Oh Boy!

Well today we had a little help.  Our friend Daryl came and helped Kade install a few doors.  Those things are a pain in the butt!!  I'm sure it doesn't help that we're working with an older house!  I was working on painting in the middle bedroom while the two of them were installing doors in the master bedroom.  It was really nice to hear them both blabbing incessantly and laughing all the time  :)  That makes me happy.  (and it REALLY makes me miss our friends!!)

Anyway...Thanks for the help Daryl Gene!

I got the first coat of stain on the kitchen countertop.

It's looking good...oh man, I hope it fits on the cabinets/sink properly :)

Here's a closeup of one of the tongue & grooves.

For some reason I just love that look.

Oh...an update on the Silestone Quartz countertop.

They sent their "chip specialist" (yes, that's really his title, not sure that's a good sign)

out to work on the chipped spot.  I'm not going to lie....

we all agree that now it looks WORSE!!

Now it has a funky gray hue to it as well.

That just looks terrible...

Here's "pre" chip specialist.

I don't know...I'm just not happy with it.

Time to email them again and see what else can be done

So I painted the middle bedroom...one coat...and it looks awful.  I HATE the color.  It looks like a really pale pink.  Sorry, but my walls are no place for pink (maybe for my tank top or flips flops though!!)  I have an old quilt that I want to use in that room...and it's just not going to work with that color...so off to Spickermans tomorrow to get a new color.  I'm thinking something with a hint of yellow.

Are You Kidding Me?

Seriously??  YOU ARE BUSTED!!!  I opened the front door and THIS is what I found looking back at me!  WHAT IS HE DOING?? 

Notice how he's on the bendy ladder?

Yeah, that's the rest of it!!  Folded over the stairs...and NOBODY was there to spot him, or make sure either side of it didn't slip!

But look!  He's just trying out a can light that he bought at Home Depot!

He about gave me a heart attack!!

Here's the kitchen countertop.

Kade got the hole for the sink cut.

He just had to suck it up and do it.

There wasn't really any way to make sure that it was right...

and we still won't know until I stain it, poly it, and move it back into the house!

This is the part that goes by the stove.  We decided to do a butt joint.

It's got biscuits and glue holding it together!

I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that it's all going to work :)

Too Much Blue??

The clutter room is finally painted!  I have to say though....the blue I painted the bedroom, the master bathroom and this room all look almost exactly alike, UGH!  What is up with that??

I can't wait to see the washer & dryer here.  I'm still trying to convince Kade to let me use an old galvanized wash tub for the utility sink.  Don't you think that would be cute?

I still love those two schoolhouse lights...so much better than the utility style pendants we were going to use.  When lit they made it look like you were at the police station being questioned. (not that I have any idea how that looks...just what I've seen on TV, lol)

Pantry side of the clutter room.  It's going to be awesome having so much storage!

I'm going to start working on the wooden countertop for the kitchen tomorrow.  That bad boy is going to take awhile.  All 15.5' of it.  Hopefully it all works out!

Silestone Quartz!! A mileSTONE!

Finally we got our quartz countertop!!  We decided on the color Tigris Sand.  It's kind of beige with whitish bits throughout.  I figured it would be a good compliment to the soft white cabinets.

 

They had to bring it in through the garage....pretty sure that was the easiest way to go.

Here it goes....That thing looked SO heavy!

Wait....WHAT IS THAT???  Ugh.

Turns out they chipped the countertop on the cart when they were wheeling it in.

They tried to fix it...but it's right on the top edge...and I'm sorry, but I just can't pay full price for something that is NOT new (chipped=not new)

Chipped right above the trash cabinet (where the trash cans go) which is also right in the middle of the island...and right behind the sink on the wall cabinets.  So that would also be known as THE WORST PLACE EVER FOR A CHIP!!  Now I'm going to have to email the company and see what we can do about it.  Why.....WHY???

Looking at it from afar it looks pretty good though doesn't it?

Poly - Pretty Poly!

I finally started the final stages of finishing the small pieces of countertop for the mudroom and clutter (laundry) room.  I am having a TERRIBLE time with dust though (imagine that...in a house under construction....there's dust!)  I also got the poly on the hall bath dresser-vanity conversion!  I so can not wait to see that all put together and in place!  We used Helmsman Spar Urethane (actually by Minwax)  This stuff is AWESOME!  But not to be used on everything.  The way I would describe it is a stretchy polyurethane.  You don't get a rock hard finish...so it's perfect for wood that may be somewhere wet...as it will still allow the wood to expand.

 Don't worry....I didn't do a gloss finish on any of this.  The poly is just wet still.

Drawers that need to be modified for the vanity.  Add that to our *to do* list!

I just love the shape of this dresser.  It's going to be so cool when complete!

One Door, One Fix, and a little Paint!

Oh my gosh...I just LOVE our new exterior doors!  They're soooooo much better than what we had before!!  We went ahead and got the 2 panel, to match the style of our interior doors.

 New door to the garage!

EWWWW!  That's the old door to the garage, lol!

 AND

AFTER HOURS

AND HOURS

AND HOURS

of scrubbing....

The grout is charcoal and tiles are CLEAN!

I honestly thought we were going to have to start living in a house with floor that had grout ALL over the face of the tiles!!

I also got the top half of the 1/2 bath painted.

Chocolate brown.

One of my favorite colors.

Staining the Wooden Countertops

Over the past month or so I've been testing a bunch of stain colors, mixtures, with wood conditioner, without wood conditioner, etc. so I can finish all of the wooden countertops.  FINALLY...I think I've got something I like.  First of all

NO WOOD CONDITIONER!!

I just could not get the stain dark enough when I used it!

What I ended up doing was Minwax English Chestnut, Minwax Dark Walnut, and then another coat of English Chestnut.

That sure doesn't look very dark.

There are so many pieces of countertop, lol

That's looking a little better.  I think one more coat of English Chestnut and they'll be finished!

These I actually stained over the course of a few days.

Remember to let them dry FULLY before putting polyurethane on them!

AAAHHHHH!

SO RELAXING!!

CAN WE JUST STAY HERE???

 

PLEASE???

O.k. fine....back home tomorrow...

and back to reality.

A Grouting Disaster!

I swear we are just prone to problems with this house project!  Today we decided to finish the grouting in the 1/2 bath, mudroom and clutter (laundry) room.  Everything was going smoothly....until we were finished.

WHAT IS THAT???  That grout is suppose to be charcoal in color!

We also couldn't get all of the grout off of the face of the tiles!

In our defense, they have A LOT of texture.

It was EVERYWHERE.

And we can't just leave it that way.  We're going to have to figure out a solution to the problem.

(seems like we've been saying that A LOT!!!)

See how "mottled" it looks?

We've obviously done something wrong.

UGH!  So we're home for the night and researching on the internet how to fix this.

Sounds like we may have used too much water when we wiped the grout.

AND...we were trying to do too big of an area at once.

GERRRR!

Tomorrow we are OUTTA here. (runaway, runaway)

Heading to Missouri to pick up our exterior doors.

I think my brain (and body) could use a few days off!!

Trimming out the Farmhouse Sink

After our modification of the farmhouse sink cabinet, we were left with a hole that was cut about 1/2" too wide on all sides.  We figured we could come up with something to "trim" it out.

The sink looks so funny sitting in a hole that's too big.

What we finally decided we liked the look of the most was making a piece of "trim" out of the left over furniture base moulding from the island.  So...it was knotty alder, not soft white.  It kind of pulls the island and the main wall cabinets together.

Here is the FINAL final decision on trim :)  We cut off the top of the furniture moulding, so it included a bead type edge - and then it kind of "hugs" the sink.  This also got us the glaze color that we have on the island as well.  Now it looks like we actually did it on purpose!

Ok, so now we just need to really cut all of the parts and get them glued into place so we can securely set the sink in it's final resting place.

Problem Solved!

O.k., so after a few days of really trying to figure what to do about the sink situation, we've finally come up with a solution.  The precut hole was 30" wide x 6" deep, so we needed to cut 4" deeper and TAPER the sides.

So we taped EVERYTHING off with the green frog tape.  Didn't want to risk scratching any of the painted finish that would be left on the cabinet.

Had to get creative on the side where the dishwasher goes...

we didn't have ANYTHING to clamp our straight edge (ok, so that's a level, lol) to.

We ordered a small handheld router from Amazon.com

This was a GREAT purchase...at least for this project.

The router made quite a big mess...but that's what shop vacs are for, right?

Voila!  Our completed tapered side edge.

Look at what a smooth edge that router made!

LOVE IT!!

PROBLEM SOLVED!

We brought the countertop back in so we could measure out our actual "cut out" for the sink.

Let me tell you...this was nerve wracking!  All I kept thinking was "What if it's not really lined up right!!!"

Ha ha!  Kade had so many wood shavings stuck to his person after this project!

Maybe this made him rethink having that beard??? (yeah...probably not!)

 

Little video of Kade using the router!  Watch your volume, it's kind of loud!