76. Downstairs

It's been a couple of months now, but I wanted to share this picture from September 11th.  I remembered to bring a flag with us that weekend, but forgot to pick up a flagpole and bracket.  While I was making coffee, Dave snuck out and rigged up a piece of wire so we could hang it up anyway.  It was a beautiful morning, and we were grateful.

The kitchen has really been coming along, and it is so nice to finally have some color in the house.  It began with this "alcove" just to one side of the back door in the kitchen that has always been a little awkward.  It's kind of shallow, and we've been leaning brooms and mops and kicking off shoes there since the beginning.  My idea was to put some kind of broom closet there, where we could hide the vacuum and maybe even our little barbecue grill as well.

It was Dave, of course, who came up with the idea to put a pair of doors there, so the thing could open up completely.  I love it because it looks almost like a paneled wall!  Right there I've captured the moment when he puts a level up to his work and usually just shakes his head, because it's perfect of course.  We put up shelves already, and plan to put up some pegboard to hang stuff on. I'll wait to show you the inside once it's finished and painted.

Right behind where Dave is standing is a pair of windows that we decided to save.  As I've said before some of the windows in the house are just getting sealed up but these are a couple of the lucky ones.  I put a new sill in a while ago, because the old one was almost non-existant.  We had to remove one piece of trim to get at the sash weight - it needed it's rope replaced.  The others were still fine, and all the pulleys worked ok.  The lower windows came out and got stripped and repainted, along with the whole frame.

Here Roscoe is giving Dave a hand with a little carpentry work on the back porch.  When you need a sawhorse, apparently a boxer will do just fine!  He stood there through 5 or 6 cuts, watching the kitty in the neighbor's yard I imagine.

Here's that end of the kitchen, as it stands right now.  The windows have been put back together, and they open and close just like they are supposed to.  Note the closet doors have some pretty cool handles on there now.  The icky wall and door jamb have finally been primed... yes you guessed it, the next step is paint, and I have picked a color though I won't reveal it just yet.  Also please check out the little vintage Cosco step-stool I picked up at goodwill!

It took me a long time to decide what color I was going to paint the cabinets, but when it was finally time to do the work, this is what I chose.  Each week I would take a couple of cabinet doors home to work on in the studio.  The door on the right has been primed and painted with a flat "Beach Grass".  On the left you can see I've applied a water-based stain they sell for $8 a tube at Home Depot.  Once I got it home I realized it was just acrylic paint, so don't make that mistake!  It gets rubbed on and wiped off to add an aged feel.  When that was dry I went over it with a good urethane varnish.

Along with that I began installing the tile back splash and bar top. Here's the first rows.  The tiles are lovely to me - irregular and chunky and hand made, but I can see why an installer would DREAD this job.  No two are exactly alike in size or thickness, and none of them are square.  It really felt more like an art project than a tile job, but hey, I like that sort of thing.  Dave is surprisingly supportive since he likes things that line up nice and neatly. I worked hard to make sure it wasn't too wacky when it was done

The tile is installed here, and you can see the 'before' color of the cabinets, which was just a bit too ordinary for my kooky taste.

And now for the color I promised.  The cabinets are all painted and the tile is done.  Ain't it purty?  You can also see the nice wooden edge that Dave made for the bar top which I painted as well to match the cabinets.

Here's the view from the kitchen sink, looking out across the dining room. The sun streams in at morning time, it's really wonderful.  We are planning to get a lot of painting done over the holidays - so be prepared to see the kitchen and guest room 100% done very soon!