Auction Girl Vintage

Replacing Kitchen Countertops ~ Ceramic Tile to Marble

  

Riddle me this ... if it took me 6+ weeks to prep and paint my kitchen cabinets, why did this week seem interminable?

I suppose it's because I've spend most of the week watching, giving unsolicited advice, and keeping my butt out of the way, so the professionals can get their work done.  And the truth is, I'm not very good at just sitting around while the construction dust piles up, even if they DO clean it up every afternoon.  As is often the case, we're multi-tasking and juggling mutliple contractors, to minimize the amount of time we're without a sink and stove.

Since I needed a task for my idle hands, I took lots of photos of my countertop prep and installation, and I thought I'd share them for those of you who are curious about the process of removing ceramic tile and installing granite or marble tile.  Choosing stone tile instead of stone slabs can dramatically cut the cost of new countertops, leaving some money in the budget for additional upgrades. 

 

MONDAY, DAY 1:  Here's the before photo of the east side of the kitchen, ready for demo:

 

An hour later, all of the ceramic tile had been removed, along with the sink, garbage disposal, and triple wide JennAir cooktop.  The demo guys offered to take the cooktop to the dump for free, but I'm too much of a 70's kid to even consider tossing that much metal in the landfill.  The electric BBQ grill works fine, the two double burner units are only a year or two old, and the down vent fan needs repair or replacement.  I'll probably put this on FreeCycle.com so that someone else can use it as-is or repair the exhaust van.  We're installing a new cooktop with a smaller footprint, to gain about 14" of use-able counter space.

 

 

The tile guys hung plastic to keep the dust in during the demo, making my kitchen look like the set of E.T.

 

 

The ceramic tile -- 23 years old, and original to the house -- was installed over concrete, so it pulled down some good-sized chunks of the wall when it was removed.  I didn't expect the holes to be quite this large, but it really doesn't matter ... we needed to get inside the walls to install additional outlets on both sides of the sink, to add a new switch box, and to pull wires to add track lighting over the cooktop and bar.  You can see there was some water damage to the wood and the particle board next to the sink, but it was very minor and didn't require repair or replacement.

 

 

This is the west wall, which had a small ceramic counter and backsplash.  The tile was easier to remove from the drywall here, so there's much less damage:  we'll cut a small opening to install a second electrical outlet, and then patch the drywall.  The ceramic tile backsplash ran up the side of the cabinet, which is why the wood looks so beat up.  A light sanding, plus primer/sealer and paint is all that's needed.

 

 

TUESDAY, Day 2:  My neighbor Bob is a retired engineer who now does construction and handyman work, so he's doing the carpentry, electrical, and drywall repair for us, and is installing the new sink, disposal, cooktop, dishwasher, and overhead lighting.  He started work as soon as the tile demo was finished Monday morning, and it took him two days to complete the prep work so we'd be ready to have the marble countertops installed.

 

Remember the part about raising the breakfast bar part of the counter?  Bob carefully cut the "old" breakfast bar away from the cabinet and countertop framing, and then he lifted and reattached it with pine support brackets at the new height.  How's that for being green and recycling/repurposing?  The only new wood needed for the raised bar was the 4 brackets, a 6" strip of plywood to create a backsplash behind the stove, and one short piece of 1" x 2" added to the inside of the cabinet for a little extra vertical support.  This photo also shows where wood slats were added to the righthand end of the countertop, creating extra counterspace and the right size opening for the drop-in cooktop.

 

The bar will be topped and faced with black granite, as will the new backsplash behind the stove, which will make for much tidier cooking than when the flat counter extended 14" behind the cooktop.  In the picture above, you can see where Bob added a shim to level the wooden bracket on the right.

 

The bare wood visible on both sides of the lefthand bracket is the ends of the "old" breakfast bar support beams that extended about an inch into the cabinet.  We were surprised to discover those structural supports were not actually attached in any way ... no nails, screws, or glue.  They simply sat on notches cut in the thin sheet of plywood beadboard that makes up the back of the cabinet, and they were held in place by the weight of the old countertop.

 

 

WEDNESDAY, Day 3:  The tile guys came back, wrapped my cabinets in heavy paper, covered the floor, and built a level frame (from inexpensive pre-primed molding strips) around the outside top of the cabinets.  Then they covered the countertop slats with a couple layers of paper, and topped that with metal lath ... similar to chicken wire, but sturdier. 

 

 

Wet concrete was poured onto the paper, and leveled using the molding as a guideline.  The nails holding the molding in place were inserted in the unpainted portion of the cabinets, which will be covered by marble trim.

 

Checking the slant of the base material in the bay window ... it's raised about 3/8" from front to back, to discourage puddling from any oversplash from the sink.  We also keep an old-fashioned dish drainer behind the sink, for air-drying pots and pans, and other hand-washed items.

 

 

Marble tiles have been set on top, and the marble trim is held in place with nails, to prevent it from shifting while the mastic sets.

 

 

Close up of the bullnosed edges on a 12 x 12 tile. 

 

 

Fitting the tile around the diagonal cabinet fronts and the pre-framed opening for the sink took lots of measuring.

 

 

Thursday, Day 4:  One of the tile guys came back this morning to grout the countertop, using an unsanded grout (non-abrasive, so it doesn't scratch the marble).  I was like a kid on Christmas while waiting for him to finish grouting and remove the paper, so I could see how the counters looked on the black cabinets.

 

 

Lookin' good ... though the cabinets need the construction dust removed, and I need to remember where I put the breadboard.

 

 

We wanted as little grout as possible, but both Ray and I were pleasantly surprised to discover we like the grout and the definition it adds.

The marble is whiter than Carrera, meaning it's not nearly as gray as it looks in the photos.  It has lots of large white crystals, and warm amber brown accents in addition to the usual gray veins.  Like all polished stone, it will change color throughout the day, depending on the type and amount of light.

 

T.G.I. Friday, Day 5:  No new photos today, since it's still early.  Bob spent Thursday working on electrical, including installing two new light fixtures, and so far today he's put new plywood bases in the sink cabinet and over the subfloor under the dishwasher, added another outlet, and started the drywall repair.  If all goes well, he should have the cooktop and sink installed this afternoon, so we'll have a functional kitchen again. 

 

The granite guy came out right after lunch, to make templates for the raised bar and the counter next to the ovens.  Those will be installed early next week, as will the dishwasher I ordered today.  I got one heck of a deal on my dishwasher, which will be the subject of a different post.

 

10 Minute Breakfast Room Decor ~ Shop The House & Toss It Together

 

 

 

Nester's having a party, to celebrate the Finale of her fun and funky 10 Minutes To A Room You'll Love series.  She's been sharing tips and fabulous photos of ways to perk up your rooms using what you have on hand, also known as shopping the house.  These little 10 minute spruce-ups are just the thing for taking a room from plain to pretty, which improves not only how our spaces look, but also how we -- ourselves and our families, our friends and our visitors -- feel.

 

 

I've been puttering my way through a kitchen and breakfast room renovation for the past six weeks.  The kitchen is now ready for new countertops, so I've turned my attention to the breakfast room.  Last weekend I hung the wallpaper, and I had my kids pull an old bakers rack out of the garage, where it's been sitting around for the past 22 years.  The rack is a little dusty and rusty, but minus the dust it's perfect for the one space I have in this room for a multipurpose display and storage shelf.

 

 

 

Today I cleaned up the wallpapering mess, mopped the floor, and put the room back together.  When that was done, it was time to shop the house and personalize the baker's rack.

 

 

 

 

 

My before pics are not for the faint of heart.  At the post-Christmas moment when I decided to redo these rooms, serious CHAOS had set in ... the Fly Lady kind of C.H.A.O.S. ... Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome.  Here's how it looked when I started:

 

 

 

 

This is where I put the baker's rack :o)  Right after Christmas, this corner was piled with wrapping paper and packaging, all on top of an IKEA Lack table that is virtually buried.  There's a wallpaper sample taped to the wall, and there are huge ice chests on the table and the counter, because our fridge had stopped working and we had to put everything in coolers while waiting for the part.

 

 

 

 

This picture was taken on Valentine's Day, last weekend, right before I started hanging wallpaper.  The kitchen cabinets have been painted, except for the one above the stove, which has been taken down.  The bakers rack goes on the wall with the arrow.

 

 

 

 

Wallpaper's up, baseboards are painted, bakers rack is in place.

 

 

 

 

Ray and I both enjoy wine, and our stash has been living in cardboard boxes since we started the reno.  Now there's a spot for a few bottles in the kitchen, and an additional 4 cases (yep, 48 bottles, woohoo!) in a wine rack I purchased yesterday afternoon ... I'll be writing about it soon!

 

 

A few specifics about what's on display:

 

 

 

I've been collecting baskets for almost 40 years.  This rattan serving tray was purchased at Cost Plus (aka World Market) in the 1970s, when I was in college, and the cheese plates were purchased at World Market earlier this month.  The sweet little pitcher -- made for FTD florists -- was a Goodwill find for a couple bucks, pulled straight out of a box of unlisted eBay inventory this afternoon.

 

 

 

    A few cookbooks from a very large collection, plus my favorite blue coffee mugs.  These mugs coordinate with the dishes at my office, and are identical to the mugs I use there.  I put them in this basket temporarily, to get them off the crowded kitchen counter, and I'll be taking them to the office tomorrow.  I'll replace them with stoneware mugs, either black or white, most likely from another box of unlisted eBay inventory purchased on a buying trip last fall.           I love this tarnished candelabra!  Ray has cleaned it several times, and this is as good as it gets, which is fine with me ... I love the look of old patinaed silver.  This belonged to my mother, and was purchased in the early 1970s, when I was still in high school (I remember, because she frequently let me play hookey to go junking with her).  Here are a couple more pics for detail:       I love the elegant curves of the arms.              Even the heavy, sturdy base looks delicate.       This picture shows Millennium Park in downtown Chicago.  I have a lot of framed travel memorabilia from trips we've taken, and hope to squeeze a few items into this room and the kitchen.         Check out this fabulous chair!  Yes, the fabric is fuzzy ... it's a very short-haired faux fur.  This is the one item I've purchased especially for the breakfast room (oops, it's the second ... the first was the hanging light in the window).  I went junking for a couple hours yesterday afternoon, and when I saw this chair I simply had to have it.          

All in all, it took about half an hour to pull this look together.  I ran through a couple rooms, grabbed a few things, and then arranged them.  I expect that what's on this rack will change often, which keeps things fresh and interesting.  I'll be hanging more pictures, and I need to install my dimmer switches before putting the switch plates back on the wall.  Lots of great things are in the works, so please drop by again to see what's new.

 

 

 

Kitchen Remodel ~ Breakfast Room Wallpaper Update

Here's the progress on the breakfast room update.  It's looking pretty darned good.

 

Bay window (open kitchen is to the left).  I bought a cool light kit at Lowe's, that allowed me to replace a canister light with a hanging light.  It's an adaptor that simply screws into the exisiting lightbulb socket, and took less than 10 minutes to install.  The drop length of the cord is adjustable, and the glass shade is sold separately.  Total cost approx. $30 (adaptor kit was $19.99, and shade was less than $10.00)

 

 

 

Yikes ... that window sure looks dirty in the sunlight!  The wall with the mural faces the kitchen and family room.  With the upper kitchen cabinets removed, the mural will draw your eye through all 3 rooms, approx. 40 feet.  In the before pics, there was a tall oak bookcase against this wall.

 

 

 

All 3 wallpapers are up, and I love the way the border ties the upper and lower papers together.  The mural is currently up with pushpins, to determine proper placement.  Although it's pre-pasted, it won't stick well to the textured vinyl paper below it, so I'll need to use wallpaper paste.

 

 

 

The window on the left is to the immediate right of the mural.  On this shorter wall, between the window and the laundry room doorway, the upper paper looks very busy, as expected when I chose it.  The idea was to have the pretty wine labels visible in small doses, as an accent, and to cover the rest with artwork or furniture.  I've already put a black baker's rack against this wall, the ultimate justification for having stored it in the garage for the past 26 years :o)

 

 

 

Remember this terrific border paper from my previous post?  It's made by Village, and was discontinued more than a year ago (and, boy, was I unhappy when I found that out at the wallpaper store on Saturday afternoon!).  Last night I found it on eBay, and got a great price on 3 rolls ... woohoo!  This will go up in the slanted soffit area.

 

Still needed for this room: 

 

*  A metallic hanging fixture to replace the white ceiling fan

 

*  A round wrought iron table with wood top (currently used at my office) to replace the rectangular pine dining table.  I'm going to paint the top of that table black, to match the kitchen cabinets.

 

*  Dining chairs:  I plan to paint the current Windsor style chairs black, until I find some other chairs I like that have cushioned seats that can be recovered.

 

*  Bar stools:  2 or 3, for the raised black marble bar we're adding behind the cooktop.

 

*  Window treatments:  something bistro-like, but no definite ideas yet.  I'm going to start looking at fabrics at Joanne's and a couple other places around town.

 

*  Small bistro table and chairs set:  I'd like to put a cute bistro table and 2 chairs in the center of the bay window ... it would be such a great place formorning coffee or a glass of wine, and would add a lot to the overall ambiance of the space.  I'm going thrifting this afternoon, to begin my search for a vintage marble-topped table.

 

*  As you can see, there is no wooden trim on the windows, so I've wrapped the wallpaper on to the drywall "inside" the windows.  I'm thinking of adding some plain trim on the flat bottom portion, where a window sill normally goes.  Nothing fancy, just black painted wood to give it a more finished look, and for added durability.  I've wallpapered my window sills before, and the paper always gets dirty and eventually it begins to lift.

 

 

 

Kitchen Remodel ~ Sneak Peek at Breakfast Room

The tutorial on painting kitchen cabinets is coming soon, but has to wait until I have a bit more time at the keyboard.

Today is Valentine's Day, and of course we're showing our love for one another by working (together, but separately) on the house.

My Valentine's Day project is wallpapering the breakfast room (amen to that!).  It's going to be luxuriously cool, and a fabulously fun place to eat, once everything is in place.

I'm using three papers on the walls -- two prints, plus a border at chair rail height.  Because this room has a coffered ceiling, the walls are a bit on the short side, just 90" off the floor.  And because I'm also using a large mural in the middle of one wall, above the border, I had to tack up a strip of everything to be sure I got the balance and proportions right.  The where-do-I-put-my-chair-rail rule of thumb -- 1/3 of the wall up the wall -- didn't work, as it was just too low to be aesthetically pleasing.  It's going to come up about an inch higher than shown in these photos.

This is a full-wall shot of the paper I'm using on the bottom.   I have this paper on several walls in my family room and entry hall.  It's by Wallpaper Illusions, and is intended to be torn into pieces, then randomly placed, for a faux finish look, as shown here.

The billiards table is gorgeous, but it's not mine ... I couldn't get a clear pic of my family room without a flash, and that made the wallpaper look rust-colored.  This is a stock photo from the paper manufacturer :o) 

Since I've already used the torn/faux finish application in other areas, I'm going to hang solid/non-torn sheets of this paper in the breakfast room, which will tie the rooms together without duplicating the look.

As shown in the first photo (enlarge any photo for detail), this paper has pretty gold highlights, and they show up better without the torn edges in the faux treatment.  The cranberry-and-gold border draws your eye around the room, and it brings out the metallic tones pop in the upper and lower papers.

The wine label print is a medium-weight, lightly textured, scrub-able vinyl, with a variety of shades of gold and bronze.  The paper looks busy all by itself, but will tone down considerably when I place the mural over it. 
 

This shows one of three mural sections.  As you can see, the mural is going to leave just a few inches of the wine label print showing around the edges.

I'll actually cheat a bit and use a different -- much less expensive -- paper beneath the mural.  Do you remember all the $1 per roll paper I bought on clearance at Lowes right after Christmas?  Behind the mural will be a perfect place to use it :o)

There's only one wall (to the right of this photo, with a door to the laundry room) where you'll see much of the wine label print, and I'm planning to put a baker's rack on that wall.  The third wall is a large bay window, and the fourth "wall" is not a wall at all, it's open to the kitchen, over the cooktop.

Above the mural, you can see a sample piece of a wide border that I've had for several years.  Unfortunately, I only have the sample.  I know it came from Lowe's, but they've discontinued their in-stock papers.  I'm going to take it to my favorite wallpaper store and see if the owner can match it for me, or find something similar, as I'd love to use it on the angled edges of the coffered ceiling.  If you look carefully, you can also see the ceiling color, which is a warm and light buttery cream:  it's hard to get a photo of the color, but it shows against the contrast of the cool grayish white primer.

 

One more picture of this gorgeous border.  I'm on my way to the wallpaper store, so wish me luck!

 

Kitchen Remodel ~ Inspiration Photos

I really wanted a blue and white kitchen with a sort of shabby farmhouse look, but it didn't take me long to realize that wasn't going to work.  I even wrote a Blue Monday post about it, called Kitchen Blues.   The kitchen is wide open to the family room, which has cranberry colored wallpaper, rich brown leather furniture, and a casually elegant look designed to make The Smith Men happy.  Cottage-y blue and white wasn't going to work in the adjacent space, so I dug deeper in my clippings and photo files.

Here are some white kitchens that really spoke to me:

 

Crisp and classic, with a touch of romance.  Love the beadboard and the double sinks.  Not sure if this is a marble countertop or a marbelized Corian, but it's gorgeous.

 

 

Open shelves and glass doors look great.  The metal band in front of the glasses is perfect for earthquake-prone California.  I like the towel bar on the front of the sink cabinet.  Don't like the stainless countertops, at least not for my own kitchen.

 

 

Romantic and gorgeous!  More marble countertops, an ultra-deep marble farmhouse sink, and a subway-tile-sized marble backsplash.  With creamy or light beige cabinets, this would work with my family room, but it still feels too light and not-quite-anchored-enough for our space.

 

And then I found Layla's kitchen-in-progress at The Lettered Cottage, and I knew I wanted to paint my cabinets black.

 
Layla's kitchen with plain white walls

 

    
Still in progress ... Layla's kitchen with beadboard and blue walls

 

Black cabinets can go so many ways ... chippy country, authentically aged, sleek modern, French country, townhouse sophisticated, or any combination of the above.  I told Ray I was going to paint the cabinets black, and sand the edges to give them a touch of a country look.  Once I started painting the cabinet doors, I decided against distressing the edges.

 

Here are a few more black cabinet pics I found inspiring:

 

 

Marble countertops, again.

 

 

Sophisticated two-tone look.

 

 

Love the gold letters!  I wish I could remember whose kitchen this is, to give them credit.  If anyone knows, please leave a comment :o)

 

 

This is Gwyneth Paltrow's kitchen.  It's huge, it's black, and it's beautifully designed, but I honestly don't like it.  The colors are too muted and too cool for me.  I like warm tones, not grays.  When you're planning a project, it's important to keep photos of what you don't like, even if you don't yet know why you don't like it.  That's an investment of time that can save you lots of money and frustration.  IMO, this kitchen looks like no one ever cooks in it, and -- to me -- it doesn't look like a fun or stimulating place to cook and entertain.

 

 

Compare this kitchen to Paltrow's:  it's warm, friendly, and casually sophisticated, and looks like a lovely place to cook and entertain family and friends.

 

Coming up ... How To Paint Your Kitchen Cabinets 

 

 

Kitchen Remodel ~ Before Pics

I've been working on my kitchen remodel for the past six weeks, so I guess it's time to post a few pics and start telling the story.  Here's a bit of background:

Our home was built in 1986, and we're the original owners.  We moved in at the end of February 1987.  It's a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom home, with formal living and dining, plus a large family room, indoor laundry room, and breakfast room, about 2400 s.f. total, single story, slab foundation.  The family room, kitchen, and breakfast room run along the back of the house, with the kitchen in the middle, divided from the other 2 rooms with upper and lower cabinets.

 

Looking through kitchen from breakfast room to family room

 

Looking into the kitchen from the family room. 

 

Yes, it's messy :o)  The fridge broke the day before I took these pics, so all of the stuff that had to be kept cold is in two large coolers on the breakfast room table, and everything else is spread across the counters.

As you can see, we have the original builder's "custom" cabinets, which are unstained/unvarnished ash, rubbed with Danish Oil.  That's how they were intended to look, and they needed to be oiled several times each year.  We've talked about replacing them since the day we moved in, 22 years ago, but have never gotten around to it. 

For the past few years, we've avoided the issue because we've been planning to move out of state.  You know what they say about the best laid plans ... my mother died 2 years ago (and I'm still probating her estate), and then my 94 year old father-in-law passed away on Halloween last fall.  Prior to that, we were certain we would move by the end of this year.  Now -- to remain driving distance close to my mother-in-law -- we know we'll be here for another 1 to 3 years.  And the kitchen was making me nuts!

 

 
One side of the kitchen is a U-shaped counter, against the outside wall.  We put in Pergo floors 3 or 4 years ago, and absolutely love them!  The white wooden baseboards need painting, due to Swiffer scrapes and scuff marks.

 

 
More messies, due to the broken fridge (which was repaired, but it took 3 weeks to get the part!).  This large window is bumped out over the patio, and collects a lot of junk.  The sink and tile are original and need to be replaced.

 

  
Dishwasher looks great and works well, but is getting old.  I had planned to keep it, but after working on the kitchen for the past six weeks, have decided to replace it since I'll have a plumber here to put in the new sink and disposal.

 

 
When I took this pic, I must have been trying to hide the coolers on the other side of the counter :o)  The stainless steel Jenn Air cooktop came with the house ... 4 burners plus an electric BBQ grill in the center, with a downdraft vent.  Loved the BBQ (it was so much faster than charcoal), hated the weak vent (which broke several years ago and hasn't been repaired), and we replaced both two-burner units 2 or 3 years ago, due to discoloration.  We're replacing the cooktop with a smaller 5 burner solid-glass cooktop, and are looking forward to gaining a LOT of lower cabinet space when the large metal conduit and downdraft exhaust fan are removed.

 

 
Ugly overhead fluorescent light fixture, though not as bad as some.  It's huge ... you can only see 1/3 of it here.  To hold down costs, it will stay.

 

 
The opposite wall -- from left to right -- holds a pantry, the fridge (love my bottom freezer!), upper/lower cabinets, and a double oven.  The door between the breakfast room and the laundry room is on the far left.

 

 
My original plan for this spot was to add an appliance garage where the free-standing Lowe's cabinet is on the countertop (which we use for bread).  I know that I want to make this countertop contrast with the countertops on the other side of the kitchen, and am thinking about using black slab marble.

 

 
Double ovens, installed less than 5 years ago.  Baseboards are dusty, and I've already started priming the tiny wall next to the oven. 

 

 
Looking through breakfast room from laundry room door.  There's a fabulously huge bay window and a lovely coffered ceiling above the table.  Window treatments, wall decor, and most of the molding has already been removed.  

 

 
Bookshelf is moving out, as is the ceiling fan.  All of these pics are so messy, because I'd started doing some of the prep -- and generally moving stuff around -- before I took the photos. 

 

So ... it's late December and the kitchen is screaming for attention.  I'm tired of the yellow walls, and tired of a cooktop that takes up so much space but only has 4 working burners.  I'm thinking of painting the kitchen walls and ceiling a light buttery cream, to match one wall in the family room, plus the entry hall, the hallway in the bedroom wing, and the master bathroom.  I've been longing for bright white kitchen cabinets, like the ones I had in my previous studio/office.  And I definitely want wallpaper in my breakfast room again ... I LOVE wallpaper and the ambiance it creates.

To kick things off, Ray cleaned out all of the cabinets, to get rid of unused items and duplicates we don't really need.  Three of the four adults in this house are serious cooks (see my What's Cooking sidebar, on the upper right of this page), so we sometimes accumulate an overabundance of kitchen toys.  Once we'd sent the extras to Goodwill, we installed some nifty rolling wire baskets to help keep us organized, and I wrote a Met Monday post about it here.

 

 

While Ray was working on the rolling baskets, I started the Official Research Phase:  digging through my clippings files, looking at books and magazines at Barnes & Noble, visiting model homes, building centers, and kitchen showrooms, and spending lots of time online looking at other people's kitchens.  My guess is that Ray's the only person who was even mildly surprised when I did a 180 and started designing a totally different kitchen than the one we'd talked about.

 

Coming Up ... Inspiration Photos 

 

 

Remodeling Guy ~ Join The Crew

 

 

 

Have you met Tim, the Remodeling Guy, yet?  If not, check out his site ... it's a Daily Must See for fabulous ideas, gotta-have-it inspiration, and friendly free remodeling advice.

 

 

Tim's site is only a few weeks old, but he's being seen in all the right places!  He writes a column for Blissful Home/Blissfully Domestic Magazine, and has already been a guest blogger for The Nester at the Nesting Place, and also for Melissa at The Inspired Room.

 

 

Best of all, Remodeling Guy has some of the hottest eye candy around ... photos that you'll come back to time after time, whether you're looking for Big Picture Inspiration or trying to find the Perfect Little Details to pull it all together.

 

 

Go see Tim, grab a CREW button for your sidebar, and tell your friends to take a look. 

 

 

Great things are happening at RemodelingGuy.net and there's definitely something for everyone -- and every room -- in YOUR house!

 

Metamorphosis Monday & Blue Monday ~ Display Shelf Credenza

Sooner or later-- whether short on inspiration or long on you-just-gotta-see-this -- almost everyone piggybacks a post, taking advantage of the time-saving Two Birds With One Stone approach to blogging.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, and as a general rule I don't much like it.  Despite my Professional Writer quirks, I am herein launching my metaphorical rock toward two Monday targets ... one BLUE bird and one YELLOW butterfly.  Apologies in advance to anyone who feels, as I sometimes do, that I'm getting away with something ;-)

It's here at last ... the first Met Monday, hosted by Susan at Between Naps On The Porch.  To join in the fun -- and for links to this week's participants -- click here.

I'm in the midst of renovating my kitchen, which will be the subject of several future posts.  Today, I want to share a fun project that's inexpensive, easy-peasy, and fully complete.  I wish I could say I thought this one up, but I actually found it over the weekend, while browsing through old deco mags looking for more kitchen inspiration.  The scans are a little grainy, but only if I'm actually wearing my glasses so I can focus :o)

 

Born-Again Bookcase Display Shelf Credenza

Project Photos from 100 Decorating Ideas Under $100, Spring 2005

 

 

Blue Monday fans ... am I the only one swooning over that fabulously beachy turquoise wall?  I love the way the white display shelf and window frames let the color speak for itself.  It may cold outside this afternoon, but that picture simply screams summer!

 

And now, back to the butterfly ...

This project starts with an old, inexpensive bookshelf unit, the kind most of us have sitting inside a closet, in our crafts room, or out in the garage.  The one pictured is a build-it-yourself unit, available at places like Target & Walmart, with a lightweight particle board backing.  You can find this type of shelf in mulitple sizes at garage sales, thrift stores, or even sitting out with the weekly trash in some neighborhoods.

Instructions:

1.  Remove the back panel from the bookcase.

2.  If necessary, patch or repair any damage to the frame, using wood putty or body putty.

3.  Wash lightly to remove dirt and grease, sand lightly (I like the 3M sanding sponges for this type of job), and remove any dust with a tack cloth.

4.  Paint with one or two coats of primer/sealer.  My favorite is Bull's Eye 1-2-3 Water Base Sealer/Primer/Stain Blocker, available at Lowe's.

5.  Paint all surfaces in the color of your choice, with a low VOC latex paint designed for indoor use.  Semi gloss is a good choice for durability.  Add a second coat, if needed or desired.

6.  Insert shelves where desired, and secure with wood screws.  Patch and paint over the screw heads.

6.  When dry, turn unit sideways and add legs.  The ones shown in the photo are threaded metal flanges slipped over 6" threaded metal pipes, available at any building store.  Similar legs can be purchased at IKEA.

 

 

Have a great week, and please come back soon for pictures of my kitchen-in-progress :o)

 

Blue Monday is hosted by Smiling Sally. 

Click here for a list of this week's participants.

Click here for more Blue Monday posts by Auction Girl Vintage.

Metamorphosis Monday ~ Coming January 19

Do you love Before-and-Afters?  Have a project you'd like to share?  Are you looking for inspiration?  Need an extra dose of eye candy?

Susan at Between Naps On The Porch-- hostess of Tablescape Tuesday -- has a new party beginning Monday January 19th ... Metamorphosis Monday. 

Drop by and check it out, it's going to be a fabulous way to start each and every week!