September 15, 2013

  • Home remodel moving along

    This is what my kitchen wall tile looked like when I started putting it up.

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    And this is what it looks like now that it has been grouted. I should have chosen a grayer grout but I was too lazy to try another store.

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    To give you an idea of the transformation of the kitchen, here are some dishes in the unpainted cabinets.

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    And these are the same dishes in the painted cabinet on the other side of the kitchen.

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    The sink side of the kitchen is nearly done. I like the brightness of the room now. The outlets and floor need changing, and the recess where the fluorescent lights are needs to have the seams mudded and some new lights put in.

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    This recess looks a lot better without the aluminum frame and plastic sheets that used to hide it. We’ll put some nice modern lights in and get rid of the fluorescents.

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    Saturday morning my brother-in-law helped me tear out all the downstairs carpeting. I’m getting the family room ready for painting. Bye-bye, dark paneling. The tricky part will be the rough cedar pieces that “decorate” the chimney wall. I’d like to take them down and smooth, sand, and varnish them. Cedar can be a gorgeous wood.

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    I don’t know why anyone would think rough cedar was attractive.

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    The carpet we tore out was cream colored. However, I found these threads that show the original carpet color back in 1975. Ghastly!

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    Sunday we start painting the walls. The place is going to look so different…

Comments (18)

  • It’s starting to look really nice, Tim. I replaced fluorescent lights with LED — 6 in the recessed area (could have used 4 and it would have still been pretty bright!) and one over the sink –and I love the brightness.

  • Looking good. You should have seen the old carpet that was in our house before we moved to this location. I’ll see if I can find it in an old picture, if I can ever figure out how to post pictures here. It was swirls and leaves in different shades of green. It was wool, and very durable. Not soft at all. The first renters we had after we moved asked if they could take it out and put down new. We said “Sure!”

  • Personally I like the white grout better. I just put the slate tile floor down in the shower at camp. Because of the low levels of light in the shower recess I have decided to install mirrors on two side walls. It will create a bizarre tesseract effect. On the shower wall I plan on creating a waterfall using field stones from around the cabin. It will be very time consuming for sure, but the mirrored walls with go up quickly so ‘m hoping it all evens out.
    The kitchen is looking really nice. I like rough finished wood… at the camp. Not in my home though.

  • The kitcheh is totally renewed and this is well done . I would like having your talents .
    In friendship
    Michel,

  • Looking good! Lots of hard work, but it will be so nice & bright when you are finished :D

  • Looking good! Eww, that orange carpet: I remember it well.

  • looks good and I like rough cedar -but it goes a long way and I would just do one wall.

  • My friend had rough cedar trim and tried painting it – a disaster. She had beams too. Ended up placing molding over the trim and boxing in the beams… The kitchen looks really good! The 70s were notorious for hideous color shag carpet. hehe! At least the former carpet wasn’t a putrid green!

  • You’re doing such a great job!
    Ah, come on…Wouldn’t you just love some ’70′s colored carpet?!
    HUGS!!! :-)

  • Wow… that’s a lot of work. your kitchen is looking good.

  • The tile and cabinets looks really nice :-) . Good job. It will be nice to see everything completed. peace always

  • WOW… so much work, but it’s coming along nicely. The OLD carpet under the new carpet gave me a feeling of de ja vu. I think I may have had some of it in a place back in the day. LOL… Kitchen looks wonderful. Am looking forward to seeing what it looks like when it’s done.

  • Love it. You have so much talent. I like the paint in the kitchen, and the dishes look so much more full of color in the painted part of the cabinets.
    Good luck with the basement. Love to Alicia.

  • I like the white grout, I love your cheery dishes, good idea on sanding the the cedar, rough cedar is a popular wood for mountain men, I guess they don’t have no sandpaper =/ Our house had putrid green shag carpet and all the walls were putrid green, in fact the whole house was putrid green, I think the paper mill gave their putrid green paint to everyone instead of a raise. Good Job Tim!!!

  • Looking great, Tim!

    The only thing I’d suggest is new handles/knobs for the kitchen drawers & cabinets. That will complete your modernization and shouldn’t cost too much. (Maybe a “later” project – as time & budget allow.)

  • Oh…I was gonna’ tell you…I lived in a house with ’80′s carpet…they said “mauve”, I said “pink”. I didn’t like it, but couldn’t afford to change it. Then the flood came. And not only did all the carpet in the whole house have to be replaced…we were displaced for over 6 weeks :-( …and even the walls in the house had to torn out and re-walled. It was wild! Never want to live through that again!

    • A pipe came loose and flooded a couple of rooms of my lake house in TX about ten years ago. That room had to have new wallboard and insulation, and I ran a dehumidifier in the kitchen for months. Flooding is a major pain even if it results in new flooring.

  • That is a lot of hard work.

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