and insulation) as we were a step closer to being able to redo the walls now that the door was where it should be. So the door got installed and for a day we shall have "French doors".... Sort of! The new door is an outswing and the other one is an inswing, and our neighbours are probably scratching their heads wondering what we are doing with two mismatched doors! But it's day by day here. That inswing door will soon be gone, and we can begin patching the hole in the wall and insulate. We went with Roxul insulation, since we have 2x4 exterior walls, and we can get R14 out of that stuff. Definitely better than the 2" itchy insulation we had! When you do it all yourself, it feels like much more of an accomplishment. At the end of the day, you can look back and see what all you've done!
The time has quickly come to pick up the countertops and door, so we are really getting ready to say: "Out with the old, and in with the new!"
The cabinets are all built, except for one that was too big to build downstairs (then bring upstairs) and the one that we need to exchange at IKEA. For those who missed it in a previous post... A 24" pantry somehow turned into a 30" pantry- we need the 24" one. That being said, we are definitely at the messy part of the kitchen renovation! Happy Demolition Days! Xo Jena In between re-doing the kitchen and building a deck, we gotta eat! Just to clear something up from a previous post. I love pickles. I really do. I just don't want my house smelling like them. That is all. So, to prove my love for pickles, I decided to make a post dedicated to pickles and such. And who doesn't love cheese and pickle sandwiches??
Spicy Asian Infusion Pickles
Hope you enjoy these! The pickled delicacies are quite tasty, not gonna lie, and they do add to a killer sandwich. You might have people wondering if you are pregnant, though. Men included.
Happy Pickling! xo Jena
When I started to build a few of the cabinets, I was pumped. Pretty easy to build! They gave you all the pieces to every cabinet in a nice little bag, and I was using every single nail that IKEA supplied you with to secure those backings on. Don't want the cabinets to be flimsy! It was going really smoothly until I noticed that I nailed the cabinet backing on the wrong way on two of the cabinets. Then I remembered. I had used every single nail. You definitely don't want to pull out 25 tiny nails from 1/4" backing. Heed my warning!
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