It's not costing us that much... yet?
We have been renovating our kitchen since March....
And please note that when I say WE what I actually mean is THEY....
Don't get me wrong.
I have been doing some of the work.
I pulled the old staples and nails out of the subfloor...
after HeMan Hubby ripped out the ceramic tile, the plywood under that, the original vinyl and the water logged and moldy areas of sub-floor under that...
I helped lay the new flooring...
I mean I held it in place while it was measured and I helped to get the tongue and grooves in place...
Mostly I chose the right color, style and material to use for optimal bang for the buck...
and I went out and bought 43 cases of flooring, loaded them into the van and brought them home.
I helped to lay the ceramic tile on the mud room floor... In a traditional brick pattern that I really like... and I only changed my mind once and that was BEFORE the grout had even begin to set on the first tile...
of course that was AFTER HeMan Hubby and his dad created a mud room from nothing...
Then I painted the family room wall that was damaged during the creation of the mudroom....
and the mudroom and the kitchen where the wall was extended to create the mudroom...
And then I painted the trim work around the door to the mudroom...
I designed it, like I designed the crown molding that isn't crown molding around the family room and breakfast room ...
We just call the door trim Pi....
that's the only way I could describe what I wanted it to look like to HeMan Hubby that he understood...
and the name stuck. Eventually all the doors will have Pi molding... eventually.
Next came the kitchen island...
And please allow me to brag a bit here on not only my design, but HeMan Hubby's excellent carpentry work.
With some give and take and pouting and shouting we arrived at the perfect island for our home...
The reclaimed lumber used to make the island top was cut into beams for a house about 100 years ago... at that time the tree that was used was about 300 years old... My counter top was a baby tree during the Revolutionary War!
Now that is Freakin! Awesome! I wonder if it's haunted...?
Note the dark stained hand scraped flooring.... pretty isn't it?The original planks were about 12 inches wide and 10 to 12 ft long and very roughly hewn when we brought them home from the salvage yard...
HeMan Hubby and his dad had to plane and cut and sand each piece to make them fit together. Then they had to run a metal bar through to help hold them all together along with the dowels and glue... and then they had to create a template from the reclaimed sink... and then cut it out...
Nothing,andI mean NOTHING, went as smoothly as it sounds... maybe because I changed things along the way?
Maybe because the wood was so very well aged? Maybe because that is just how these projects go in our house...
But finally it is starting to come together...as long as I don't make any more changes and HeMan Hubby agrees with the rest of my plans...
So, after many, many layers of a blend of Tung oil and Lemon Oil (wipe on, let soak, wipe off, wipe off, wipe off, let dry, repeat x 5 , 6, 7)
this is what the counter top looks like... all 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 ft by 9 ft....
Isn't it just awesome?
As is HeMan Hubby....
And his Dad...
And me, for designing such an awesome space...
Okay, mainly them, but didn't I do a good job with the wax on, wax off part?
Stayed Tuned for More of our DIY CUSTOM Kitchen Reno project photos and the stories to go with them....
should be real interesting...Yikes!
