And if you were wondering, I did not lay it myself. I actually assisted our friend Juan, who did an awesome job for us! If you’re in the Austin area and need a very skilled handyman, I will happily pass his information along. We have crown molding and a few trim pieces to look at after the holidays.

I knew that I wanted a chair rail  at the top rather than an eased cap, however when I found them at Lowe’s I was concerned that they were going to look out of place – too obvious when next to the modern tile and counter top. Seeing them up now, I think they look great. They make the kitchen  feel polished. They can stay for now.

In just a few hours I will be mixing the grout. I’m hoping the color looks light enough. I wanted something that wouldn’t look horrible if it got dirty, but I really wanted white. I settled for a light gray that I picked up from Travis tile off Airport. It’s what we have in the bathroom and I think it will be a nice compromise between white and not-white.

Feeling very thankful this holiday season for the opportunity to renovate our kitchen. I complain, but I really do love what we’re doing and the people we’ve met along the way.  More updates to come.

Older cabinets have quaint, exposed hinges while newer cabinets have sleek, euro-hinges that are hidden inside the cabinet box. Theoretically, not a big deal, but in reality, it’s a hint that this is not a new kitchen – rather a really nice old kitchen.

I have been thinking about our kitchen cabinet hinges for awhile now. When we got the house they had been painted white – saves time when painting cabinetry to just paint over the hardware. It actually looked nice because our cabinets which are white as well looked very uniform with white hinges. Now that we are stripping the cabinet doors and repainting, I had planned to replace the hinges with a brushed nickle version. After putting a few doors up, I was disappointed with how obvious the hinges were. I could go the white route again, but I’d hate for a couple of cheap looking hinges to ruin all of our hard work.

We have friends who had a carpenter add new frames to the back of the door to allow for euro-hinges and they look amazing – just like new cabinets. This is definilty a possible solution for us, however with 60 cabinet doors it could really blow our budget. I am still going to look into the cost, but I’m skeptical.  Why hasn’t someone invented a special hidden hinge for older cabinets??

Apparently they have! After trying a few searches in Google, I found this awesome video that very well could change my renovating life. I called Rockler Woodworking this morning to put in my order. Next week when we’re in Houston for the holidays I will take a door with me and see if it will work for us. I’m crossing my fingers so tight that it hurts. Even with the steep price tag of $25 for 2 hinges, I still think it will be much cheaper than retrofitting each door, plus the cost of the euro hinge. This could mean very good things for us.

If you can look past the missing cabinet doors and the exposed, cardboard-like drywall, you’ll be able to see how that last cabinet was holding us back 50 years. Add a little trim, crown moulding, new paint, new tile and fixture and this becomes a brand new kitchen.

As for what’s next? A lady knows when to hire out and despite the fact that money will be flying away I can rest assured that it will be minimal, it will ensure quality and it will be going to a good place because I do adore my handyman, Juan.

We’re going to move the vent hood over 6″, the gas line down a few inches, rip out the tile on the window wall/hang up new drywall, and then I can do the tile-over-tile sheets for the rest.

What we’ll have now  is a very modern wall, dedicated to cabinet-to-ceiling subway tiles + chimney style vent hood + window. Yes, we did get rid of storage, but it was the right design/work-flow decision. We’ll have to work extra hard in the neighboring closets to create additional appliance storage.

One way to provide more shelf space is to add a few rungs of exposed shelving to the left of the wall-unit pictured below. These shelves will also help visually tie the two units (upper and lower) together.

pray for me

Their prices were low and they were a pleasure to work with – they even worked around the surprise wood sheeting above our ceiling. There’s always something!

We all know what recessed lighting looks like, but for fun below are  pictures… Cheap light, the best light there is.

Sidenote and a final word on the lighting – I need to figure out a better piece for  the sofa. I would love to find something similar to what was featured at Shabby Slips. Lots of white and neutral colors. I’m tempted to take a stab at it, but am afraid I would like the blank canvas better than anything I could create. Love me some white… One last note on the lighting, I have secret desires in the back of my head to move the location of the front door which would allow for a beautifully symmetric and large living room, and an actual entryway. And the way they position the lighting, it would be prefect for it. It’s just the hassle of moving the door – one day maybe…

So even though we’re looking at the guest room – keep in mind, this is going to be housing our king, platform bed. Don’t mind the dual toned walls… We’re still figuring out paint colors.

I would like to go ahead and hang the rod and put up the curtains I purchased (both rod/panels for around $40 at Tuesday Morning – I feel all of 87 when I talk about Tuesday Morning, but it really is a hidden treasure) but I think I need to dial up my patience only because I’m not sure when the king bed is in the room that it’s going to interrupt the natural width of the window and panels.

In the picture above,  you can see the wall that the  bathroom entrance will be on, and I want to make sure there is plenty of walking room between the bed, the curtains and the doorway.  Just fun home thoughts to ponder…

In the meantime, I’m loving the bedding, the sisal rug that was one of our first joint purchases after our wedding (Crate & Barrel Outlet), the sweet bed I’ve had since I was a little girl, the mod lamp that came from my secret treasure, Tuesday Morning… The room is looking good. I’m still on the hunt of a pair of cheap, matching side tables. Nothing me and my spray paint couldn’t handle though.

On a slow Sunday evening, Will and I decided to take action against our narrow, pocket door entry to the kitchen. No prior research, but we did know that on either side of the door were two supporting beams so we made sure to mark off how large the final width could be. So with a small buzz from our beer and a false sense of confidence, we bashed out a wall of cabinets that stood where our new walk-thru would be…

…then took a reciprocating saw to the wall and removed the pocket door frame. What was left was a jagged wall and a very luxurious entry to the kitchen.

Sweaty and somewhat regretful that we didn’t score the drywall first – The demo was complete!

We hired out to a friend of ours for the rest of the framing and then used our counter top guys to stain the floor. I finished the job just this last weekend by patching up the surrounding drywall and voila! Feels good to have it complete… sometimes we get used to living with half finished projects. Bad homeowners, bad.