Kitchen Complete

Annnnnnd, the kitchen is finished! Ok, almost.  A few tiny things lurk in the shadows of David’s to do list like, adjust the doors to align them perfectly and fill nail holes in the crown and toe kick and maybe caulk along the ceiling because the walls and ceiling weren’t built level leaving strange looking crevices perfect for stink bug hibernation.

But, for the most part, she’s complete!

And, oh, how we love this room!

When we were in the middle of the terrible, awful, choking dust from the hardwood floors being sanded David asked me if it’s worth it.  “Ask me in five months,” I said.  We weren’t finished five days and I already wanted to yell, “It was SO WORTH IT.” It may have taken me more like five weeks to be able to hold my eyes open consistently though. 🙂

So remember that hardwood floor lot we got? David figured the square footage and was pretty sure it was enough.  He put plywood underneath some of the cabinets to be safe and it’s a good thing he did.  Check out that TEENY TINY pile of leftover flooring!!!!

Finishing the floor would be the worst part, David told me.  Like usual he was right.  Drywall dust paled in comparison.  The sander was so loud! Late Thursday night we cleaned everything up and he water popped the floor to even out the wood grain.  I’d been mixing and mixing stain samples, trying to get a warm tone that wasn’t too dark or too light or too red or too orange or too yellow. I can’t remember exactly what we used but I think it was something like 5 parts natural, 1 part gunstock, 6 parts cherry and 3 parts early american.  The next morning David put the stain on with an old piece of carpet on the buffer.  It is just shocking to watch color go down.  I always feel goosebumpy, wondering if I actually made the right decision or if we’re going to hate it. 🙂 I was pretty sure I’d gone completely wrong on the floor.  We hadn’t water popped the samples I was working with and even though I did a variety of wood pieces, they all looked significantly lighter than the actual flooring because of the way it took the stain.  It seemed to mellow as it cured though and now that it’s finished, I absolutely love it! It’s so warm and inviting!

That was a rough night.  Zara reacted to the stain and the finish even though we used a water based finish called Traffic (our favorite!). She could. not. sleep in the house.  I was out on the hammock with her for awhile and around midnight I jokingly messaged a neighbor asking if I could come bum into her house for the night.  She said sure! I told her I’d try one more time to lay Zara in her crib and if it didn’t work, I’d come.  Well, Zara actually stayed asleep.  We put towels by the bottom of her door hoping to keep the smell out.  David put one more coat on the floor and just as he got to the back around 1, Zara woke up crying and crying.  He held her til 5 and I took a turn for awhile.  Poor sweet baby.  Saturday morning David put one more coat on, backed himself back into our bedroom, took a shower and crawled out the window since we couldn’t walk on the floor.  The boys were completely enamored!

We spent the day in town to let the floor cure and to give Zara a break from the fumes. That was my favorite part of the remodel. 🙂

From then on, things went so much better.  David began installing cabinets and a huge work group came to help at camp.  From Monday – Wednesday they sent two of the girls to our house to help with the herculean clean up job.  Honestly, I don’t know what I’d have done without them.  The girls on Monday should get medals for bravery.  They walked into a living room that was so full of furniture and construction dirt you couldn’t even walk through it and just tackled it head on.  Pretty much everything on the entire main floor had to be cleaned out.  All the closets got emptied out, but not only that, everything had to be washed.  All the coats, jackets, table linens, bedding … yep, covered in dust.  They vacuumed off the books before putting them back on the bookshelf.  It was slow going, but oh, so rewarding!

Six weeks later we finally found someone who could install the carpet in the living room and bedrooms.  It is so amazing to see the difference it has made in the house!  We extended the hardwood out to the front door and back the hall because that’s where carpet takes the biggest beating.  Since there is no side or back entrance / mud room, all our dirt comes straight in the front door.  And oh, how I love not having carpet under the dining room table anymore! We kept wondering if the kitchen would look smaller with so many more cabinets.  Instead, it seemed to get bigger! It must be a visual illusion because of the height, but almost everyone who walked in was convinced we bumped out a wall and added a couple of feet! I cannot believe how much more efficient the kitchen is.  I put the dishes in from the old cabinets, emptied the dishes and food from the closet in the dining room, brought a few items up from the basement and STILL have room in those cabinets to spare! It’s absolutely amazing! It’s also soooooo nice to have counter space on either side of the stove instead of always worrying that a child will reach up and touch a hot burner.

I still love the white on white.  In a smaller space that so often seems filled to overflowing with noise and dirt and activity, I crave white space desperately.  The warm tones in the floor and silver hardware keep it from looking cold or stark. I’m also loving the texture in the curtains because they make a fun color pop (I should have taken photos on a sunny day because they are actually more of a greenish gold than the mustard color they appear to be on the pictures) and especially because they create a focal point when you walk in the front door.

We are so, so grateful!

And just because everyone loves a good before and after:

Before:

After:

Dwell.

To dwell in peace.  A heart that stays at rest no matter what happens.

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