Karen Foley
Lynn Raye Harris
Ellen Hartman
Diana Holquist
Samantha Hunter
Shirley Jump
Dee Tenorio
Jeannie Watt
DIY
Okay, I posted the interview thingie, but now for my regular blog. :) I also have some books to give away, so come play with me and Sarah this week, and Nicola on Friday, as everyone is gone to Dallas and we would like some company. :) So... about my kitchen...
DIY -- three letters that rule my life these days. Do It Yourself. It was the only way we could afford a new kitchen, so that's what we're doing. It. Ourselves.
I am thrilled to finally be getting a new kitchen. I've lived with this one for over three years now, and it's old -- and I do mean old, and I just can't stand it anymore. This is the layout -- as you can see, hardly any cooking or storage space and the appliances are all over the place. Floors and laminate is peeling, everything just always looks dark and dirty, no matter how I clean it, and there's no room to cook or store stuff. Getting pots out of lower cabinets is ridiculous.
So we rolled up our sleeves and by Nov there will be everything new, and I do mean everything. New paint job (I have been scraping down about 3 layers of paint covered on some areas with paneling glue, and on others with 2 layers of wallpaper -- good upper body workout). I scrape down to bare walls. I've done this in all the rooms we've remodeled -- a good paint job depends on good wall prep, and I like brand new walls as a canvas.
There will be new cabinets, Mike's installing them, new countertops (Corian with the molded in sink and the color we chose looks like beach sand -- literally, it's like they took sand and compressed it), new doors, 
new back door entryway, new floor, ceiling, new window (nice box bay), and even a new faucet. There will be an island, extra cupboards and rearranged appliances to form a galley kitchen. The only thing incorrect here is the double sink -- we're having a single basin so it will fit things like cookie sheets and lasagna pans easily. The cabinets have roll out trays, the corner one is a lazy-susan inside and there's even a spice rack and cookie tray cupboard. Heaven.
We're planning to re-tile the backsplash ourselves, putting blue and green tiles in waves (above the sandy countertop) and we'll probably paint some shade of green. Mike's going to build some bookshelves for my cookbooks and magazines, and because Home Depot generously gave us 10% off on our cabinets, I used what we saved to buy a nice microwave/convection oven for over the regular stove.
Finish date, for absolutely everything, no later than Nov 15, and maybe sooner. Mike is going to post a before and after, and I'll let you all know where to look to see it, or post pics here. It will be done. Once I start, I finish. And we enjoy it, anyway -- yes, I know it's sick, but we do. Mostly. Right now I keep the arthritis strength Tylenol close at hand, but I am willing to suffer for this new kitchen after 24 years of apartments and houses with old crappy kitchens.
So... that all said, what's the biggest home or garden project you've done, how did it come out, or do you not enjoy DIY? Share anything you want about working on your home, or what your dream kitchen (or any dream room) would be, and I'll give away these goodies to one lucky poster next Saturday (must be registered here to qualify):
A Samantha Hunter baseball cap
Fascination by Samantha Hunter (signed)
Man with a Past Kay Stockham (unsigned, I mistakenly bought an extra copy)
Prince Baby Susan Meier (signed)
A Burning Obsession Susan Kearney (signed)
Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? Gemma Bruce (signed)
Good luck!
Sam
»
actually...
I just noticed the window, on the left, isn't right either... that's how the old window is now, but the new one will be moved center on the wall (and it's gorgeous...).
Okay, I know, I am obnoxiously excited about this...
Sam
need colour.
ah, you're knitting! ;)
That's one thing I cannot do, though I admire knitted goods. DIYers equivalents are probably paint samples, wood colors, counter materials and colors, how it all blends together... Quilting of course, it would be material and threads...
Will do photos at some point -- right now just have all the "befores" lol -- lotsa ugly walls and what's underneath... ;)
Sam
yup. figured I needed another hobby!
We just bought a new (to us)
Congrats on the new house!
Interesting times, huh? Marriage test? ;)
Dh and I get a long well in projects, maybe even more so than when we don't have any going on -- we both like to be busy, and then we're happy. We also sort of think and work the same way, have the same ideas about how things should be done, and we're both a little compulsive, so it works out.
Sam
In the house that my husband
Hey Kim! :)
Yeah, it is oddly fun, and there's the sense of accomplishment. We both have attraction to old homes so we'll probably never live in anything new, it's just a thing. :) I also hate working with contractors -- you have to do it to a degree, but I wish we could do it all ourselves, since so many contractors are expensive and unreliable.
Sam
Renovations
that's a lot!
What's been your favorite project? Is one of your rooms a favorite?
Sam
Only once
thanks Debbie
The three weeks in August with no countertops and no sink should be interesting for food prep... LOL
Sam
Oooh, great kitchen!
oh, that sounds bad...
LOL on the nickname...funny. :)
No, ours has a few major projects, but really most of it is design/interior decorating stuff, nothing like pulling walls down (unless we opted to). Structurally the house is solid and good, so this is all updating. The yard, well... as much as I have put in gardens, etc at some point we will need to pay for some professional tree service and landscaping, it literally is a jungle out there, and I don't have time to keep it all up.
Sam
Kitchen DIY
DIY-I like!
Hi Cathie :)
Love it when you guys share -- this is always fun. I'm glad I'm not alone in my DIY obsession.
You are speaking to my heart with refinishing, I love it too -- I think it's part of why I enjoy even taking all the walls down to bare plaster, I like to work on original surfaces. We aren't keeping anything old from the kitchen, it's all doing, but I have an old table in the other room that Mike and I did exactly what you describe. It was an old antique, belonged to my grandmother and my mother let us have it because years ago we didn't have anything to serve as a dining room table, and so we took this, brought it down to bare wood, and refinished it, and it's great. Still love it. :)
Other than that, like I said, on the right wall where there are base cabinets, Mike is building bookshelves on the wall there for cookbooks, etc and he's thinking of taking copper piping to make a metal frame for wood shelves, and he might use old maple for that as well - -which isn't refinishing, but it will be building from scratch, and kinda cool. :)
PS -- make sure you register on the site for posting so you can get in the running to win the goodies below! :)
Sam
Looks GREAT!!
hey ani
Thanks! I will definitely share pictures. :)
That wall sounds great -- I've done straight painting, never any of the special finishes, too chicken. ;) I should try it. Maybe on our bedroom.
This is a good time to do it, for a lot of reasons. It will be nice to hit the winter and just have it all done, but also, one of the things that's constantly annoying is making Christmas cookies. I didn't even bother much last year because I just had no room to do anything more than a batch or two -- this year, watch out!
Sam
Christmas Cookies
Hmmm...
Might be an interesting option for a Cigars contest, LOL.
Sam
i like nice marble and big
Kitchens
bathrooms, walls, floor sanding (once)...
The DIY list goes on and on. We tiled our bathroom floors in our old house here in Australia - boy, what a big mistake that was when it cost us about the same as it would have for us to have a pro do it. DIY lesson number one. Over in NZ, we paid a man to come and do it when we revamped the bathroom, and I was happy as a pig in mud. However, we almost always paint ourselves. I find it really hard to hand over money to someone for a job I know I can do well myself, however much I hate it (sore wrists!) With the NZ bathroom, I did rip old laminate wall panelling off the walls to reveal tongue and groove panelling, which was far nicer. I also had to pull down a false ceiling - getting the cross beams down and the nails out of the walls was a Herculean task. Then I had to caulk all of the gaps between the tongue and groove panels so it looked nice when it was painted. Hours and hours and hours... I think if I didn't have anything else to do, if I could stop when I wanted to, and if I didn't have to live in the discomfort and mess of a half-finished house, I could quite get into DIY, however. I worked in the hardware industry before I got into TV writing, and I even ran a DIY magazine for a while. I guess it's kind of in my blood a little... Can't wait to see those before and afters, Sam.
LOL
I know there's something wrong with both of us, and this is probably another reason we get along so well ;) when I nearly swooned at the idea of working for a DIY magazine -- that must have been great. I've often thought the same, that this would be a cool way to make a living, but then it really does become work, with all the associated pressures -- I think I will always own old houses, though (assuming we ever move out of this one) because there's just nothing like fixing up an old house. It's probably close to the work and reward of finishing a book, IMO.
Sam
Hi Sam
That's exactly what I'm doing, actually...
The wall scraping -- at least 2-3 coats of paint, in some cases covered by paneling glue and 2-3 layers of wallpaper, and our family room was even thicker than that. I've done all the walls. It is hard work, but with the proper stripping solution (I use Redi-Strip, which is expensive but fantastic, and DIF for wallpaper) it does come off -- though most walls need two scrapings, then of course filling and smoothing, but I am seriously committed to bare walls. ;)
We're replacing windows as well, but hiring a window contractor to do that; we have, well, a lot, and we're just doing them each a little every year. This year the kitchen is the only one, since the box bay costs as much as several regular double-hungs. But what a difference they make.
Can't wait to hear how you like the book -- and hope you do like it. :)
Sam
Redid bathroom
Dh likes to talk about remodel but....
I am the one that usually starts the process. I love ripping things out. I got so tired of our living room, it's one of those
awful 70's splitlevels. They had a fake planter dividing the stairs and the living room and dark paneling. I seem to get
homes with dark paneling.
Once I started ripping things out he finally helped then had is brother help do the drywall, I painted, learned a few good tips.
We even painted the kitchen, did the kitchen flooring at the same time. My last project was ripping up the carpeting in the
living room. then I painted it with dark hunter green indoor/outdoor porch paint. It looks clean now. Still needs to be
finished up with real flooring but at least that skanky off white carpeting the insane last owners installed is history.
Next project is a toss up, the upstairs bathroom or the basement.
Tracey
DIY