With Red's help two days this weekend (8 hours on Monday!) we made great progress on my kitchen cabinet project! It's looking sort of cabin-y isn't it? Having once thought I would build a log cabin, I like the look!
The walls are down the the lath: behind the wood is hollow wall (uh huh -- you know where you might usually find oh, say, INSULATION) and then it's my exterior brick! The wood look convinced me that I want the final look to be very similar to this. The wood is a warmer look than a totally white wall, and it will tie in well with the woodwork on the other side of the room.
We decided to take down that awful white and lemon yellow tile that was the back splash. And that that lead to continuing around the corner to the door. We managed to remove all of the backsplash tile without breaking any of the countertop tile - yay us! During tile demolition I found a penny -- I was very excited (of course I was) thinking that maybe during the 1929 construction, someone dropped it there intentionally for good luck. But no. It's from 1979. Borrring! LOL
We also noted that the ceiling had a cabinet plank attached there... and when that came down the ceiling in that area is without drywall and texture. We've decided to wrap the new call covering up and onto the first foot of ceiling above the shelves. I think that will look fine, and then we don't have to sheetrock and texture a 12 inch area for 8 feet over our heads.
The decision of what to have on the walls as a final product took me quite a bit of hemming and hawing. I considered cork and bamboo -- both beautiful but about $150 and one (both?) of them were special order and a 7 day delay time. Then I wanted OSB with the random woods splintered and pressed, but the oh-so-helpful factory now prints horizontal lines on them for ease of construction. I considered trying to sand them off, but in the end was convinced it would be too much sanding. I also considered, on a neighbor's suggestion, a sheet of faux brick. I was tempted by that, but ultimately wanted a lighter color than that. I was scared of dark red brick!
My final decision is rough cut plywood, in the 3/4" thickness. Using that thickness relieves us of having to put up a layer of sheetrock behind the final material. the 3/4" is about the same thickness as the existing sheetrock that we need to match up with. And, the plywood is roughly $21 a piece and I needed 3 pieces. That's a pretty cheap makeover.
So where we are now is this: All of the wall boards and the two ceiling pieces are cut and they are ready to install. I have them propped up all over my kitchen because we are getting a lot of rain all week this week due to tropical storm Hermine in the gulf... We selected a stain color (similar to what you see in the photo,) and I need to stain them, and polyeurathane them. I chose a semi-gloss poly.
We also got a new piece of butcher block wood to put on the far left there on top of that open cabinet; before it was just a narrow piece on top of the lower cabinet because of the upper cabinet that stuck out; now I can have a full 24" x 24" piece there! It's feeling all really nice and open -- I am pleased.
Also remaining is to paint the bottom cabinets white. I think that will also make a huge visual difference. I guess I will keep the existing hardware -- it isn't offensive and hardware is spendy. I need to decide if i am going to cut out the center of the cabinet doors and put in a decorative center or not...
I need to make the final decision on where I am getting the shelving and shelving spacing -- once I do that the shelving will go up very fast. I am really pleased that I will have new room to put up my magnetic knife strip -- I love that thing and there has been no room in this kitchen to install it! And I may leave a space for my three-tier wire produce basket;I haven't totally decided on that yet. I will have to measure some glasses and vases for height, to figure out shelf spacing. I measured a dinner plate for width, and I think my shelves will be 12" wide.
It's coming along! I am a little stiff today, though...
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