Well World I must say its been a long time! So much has happened since my last post that I don't even know where to start. So instead of trying to list all the many many things I'm just gonna make a lot of post over the next few days to try and catch the blog up to date. I have spent the end of the summer trying to finish my kitchen. I had started showing different things on here that reflected a lot of my work in progress, but then once the cabinets, counter tops and painting took over it was so much work that I didn't get a chance to write. Ughh... talking about a exhausting job. But I can finally say that I'm finished and now on to different projects. lol (my kids say no more projects till the first of the year, we will see :)
So basically I had already posted pictures of how I redid my island, that was in a previous post. I took off the counter top, added ambrosia maple planks and added ship lap to the bottom.
Here are a little before photos:
This will kind of give you a idea of what the kitchen looked like previously. I didn't realize just how dark it looked until after I finished. I had so many windows previously that I thought it "seemed" light. Please excuse all the construction, dirty dishes and just crazy mess that you see in these pictures!
So now I can start to show you the steps.
I first knocked all the tile off the walls, this may or may not have been the nicest way to handle tile. I kinda did it when my husband was gone to the fire dept. and lets just say he wasn't the happiest when he came home and saw the Gigantic holes in sheet rock! But no fear, I just grabbed some left over from the attic and cut and used sheet rock screws and replaced it once I cleaned up my mess.
So I was in a rush to get done that day, and this picture is horrible, but you get the gist. 
Ok so here you can see, I have taken away the tired old red, and the wonderful Pot Rack(which is for sale by the way if anyone is interested). I have added old fashioned lantern lights and started to work on sanding the cabinets and whitewashing them to match my island.
So once I finished my cabinets I decided to jump over to the pantry. I loved how I had a huge amount of storage. I didn't want to loose any of that, but hated how my fridge was stuck in the corner and every time I would open the door it would smack the wall! Ugh... I hated it!!! So I decided to try and move the fridge over into my pantry and make it look like a built in. But I wanted it to have a old barn look. So once the hammering and ripping out starts, little helpers will appear. You can see here that Emma Grace decided that she wanted to help bust out some sheet rock.
So then its time to frame back up again. So I go to Lowes, those people I think know me by name now. Help me to make sure I get the right stuff and I frame it back up before he can see the mess!
Alrighty! You ain't gonna believe this, but once I did all this work, I measured for the door on the other side, cause I really wanted one of those nifty barn doors that slide that you see all over pinterest that people make look so easy. Well, guess what? You need a perfect wall for that. No counter top coming down the side, enough wall space to allot for the door to slide back on. It was a Mess!!! I'm so ill thinking I had this all planned out. Well, I kept thinking. I got back on the other side of the kitchen. I ordered my plank tops for the counters. I then pulled my wonderful Ikea Farmhouse Sink out of its box! Yes, I could hear songs singing!
We work all afternoon, cause dang this thang is heavy. I leave for VBS at church tell my hubby not to worry or work on it while I'm gone cause it is heavy. But what does that sweet husband of mine do? He works on it. Trying to have it in and ready when I get home. (and score some brownie points at it!) Well, needless to say I get the dreaded call at church that this has happened!
I can't even begin to explain the words! Do you realize that Ikea is 2 hours away? Do you know how hard I've worked? These and many other thoughts are running through my mind. (Madea, enough said)
Ok, so since I'm at VBS and needing to teach kids, how Christ loved us and how we shouldn't want to murder our husbands in their sleep, I just prayed and said Lord, I'm not sure how this is supposed to turn out, but please help me. The night went ok, I didn't loose it, once I got home I had the sweetest guy, he was just in all honesty trying to help me. But I didn't know what I would do. I had bought this sink back 6mths ago..... This is how awesome our God is. The next day I called the store and guess what? The week before this happened they changed the return policy from 90 days to 1 year?????? Can you believe this???? So me and my mom hop, that weekend, down to Charlotte and pick up and new sink! So I get it back and finally get it installed. Whew!!
Now as you can see in this post, I have got the counter tops in, walls and cabinets finished. The sheet rock has been replaced, but I did hire a neighbor who does remolding to insert the new windows that you see here. They were longer, I ordered those from a building supply company out of Danville Va. that has awesome prices. I didn't want to try that, cause if a bad storm come up and the windows were laying in the kitchen sink, my husband would probably draw the line (hehehe, he loves me!)
But as you can see its all coming together! So next was the tile. I picked out white subway from Lowes.
Didn't really know much about laying tile other than I wanted to try it. So I ask again my neighbor who knows how to do everything. He came by, dropped off his wet saw, showed me by laying 2 or 3 pieces of tile and said call if I got in a pickle. So that night I tried it. It's not no where near as hard as I expected! So the next day, I got it all up!
I was extremely happy with how it turned out!!!
So now to get my pantry fixed, light covers on, do my open shelves and decorate!
To be continued !
See the next post to see how the Pantry turned out!
But this is the kitchen so far!
