It seems like we've been mired down by painting. I can only reach so far, I don't do ladders, so Husband had to take time from his more important cabinet fitting projects to finish up what I couldn't. Finally we got the apple green walls in the kitchen finished, I did the final coat of "Toasted Coconut" on the cabinets, and now we're onto a very important step....doing the "dry fit" of the cabinets to see what we'll have to do in order to make them fit back in. We are using the original cabinets that were here when we bought the house, but had to take them out in order to block the huge holes in the wall that was behind them. Also, we had to re-do the 80 year-old plumbing and make room for a dishwasher.
Here's why we're keeping the old cabinets that were on that side (in addition to the fact that I love them). They are made out of real antique pine---the boards are over 12" wide in many places and are much better than many of the new cabinets you can buy today. Unfortunately, we'll have to use new stock cabinets on the other side, but will paint them the same color and hope they blend in. A handcrafted cart/island will fill in the middle.
One issue is that they were more shallow, so finding a sink and dishwasher to fit was a challenge. I finally found a clearance sink that was smaller and less deep, and special ordered an 18" dishwasher that probably was made for an apartment. This way we are able to keep the existing cabinets with just a little tweaking to fit it all back in.
Here's a photo of the "dry fit" when we were finally able to sit the base cabinet in place to see how it will look. That was an exciting moment!
And from the living room, a view into the kitchen and dining room beyond it. You get a good view of that wonderful candy apple green color:
This photo shows the left-hand side of the kitchen with the new (small) black and stainless refrigerator, and the new range with convection oven (something new to us).
The upper cabinets will cover a lot of the green on that wall, and the bases will cover a lot of the orange. I'm not a fan of stainless appliances, but didn't want all black and do like the fact that it looks a bit retro as well as modern. We also choose a stainless light fixture for the ceiling there.
This photo shows the right-hand side with the small dishwasher.
Not terribly thrilling, but exciting in a green-nerdy sort of way was seeing 90 bags of GreenFiber insulation going into the attic. Here we have the carefully disguised workers in protective gear from Jordan Talley's crew (J & W Remodeling in Taylor, Texas).
And another nice surprise...a new pink rose, which I'm fairly sure is an antique/heirloom. So far, I've seen yellowish-white, blood red and pink roses here.
Until next time....Happy trails!
bobbi c.
