Thursday, June 23, 2011

New Kitchen Finally Finished

I spent all weekend working on completing the new kitchen. Almost 30 hours on my days off, tileing, grouting, cutting and installing crown molding, installing new light fixtures, and sweeping up a ton of white dust from cutting the tiles.  I went thrift store shopping also and found more white dishes to decorate the kitchen, and made a quick flower arrangement for the center island.  Now only a couple more finishing touches such as installing the new cream color electrical plugs on the walls.  I have always liked very formal, cozzy, classic, kitchens, and love the early 1900 kitchens with the dishes around the kitchens.  I think we pulled off some off the look, of some of my favorite kitchen designs.  So now i can picture myself at the end of the counter by the sink working on a new Gnome home.

Now im going a vacation for a couple of weeks Rock Hunting in Idaho, for Fire Opal and Quarts Crystals.  Then hopefully i will be rested up enough and start some new Gnomes Houses.  I hope ya like my new kitchen which we designed and built ourselves, which the final cost for all new appliances, flooring which came to only about $10,000.  I think we got a pretty exspensive look, that looks more like a $30,000 kitchen.  Its not perfect but we had fun doing it, even though we spent every penny on it.























Wednesday, June 1, 2011












If you look at the top of the Hearth the very top piece is the top part of the old center island, and the base piece of the top part of the heart is the bottom piece of the old center island which took almost an hour just to cut it to fit properly.  Plus you can see the sconces on each side of the Heart that supports the plate rack.  All the cabinets still need crown molding.  Plus when we installed the new oven, the darn thing did not work, so i spent an hour on the phone with Sears, and now get to wait a week for a repairman to come fix the brand new stove.  I hope you all like the creative side we are trying in this kitchen.  We are doing it on a very small budget,  Home Depot wanted about $14,000 to order special cabinets and with half the cabinets we purchased now.  We went away from the kitchen design section and say the cabinets they carried in stock for a lot cheaper price, but we had to go to three different Home Depots to buy them.  We only spent about $3,300 on all the cabinets.  Plus we ordered granite counter tops for only $2,800, so our kitchen make over will be only around $6,000.  We also bought top of the line appliances Jenn-Air, but we bought them at Sears scratch and dent center, and found the stove top and oven with only a minor blemish and the normal oven of around $3,000 only cost about $1,100 and the stove top we bought for only $750 in which its around $2500 if i remember correctly.  So we have actually redid our kitchen for cheaper and with new appliances then buying just cabinets from Home Depots Cabinet center.  Ill post more pictures as the work progresses, but it looks like a couple more weekends of work.   So far only two weekends to get this far.  I hope ya all like it so far, i cant wait to have more free time to surf all of your blogs for more inspiration and excitement to start another project.
                                   I absolutely love the look to our new Hearth above the soon to be stove top.  I love a formal look and have always wanted a gourmet kitchen.



         (After) I still need to buy some foam and material and make a cushion to sit on.  The crown molding still needs to be completed.

Before
The pantry area almost completed.  The center part took me about 2 hours to build the wine rack area out of spare parts from the old center island, it almost didn't fit when i was done, but it did.


This pantry is two put together since that's all Home Depot carried, so we will rebuild it to fix a new wall oven.








I have a 20 inch space between the two bottom cabinets which are supposed to be above a fridge, but will become the bench seat area. 
Setting the cabinets in place.Part of the center island i see as the plate shelf on the new Hearth above the stove top area.
We love it so much we want to cover the tile floors we just put in a couple of years ago.
                                                       New Allure Flooring from Home Depot put in and it was very easy and very inexpensive.




New recessed lighting put in and repainted the kitchen.








Taking down the cabinets.
Going into the dinning room from the kitchen and the horrible floor we put in a couple years ago, cant wait to rip it out.


     Ya HOOO buying new cabinets at Home Depot.  We got at a great value for about $3,300.

The Doodle I made that i would like the kitchen to look like.


This is the main front room which i turned into the dinning room since i recently had new carpeting put in and when we moved the grand piano which we got dirt cheap at an auction, the piano was so heavy we decided to leave it in the normal dinning room area, which is now the piano room.  You can see the light oak color Purgo flooring that is going to ripped out also in the dinning room which runs into the kitchen.

The far side of the kitchen that nobody ate in. which we want to put in a pantry area on each side of the window.  I want to also put in a bench seat.





Take a close look at the center island, and the wonderful architectural pieces i cant wait to see if i can use them in the kitchen remodel.

Starting the process of cleaning out the kitchen.

If you can see the back wall under the top cabinets this was a fun thing in which i nailed up rubber mats that looked like stone to give me a quick fun back splash on the walls, but i am now glad to put in real tile or something.

The old kitchen that the house builder put in the home, we didn't have a choice of cabinets when it was built.  I found this bar unit in the middle of the kitchen and used it as a center island.  During the process of trying to design what i wanted in a kitchen i used this center island bar unit and tore it apart piece by piece and am incorporating it into the new kitchen remodel.

This is another spare bedroom that i finished for a visit from my mom, shes only been able to fly up here a couple of times but i wanted her to have a nice room.  I also furnished it cheaper than the red bedroom, the four poster bed was free in which it was missing 2 decorative post at the top in which i made a plaster mold from the good post and recreated the missing posts.  I also created the chandelier for about $10 i went to an auction and bought a box of antique crystals for $2 and then a old light fixture from the thrift store for about $7  and then i drilled alot of holes and spray painted and then attached all the crystals, this was alot of fun for cheap, i also painted the strips on the walls using lots of tape and paint, this was a little harder due to the textured walls.

This is one of the spare bedrooms that i furnished and decorated for about $100 with thrift store finds and yard sales.


I thought i would include some pictures of around the house of different projects Ive worked on, i have many more room in the house i would love to show off when i get a chance to take some more pictures.