The Kitchen Part II-The Cabinet Doors. . . . .

Cabinet doors. This word still makes me cringe.  I took the doors down on 12/26/08 when I started the kitchen remodel, and they were a nightmare until they went back up a year and a half later! I will sum up the process of the cabinet doors.

Initially our doors were real wood, but they were very thin and had an outdated design.  We really liked the cabinet doors that had a beadboard look, so we decided to cover our old doors with 1/4 inch beadboard, then 1/4 inch trim.  We cut these little door 'covers' and glued the trim on the beadboard for our 19 doors. 

Once we had all of the 'covers' made, I put one on one of the existing doors and it was a little thicker than I thought it would be.  I really didn't like it at all.  So we decided to just get rid of the old doors all together and use just the new part we made.  But they were a little too thin, so we decided to add a piece of 1/4 inch mdf to make them 3/4 inch, which was the perfect width.  So we had to cut 19 pieces of mdf and glue them onto the pieces we had made.  

We are not good at cutting straight lines so we had to do a LOT of sanding to make the 3 pieces level!

 

But when I tried to paint the edges, you could still see the 3 separate pieces no matter how much I sanded.  So I had to cover each side of each door with 3/4 inch iron-on melamine. 

Then we had to paint the doors.

So you can see how this entire process has taken so long.  Not to mention that we were both working and in school full time.  Putting them up was a pain as well but we will get to that next.   

The Kitchen Part I

When it comes to house projects, I tend to underestimate the amount of time/energy/money that the project is going to take. So instead of a couple of weeks and a couple hundred bucks, it turns out to be several months and a thousand bucks or more! The case of our kitchen is a prime example. It has been on my radar since the day we moved in! I did some temporary fix ups to make it tolerable (I couldn’t wake up to that rosy wallpaper everyday without losing my mind!).

(before we moved in)

We painted it green. First a mint green, then a better looking sage.  

(This was the only picture I could find with that color

on the wall! We were set up for Thanksgiving)

But I knew that one day, I wanted to really get in there and fix it up the way I wanted to. So I planned that day for December 26, 2008. I was off from Christmas Eve until New Year’s Day, and the hustle of Christmas was over, so there was no better time to tackle this monster! And I really thought that if I worked from the time I woke up till the time I went to sleep, that I could pretty much finish it in a week! Big mistake! Total underestimation!  Here are the before pictures.

12/26/08

We had already painted it and added a chair molding

when we painted our living room and dining room.

Cabinet doors and backsplash off. The backsplash was laminate that matched the ugly countertops that were off white with pink and blue stripes. 

Cabinets primed and painted.

We painted the backsplash and we added some 

beadboard to the ends of the cabinets. 

 

If remodeling the kitchen only included the base of the cabinets, the backsplash and countertops, this project would have been much simpler.  That part really didnt take me long at all.  It was the cabinet doors that about killed us for a year and a half.  The doors have been such a disaster. . . .

The New Floors and the New Living Room

In 2007, we put down new flooring in most of the house.  The carpet was pretty gross so we were glad to see it go. We chose laminate wood because it was affordable, but still looks very nice and is low maintenance. Here are some before and afters of the living room and hall.

Before

After

These pictures were taken two weeks apart so you can see we were really busy! We added chair molding in the living room and repainted. We also got a lovely "new" leather sectional and ottoman from a yard sale for $325. Ok maybe it has a little wear on it but it was in great condition and its very comfy!!

The next step was to take down the door to the garage you see in the picture above and replace it with an open arched entry way into the future "new living room".  Brians parents moved in with us for a year and converted the garage into a small apartment with a full bathroom and put up a permenant wall in place of the garage door. We still shared the kitchen.  They had just moved out so we were ready to open it up! (Again on knowing our limitations-we thought about putting in the floors ourselves, but we decided to pay someone to do it because we would have surely messed them up! Also we paid someone to put in the archway and add the landing area)

Then we painted, put in carpet, moved the furniture in! It is very cozy and we are so glad to have a nice big living room!

The Master Bathroom

So we started with this.....

Then we painted and lived with this for a while

But in 2008 we started to make some serious changes. To this day, removing wallpaper is absolutely the most loathsome task we have ever attempted.

Then we removed a wall. Well . . .half  a wall

 

Then we took out the old tub, put in a new one (new to us) and tiled the area around it.

The tub, toilet and two sinks were from a newer home that was being

torn down due to structural problems. We bought them all for $100!  

We had to touch up all of the holes we left when we ripped down the wallpaper.

We have really begun to learn our limits when it comes to construction, so we paid someone to do the shower and tile the floor.

And just about a year later, we were done! 

 There are a few other little things we would like to do like change the countertops

and fix the mirror, but we are definitely happy with it for now!!

The Next Chapter

After we bought our home in 2004, we were getting a lot done. We started our bathroom remodel in 2006.  That took so long that we got burnt out and didnt do much again till we started the kitchen in December of 2008.  But it was also around that time that we got serious about school and really got on track with finishing our degrees.  I was trying to get into the nursing program, Brian was going for Computer Networking and we were both working full time. So of course the kitchen got completed in small sections. Very. Slow. Sections.  And pretty much everything else got put on hold.  I will post about the projects we had completed before school but for now, here are some highlights from the past couple of years.
      
 School kept us very busy. I got into the nursing program and started working weekends at the hospital.  This entire bookshelf is filled with my nursing textbooks, notebooks and flash cards! 

My parents renewed their vows in celebration of their

30th wedding anniversary in November 2010.

This is our graduating nursing class at Athens Tech.

We eventually graduated on June 9, 2010 (my birthday!).
I got my associates degree in nursing and Brian got his
associates degree as a network specialist!

Brian's mom and step-dad came into town for the week. It was great to be

surrounded by our family for this momentous occasion!

I took my NCLEX on July 1st and found out I passed on July 3rd! I started orientation as a nurse at Athens Regional on July 25th. And after 12 weeks of orientation (and one week of vacation) on November 1st I worked my first shift on my own! And that pretty much sums up the last year and 4 months!

Vacation pics from Panama City Beach in September!

So now that school is over, and I am adjusting to my new job and my new hours(night shift), the projects are starting to flow again. We have been a little burnt out on the kitchen so we started with some other smaller projects that we have been itching to get to-like everything on the outside of the house! We are excited to be finally getting some of these done. And we are VERY excited just to be done with school and able to spend more time together and be less stressed.

We just celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on 10/26 and are looking forward to our 10th year together as husband and wife. It is exciting to be going into our 10th year and sort of starting the next chapter in our lives-"The Post School Years"! Here are some pics from our little getaway to Helen to celebrate our anniversary!

So let the new house projects begin!!!