The Kitchen Reveal: A Brief History

You guys. It has been 13 months since we started renovating our kitchen. I know. While you're probably imagining us living in chaos for over a year,  it was only bad for about two months. Once our countertops and cabinets were in we were able to use our kitchen it just wasn't as pretty. Throw in some delayed contractor schedules and you know having a baby and now I'm here to say it is DONE.

There is a lot to cover so this reveal is going to spread across a couple different posts. Before we get to the (shocking) before and afters, I wanted to take you down memory lane for a bit.

So a little backstory about our house (which you can read more about here), it was built in 1930 and the kitchen hasn't been updated since probably the late 40s / early 50s. There have been two official owners before us: the original owners who lived here until 2008 (the last 20-30 years of them owning it their kids used it as a rental property after their parents were gone), and then the person we bought it from who had also been using it as a rental. It's actually really cool that the homeowner history is so short because we were able to learn a lot about the original owners. The ex-husband of the woman we bought the house from actually lives across the street from us so we were able to get the scoop! San Antonio can be SUCH a small town. 

The husband was a carpenter and built all of the kitchen cabinets. However, he and his wife must have been short because the counters were pretty low, the toe kicks were almost non existent, and the upper cabinets came down really low. But because it was a custom kitchen, it came with lots of really cool storage features for its time.

See how low the upper cabinets come down? The countertops are only about 18" deep (standard is 24") so they are literally in your face if you are trying to use the counters as prep space when cooking. The wood countertop on the opposite side is only 13" deep. So strange.

As you can see we were not hurting for storage. However we seriously never opened those top cabinets until demo day. I was so afraid of what we would find inside ha. The entire wall of cabinets just felt so visually heavy and covered up so much of the window with shadows. 

The original recess for the fridge was clearly for a much smaller 50s refrigerator. Which we thought about just getting a cute little Smeg fridge which would fit perfectly. The previous owner left an apartment sized fridge which stuck out about 6" into the walkway. And broke about two weeks after we moved in. 

The oven wall had ample storage with built in dividers for cookie sheets. However while the stove was modern-ish, the oven was very vintage. Neither of us had seen an oven like this. It was about 20" wide (it literally wouldn't even fit a cookie sheet or a turkey). And we had no idea if it worked or not. With it being gas, we didn't even want to try. So we knew this side would have to be renovated very soon.

Why yes that IS a door to the master bedroom. Why you ask? We have no freaking clue. Our bedroom came with a door from the hallway, a door to the second bedroom, and a door to the kitchen. Oh and two closet doors. We knew that we wanted to close that in ASAP and start to rework the layout of the kitchen. 

This is a view from the laundry room looking back toward the kitchen to help get your bearings. Look at how far that fridge sticks out!

When we had the kitchen and laundry room floor replaced before moving in (which you can read about here and then about how we cleaned it here) we took this as an opportunity to also have the oven / stove millwork removed and the door to our bedroom closed in.

We made it work this way for three (!!) years. There wasn't a dishwasher so everything had to be washed by hand. The countertops were 2x2 ceramic tile which were impossible to clean. The wood countertop on the opposite side had paint peeling up which was even more impossible to clean. 

We replaced the broken fridge and used its nook for storage. We did the best with what we had, until we could save up enough money for the full renovation.

Here are some photos of the custom features. Which honestly would have been really cool if they were new and clean, but they were filthy with decades of grime and I feared putting our clean dishes in them ha. Can we also talk about how intense these hinges are?

The top drawers all had dividers for silverware, and then pull out boards which I originally thought were cutting boards, but then saw on an episode of Leave it to Beaver that they were actually pull out surfaces to mix things and have more prep space. Fancy!

None of the cabinets had backs so there were always bugs coming in from outside through the (many) cracks which just totally grossed us out. Most of the magnet closures were broken so the doors just stayed open all the time. This was a very classy joint.

The upper shelves on the opposite side were kind of cool, but the dimensions made them very tricky. They were about 6" deep and 9" tall so they didn't hold much other than glasses and bowls.

After demoing the original stove/oven wall we bought a new freestanding oven to match our new fridge and configured the appliances like this, which wasn't ideal but it worked for the time being. 

You can really see just how shallow those lower cabinets are, look how much the fridge sticks out. 

Fast forward to the summer of 2017 when we decided to have our foundation replaced. They ended up cranking up our house 7" which is why you'll see a ton of cracks in the walls in some of these photos. We had left the house one morning while they were working because it was so loud and freaking Geoffrey out, and when we came back the upper shelves next to the fridge were literally hanging off the wall (with everything still attached ha!) So we immediately took the shelving down (which by the way was hanging on by one screw and about 40 years worth of paint) and knew it was time to renovate the kitchen. 

Stay tuned for Part II of our kitchen renovation saga where I'll share the design plans and inspiration for our new kitchen.

How To: Make 5 Paneled Doors the Easy Way

So before we dig in, I feel like I need to give you a little backstory on the door situation in our 1930 bungie. As I've mentioned before our house has had two owners. A sweet little family back when it was originally built and then it was sold and used as a rental for 40 years. So yes it's only had two owners, but having four decades of renters means this sucker is full of cheap (lazy) bandaids and weird quirks. When we moved in all of the closets and two of the rooms had original single panel solid wood doors. 

One to the bathroom:

And one to the guest room:

There were two flimsy builder hollow core doors that looked like they were straight out of an apartment. 

One to the kitchen from the master (I know. Midnight snack anyone?):

And one from the master to what is now Olivia's nursery (ooo shiny 90s gold hardware):

There were also two accordion doors. Yep. 

A super gross fabric/vinyl one from the nursery to the laundry room (think those accordion partitions from the 70s that divided classrooms in elementary school. Oh and it was covered in paint): 

And a shiny plastic one from the hallway to the master bedroom:

When we first moved in we immediately removed all of the accordion doors because 1. they were filthy, and 2. we were not about to try and move furniture through 18" openings. Removing the door to the now nursery (then office) wasn't a big deal at all because it wasn't a true bedroom yet. However, removing the door to the master bedroom meant that we ended up not having a bedroom door for almost 5 years (!!)

Why did it take so long? Well first of all we rarely have guests so this project was not at the top of our todo list. Second of all, we had such a hodgepodge collection of doors and we eventually wanted to replace them all with 5 panel shaker doors that matched which was pretty pricey. After looking around at Lowe's and Home Depot a couple years ago, if you wanted a solid core 5 panel door it was a custom order and started at around $300 a door. Woof. We started looking at architectural salvage stores to find some we could refinish but even those started at $100 and still needed to be completed stripped and refinished from decades of abuse. Double woof. Also, having an old house means that your door openings are all different widths, that tend to be on the smaller side. Ours range from 31" - 34", which are not common door widths so it was like finding a needle in a haystack. 

So Derek had planned on building all of the doors in our house instead. He made the barn door from the laundry room to the office/nursery, and it turned out just gorgeous. However, Derek is a busy guy with lots of fabrication products on his plate and it was going to take some time to squeeze four more doors into his schedule, so I was getting a little desperate. 

A few weeks later after going to our neighbors' house we saw that they had new beautiful 5-panel doors and we were all "where did you find these?" and they were all "we cheated". So after picking their brains a bit, they explained that they just bought single panel solid core doors from Habitat Restore and added in the horizontal slats to make their own 5 panel doors. Duh. So we headed over to Habitat Restore and picked up our own single panel doors in all of the sizes we needed. Luckily they already had two original 5 panel doors in our sizes, so those were ready to be painted. Phew! We somehow crammed them all into my very small SUV #innercityliving. 

We grabbed some sheets of MDF from Home Depot and we were in business. I measured out each stile to be the same width as the stiles on the premade 5 panel doors so that they would all be consistant throughout the house, which ended up being 4". I had Derek cut the 4" stiles using the table saw, and then I used a Fine Finish blade and a chop saw to do the shorter cuts which would fit each door recess. I was sure to measure the widths of each recessed panel on every door front and back, as some varied from 1/8" - 1/4" on each side (go figure), and I wanted each stile to fit snug within the recess. 

Then came the tricky part. I had to figure out the spacing of each of my stiles so that they were perfectly even and created 5 recessed panels. Rather than frogging around with the math, I used this website where I input the total length of the recess (67"), the length of each style (4"), how many stiles I had (4), and that there were no stiles at the top or bottom of my recess. 

This gave me the exact distance for each stile's centerline which I marked on both verticle sides of the door front and back.

I then measured the center line on both ends of each of my stiles and lined them up with the marks I made on my door.

I double checked the spacing for good measure before gluing them down. Once everything looked good I used liquid nails and a mallet to hammer everything into place. 

Then I used our collection of paint cans to keep everything in place and prevent the MDF from lifting or bowing while the liquid nails cured.

Once all of my stiles were glued down on both sides of all of my doors, I filled in any blemishes with wood filler and then sanded the doors to prep them for paint. We love the look of black doors against our crisp white trim and light grey walls, so I went with my all time favorite black, Sherwin Williams Iron Ore. 

Derek sprayed all of the doors for me because let's face it, I was pregnant at the time. In between each coat of paint I wet sanded the doors to create a nice smooth finish. 

While the doors were drying with their final coat of paint, we went ahead and prepped all of the door hardware. All of the original solid core doors in our house (bathroom, guest bedroom) had the original 1930 butterfly hinges, but were caked in decades of paint. We brought these back to their original patina (I'll do a whole blog post on this method). For the doors that either didn't have hinges (accordion) or had boring builder hinges, we replaced them with matching half mortise hinges that we picked up from our local architectural salvage store for about $20 a hinge. This way everything would look cohesive and true to the original character of our home. For the door handles, we originally thought about finding historic knobs true to the era of our home but in the end decided against it. First of all, they are about $100 a knob and its hard to find enough that match. Second of all, we want certain elements of our home to remain in the craftsman style, while other elements are more modern. I just love riding that line of balance. We picked up several of these Kwikset Halifax Square Door Levers in polished chrome, which bring these classic doors into the 21st century. 

And where is the door to the kitchen for our midnight snacks? That's another post for another time. 

So funny story. After completing this project, now Home Depot sells pre-made 5 panel doors for about $99 a pop that are right off the shelf, no more custom orders. Whatever Home Depot we were tired of waiting on you to get in the shaker door game. We still saved a ton of money though going this route because our Habitat doors were only about $30 a piece. And what a difference they make!  Let's look at a little before and after just to really sell it. 

Yes that is Derek's Architecture Lego collection. He is very proud.

How To: Refresh Your Hazy Tile

So you probably remember me bellyaching about how poorly our kitchen tile was installed when we first moved into our house. AKA lessons learned. So here is a little knowledge bomb about how tile and sealer work according to my manufacturer's rep. When tile is sealed the installer is supposed to wipe away any sealer that gets on the tile because it will literally act like a magnet for dirt, and you will NEVER be able to fully clean it. I mean it will be clean, but it will look filthy. So then what's the point amiright?

That being said, our sealer had been aplied with a mop (and several coats) that not only sat on the tile, but also trapped any grout haze, dirt, footprints (I'm not even joking), and debris that wasn't properly cleaned unerneath the layers of sealer. So in our situation it was a losing battle because 1. the floor actually was filthy (yet preserved under layers of sealer) and 2. it was then coated in sealer which was an unstoppable dirt magnet. 

This is what it looked like fresh after installation and sealer. Notice the grey splotches and general haziness. I know I know its not that bad, but I mean when you want white tile you should have white tile. Oh and this was just the beginning.

After telling my grout rep about our situation he gave us some crazy intense chemical strippers and cleaners which we still haven't tried because the back label is filled with terrifying warnings. Highly flammable, skin irritant, eye irritant, must wear gloves, googles, and a respirator. I'm like whoa buddy this is a scary project. AND we were going to be on our hands and knees with a tiny toothbrush scrubbing each tile. Fun right?

So we kept putting it off, and kept apologizing to guests for how filthy our floor looked assuring them it actually was clean. This went on for two years. You think we're exaggerating like when you go to someone's house and there is a throw blanket haphazardly tossed on their sofa and they are all "oh pardon our mess" and you're all "whatever this place is immaculate", but this is how much dirt had accumulated over these 2 years.

I'll pause while you go and throw up. This tile was WHITE when we bought it. AND this photo was taken after cleaning and steam mopping. 

A few weeks ago I saw an Insta Story where they used vinegar and water to strip sealer and remove grout haze and I was like what.

You guys. This method is no joke.

AND you can breathe it and touch it and eat it (if you want). It's that natural.

Supplies:

• Spray bottle of Vinegar + Water mix (1 part vinegar 3 parts water)
• All purpose cleaner (we barely had to use this)
• Scotch Brite pads
• Paper towels or rags
• Orbital sander

The overall process is pretty simple. You just vacuum and spot clean your floors using an all purpose cleaner to remove any loose dirt and debris. Then you generously spray your floors with the vinegar water mix working in small 2'x2' areas. Place your Scotch Brite pad on your orbital sander and work work around your freshly sprayed area and you will instantly see the dirt and stripper come up like magic. Wipe away the dirty water and voila! sparkling clean floors that look just like they did when you first laid eyes on them. You may have to touch up a few areas once you wipe away the dirty water and can see if there are any stubborn spots that need a little more scrubbing. 

We (Derek) continued this process in rows all around the room and overall it took about an hour. Not too shabby. AND no masks or ventilation were required. And the house just smelled like a salad bar for a while. 

I still can't believe what a difference this method made. You can also do this on the walls or anywhere else you have tile that is either covered in haze or just looking dull in general. I can't wait to try it on our bathroom. Even the texture of the stripped tile feels totally different. 

You're probably wondering how it has been holding up, and I'm here to tell you that we've been living in a construction zone with people coming in with gross shoes and debris falling from walls and they still look brand new sparkly white. Scouts honor!

How To: Modern Gallery Wall

After receiving several questions and sweet comments about our gallery wall, I figured that I should share a little tutorial on how my favorite gallery wall to date, came to be.

Our dining room and living room share a long wall that needed some sort of division. I wanted to break up each room with my art selections, while still allowing for the two rooms to look cohesive. I knew that I wanted a large single piece over the sofa, which meant that I would need something a little different (but still large in scale) to balance this out on the other end of the wall. The solution: a gallery wall. I had toyed with a couple of different options before landing on what it is now.

My friend Lauren over at Copper+Walnut had posted her freshly hung gallery wall on Instagram, and I knew that I wanted something similar for our dining room. I had about a 6 foot wide space to work with, so I sketched out a few ideas, and ended up landing on this:

I ran over to Ikea while visiting Derek's parents and picked up twelve 16" x 20" Ribba frames in black. Which was a feat in itself because that Ikea (Houston) doesn't let you take your shopping cart to your car so you have to carry everything in your blue bags. And 12 large Ribba frames was a bit of a workout. 

You should know that although Ikea markets these frames as a true 16"x20", they are actually 15-3/4" x 19-3/4". Because. Sweden. Which I didn't realize at the time so I had a bit of trimming to do, but we'll get to that later.

I decided to print my photos as 8x10's which let my frames be more mat heavy and created a bit of a minimalist approach to my gallery wall. This allowed me to highlight each photo individually in a smaller format, rather than keeping them large and busy. The Ribba frames come standard with a 11" x 15" mat opening so I ordered custom mats from Matboard & More. 

I went through their zillions of options (seriously, you can get any type of mat there) and set the overall dimension to 16"x20" (see warning above) and the opening to 7-7/8" x 9-7/8". I did this so that the mat slightly covered all sides of the 8x10 photos by 1/8". I could have made this dimension a little larger, but I wanted to see as much of the photo as possible. While my frames would be hung vertically, I wanted each framed photo to have a bit of a museum quality so I also chose to have each opening placed horizontally on a vertical mat and offset the opening to the upper 1/3 of the overall mat (also known as Top Center on their website).

They let you set the dimensions as precise as 1/8" so really the options are endless. Ideally I should have ordered my outer size in 15-3/4" x 19-3/4" and I wouldn't have had to trim off 1/8" off each side of my mats when they arrived. Which if you've ever cut mats, it's pretty tough. 12 mats x 4 sides = 48 total cuts. #math 

When it came time to hang all of my frames I took the overall dimension which was 64" (16" wide frames x 4 frames) and then knew I was going to space everything 1" apart, so I added 3" to that width as there would be 3 spaces between the 4 columns of frames. Then I centered the entire dimension within the space and lined the top row up with the door frame to create a nice clean line visually, and worked my way down the wall. I made templates for each frame using the faux photo included with the frames because it was the exact size of my frames (minus an 1/2" on each side where the frame would be) and with a little bit of math, I placed each template so that it would end up having each frame 1" apart between each column and row of frames. I marked on each template where the hanging wire sat so that I knew exactly where to place each nail without having to make a bunch of random holes in the wall.

With each frame at $9.99 each, and the custom mats at $4.00 each the overall cost for this quick and easy project was about $160. It's such a fun conversation piece when we have guests over, especially with the photos from when we were little. Hello cowlick (this is why I can't have bangs). We choose photos that varied in composition, and I arranged them so that there weren't a bunch with similar scales right next to each other, or three Geoffreys in a row. This really helped the overall gallery feel balanced. 

My parents loved our gallery wall so much that they ended up making a similar one for their front entry and had the mats ordered with the right outer size so their gallery wall took half the time.

What's Better Than an Accordion Door? Anything.

Considering we've made several updates on the exterior of our little Bungalow (read more about them here, here, here, and here), I thought it was about high time I shared some of the updates we've been making inside. Just to jog your memory a bit, let's take a look at how you all remember the laundry room looking. Are you sitting down? And not eating? You probably should have an empty stomach for this one.

Look at everything this room has to offer! We have blood (?) stained chevron carpet. It has a bit of a Missoni feel, don't you think? We also have burglar bars and a cat tapestry on our back door. I so wish that I had a photo of the front of the cat tapestry. Let's just say that it's needlepoint and has two ginger cats on it. One of a kind. We also have an even more unique textured vinyl accordion door from the laundry room to our office.

Why? Because clearly with a 30" wide door opening, a 1970s vinyl accordion door was the only answer. On the other side of the room was a random hollow-core builder door (complete with gold hardware) that led to the master bedroom. On the other side of that room was ANOTHER accordion door. Needless to say we knew we'd be replacing 90% of the doors in our house so that they would all match the look and style of our home (and each other for that matter). 

 We immediately took both accordion doors down, and went doorless for a while. It was just that bad. We went to Home Depot and Lowes to price out what an traditional 5-panel craftsman style door would cost and it was a whopping $200 per door. Ouch. With 10 doors to replace in our house, that was out of the question.

We thought about refurbishing an old door from our local architectural salvage, but those were about the same price and needed a LOT of love. So Derek decided that he would rebuild all of our interior doors one by one. 

The two accordion doors were first on the list (since we were currently doorless). They are also they same size so that made things a little easier.

Note: This is not a traditional door making method, this is just what we did with what we had, and it still resulted in a strong solid core door that fit what we needed for this house.

Derek started with a sheet of 1/2" plywood to make up the middle layer of the door, that was cut down to size. This particular door was 80" x 31". He then used 1x4's for the overall frame of the door. Each piece was milled down to 1/2" so that with the trim, plywood, and other side of trim the total thickness came out to 1-1/2" (the standard thickness of interior doors). 

He then used wood glue and finishing nails to attach the trim to one side of the door. He used clamping cauls to keep everything tight so that it could dry overnight. He then repeated this process for the other side. 

He then repeated this same process for the rails which created the look of a traditional 5-panel door. Once the rail pieces dried, he repeated this for the opposite side as well.

Once all of the trim had cured, he went around all of the edges and filled in any gaps with wood filler, and sanded down any imperfections to create a nice smooth edge around the entire door.

After the door was complete, it was time for paint. Derek primed and painted the door, sanding in between each coat in order to get a nice smooth finish. He ended up doing three finish coats when all was said and done.

With the office already having 3 door swings into the space, we didn't want to add another one, and we also didn't want to block one of the closets when this door was open. We thought about installing a pocket door, but our pantries and other office closet (that room has three closets) made a pocket door impossible. So we decided that a barn door would be the perfect solution. It would be able to perfectly slide against the laundry room and fit nicely behind the backdoor when it was open. Barn door hardware can be pretty pricey so we were pretty excited when we found this set from Home Depot, and the installation was pretty straight forward. We also picked up a nice linear satin nickel pull to match the barn door hardware.

And now for a little before and after-ness. 

I am kicking myself for not taking a photo of the beautiful accordion door from the laundry room side when we did our final walkthrough, but you can pretty much use your imagination on how awful it was.

And no, our tile isn't dirty, read more about that fiasco here. 

Having a door there really makes the laundry room / breakfast nook feel like an actual room. Now we just have 9 more doors to make and hang! ;)