Architectural Hertiage Center's Kitchen Revival Tour

I took this picture before we even finished up the window hardware

 Two weeks ago our kitchen was on the Architectural Heritage Center's Kitchen Revival Tour.  It was so much fun to be able to share our kitchen with around 350 old house lovers.  It was also nice to be able to share how we were able to complete a 100% custom kitchen on a budget as well as share the names of all of the wonderful products and contractors that we used (I have included them below).

While the tour was Saturday, we were invited to a reception and a showing of all the other homes on the tour-they were so gorgeous and inspiring. 

I thought I would share pictures that I took of our kitchen while it was all cleaned up for the tour and finally FINISHED!!!!  We literally finished up installing the hardware on the restored kitchen window 1.5 days before the tour-nothing like a little pressure right before the tour.

Kitchen Resources

Kitchen Cabinets: Dovetail Custom Woodworks

Tile: Reiner Tile & Stone

Plumbing: Gagliasso Plumbing

Marmoleum Floor (Eiger) & Granite (Absolute Black Honed): Paulsons

Back Door (& front door restoration): Willow Classic Woodworking

Drywall: Oswego Dry Wall

Light Fixtures: Rejuvenation

Light Shades: School House Electric

Dishwasher: Bosch

Range: NXR (Costco)

Fridge: Kitchen Aide

Sink: Kohler Anthem

Faucet: Strom Plumbing

Sprayer: Danze

Back Door Hinges/Light Switches/Outlet Plates/Bin Pulls: House of Antique Hardware

Cabinet Latches, Aubrey Fridge Pull & Cabinet Pulls: Restoration Hardware

Cabinet Hinges: Horton Brasses

And an insane month it has been.  The first weekend of April Mr. Ben turned 4 and had a Robot Party to celebrate.  We also had some good friends visit.  Then it was the house tour.  The last two weekends (and week) we have been in California for a family reunion-soooo much fun!  Now we're back to the grind. 

 

We visited our wedding site, McCormick Ranch in Camarillo, CA-such a gorgeous old home and grounds

Not gonna lie, my BFF and I love to coordinate our kiddos outfits.  We need good pix for their wedding someday, right?

Turns out getting a good pic of two 11 month-olds is no easy feat.  Maxwell and Quinny sittin in a tree....

Sibling luv

knees for miles

Dimple!

The Gang in Cambria, CA, just south of Hearst Castle

Watching the Elephant Seals in San Simeon-the weather couldn't have been better

In addition, we just chose a contractor (Red Rooster Remodeling)  for our big remodel project and couldn't be more excited.  I'll have lots more to follow but we basically hired the contractor just for framing, structural and exterior.  We would have loved to hire her for the whole project but it is just not in our budget :(  We met with our architect, Joe (joeswank at gmail dot com) this morning and finalized drawing changes-we hope to have a set of drawings ready for permits in about a month give or take.  We hope to kick off the project in late June when the weather is better.  Less rain = saved money on tarping.

Just a wee bit

Since we had our cabinets painted in our kitchen over a year ago now, things have settled a bit.  With the settling, cracks appeared between the ceiling and crown moulding.

 And it drives me nuts.

So finally (being pushed to finish the kitchen before the imminent Architectural Heritage Center Kitchen Revival Tour) I did something about it.  I ordered some antique white caulking through amazon.  When it arrived, took me all of about 20 minutes to cover up the cracks.  Looks so much better!  Because the  color of the caulking matches the paint so closely, I didn't even bother to paint over the caulking.

poor girl, still smilin' even though she was sick

stinker-never wants his picture taken, but sure likes looking at pictures of himself

Large & In Charge: the Slivers & the Panels

I am doing a follow-up post to our post about the fridge we chose for our kitchen back in June of 2012.  If you can recall, it was quite a process to choose the fridge for our kitchen remodel-the balance between price, form and function is always tough.  So crazy how long ago that was, and how dark our kitchen looks back then.  I never thought of it as dark before our remodel.

Anyways, a reader emailed to ask what we thought of our paneled fridge and if the black slivers on the side of the fridge bother us. 
If you want, the short answer, no they don't bother us and yes, after almost 2 years, we love our fridge.

We debated about painting the "sliver" white with appliance paint but then decided not to as we were fearful that the white appliance paint would be too white as our paint is a creamy white and that people would know it was painted.  It would look cheap.  It would most likely scratch off with the abuse our kitchen gets on a daily basis.  Here is a post about appliance paint from Young House Love.

Anyways, we thought that we would live with the black "slivers" for a while and then decide what to do if we hated it.  I think the reason why it works in our kitchen is that we have black honed granite counters that make it blend nicely in.  If we had white or maybe even light gray counters, I think it would look pretty awful.
As far as the fridge itself, it is great overall.  Holds a sh** ton of stuff in the fridge.  Great for holding big casserole pans.  My gripe, occasionally stuff freeze that are in the top back shelf of the fridge, but maybe I just need to play around with the temp.  The water dispenser that is inside the fridge is lovely.  I still get my cold drinking water without the unsightly (as in it does not go with a historic kitchen-in a non-historic kitchen, they are great!) water dispenser on the outside of the fridge.  We still have ice in the freezer and haven't had to put up with jamming problems that are often present in in-door ice dispensers.  My other gripe-the freezer is small-but we knew this going in.  I also tend to freeze a lot so this would probably only be an issue for people like me.  However, we have a full-sized (our old fridge) kegerator in the basement so I have an extra freezer (which I, of course, manage to fill-although currently I find that homemade baby food, breast milk and the 1/4 cow we went in on with our friends takes up pretty much a whole freezer in itself-wow, that makes me sound crunchy-ha).

While it's no built-in fancy fridge, it gives us a built-in, stream-lined look on a mac n' cheese budget.  Hope that answers the question about the slivers.  As far as the panels, they are holding up great and we haven't had any issues with them. 

One Exciting Week

Last week was pretty great.

We applied about a month ago to be on the Architectural Heritage Center's Annual Kitchen Revival Tour.  ...and we got word last week that we were chosen.

Super old picture, but the window still looks the same :(

Super excited, however, really poor timing for us.  Steve wanted out but I was able to convince him that we could handle this.  We need to finish restoring and putting in the window before the tour as well as tacking the under cabinet lighting in.  Nothing giant, but anything seems momentous these days with two little running around.

Trying to balance prepping for the tour with a busy next couple weeks at work, bidding contractors for our upstairs remodel, cleaning out our attic and, oh, don't forget the kids!

Wish us luck and we hope to see you there!

Appliances: Retro Re-do

IF you remember back to a year or two ago, I agonized over which appliances to purchase for our new kitchen (see here: range, fridge, dishwasher, microwave).  I do not want to even begin to calculate the hours I spent deciding what to buy.



Anyways, I just came across a new retro line of appliances that GE is introducing next month. It's gorgeous and simple.

And priced right...you can get the whole line for under $2500.

The simple lines would work for most retro kitchens.

Here is the price breakdown according to Retro Renovation (where I read the story and took pictures from) :
Retailers set their own prices.
Estimated retail pricing per appliance is as follows:
*bottom-freezer refrigerator, $1,099
*top-control dishwasher, $499; over-the-range microwave, $219
*gas range and electric range, $599

A deal in my opinion!

Don't you just love the cute little clock on the range?

Read more: Breaking News: GE to introduce retro style kitchen appliances in September - Retro Renovation

Another Retro Kitchen

My friend Chris has a stellar 1941 home in Laurelhurst. 

Here's how the kitchen looked when he bought it.

linoleum counters, pretty but a lot of yellow going on and not durable

He writes: The old counters from 1940 were laminate with a coved linoleum toward the back. These 70's or 80's counters were some kind of laminate with the coving removed. 5 years ago we went with all linoleum but there were issues with water damage near the sink. This newest rendition is laminate by Wilsonart. The materials were just shy of $100 and the labor to install was just under $200. I reused all the trim and the original is just under the laminate. They key to making laminate not look like shit is the metal border. No 80's wood

new sexy black laminate

Calling all vintage kitchen lovers

As we continue our purge, I am sad to part with our 1940s montgomery ward vintage metal kitchenette.  It is so pretty and we really wanted to use it in our basement but our plans have changed (Steve wants a bigger brewing set up) so it appears that we no longer need this.  Here is my Craigslist posting as well as photos in case you are interested. 

I have a 1940s cast iron kitchen sink top and metal cabinet set for sale. This was made by Montgomery Ward but there is no stamp cast date that I am able to find. Comes with a nice faucet as well and a vintage towel bar.

My husband and I bought this a couple years ago to use in our basement kitchenette but plans have changed and we are no longer able to use it. I am so sad to part with it because it is awesome! There are two minor filled chips on the front of the sink and one of the metal pulls is missing, however, the cabinet door is still fully functional. It has been stored in our dry basement and we purchased it from a couple who used it in their kitchen up until they sold it. It is really clean as my husband just spent about 3 hours yesterday cleaning it and removing all the old caulking. Serious offers only. $450 Cash

Dimensions:
Drawer and Door set: 24 1/8" wide
Drawer set: 17 3/4" wide
Sink bank: 54" wide

36" tall, 39" tall to back splash part of sink
25" deep to top drawers and sink, lower cabinets are 23 1/4" deep

We also have this guy for sale.   I have an awesome upper kitchen cabinet for sale. Probably 1910-1920. The large lower panes are glass but have been painted over. We really wanted to use this when we remodeled our kitchen but it didn't work out in our layout. It will be gorgeous with a lil elbow grease and fresh coat of paint! 54 3/4" H x 59" W x 10 1/4" D

Chalk It Up

One of the things that I really like in our new kitchen is our chalk board wall-so much fun.  It's right at the top of the basement stairs

 

The other cool thing that I discovered is that it is even somewhat period appropriate to have a chalkboard in a 1913 home.  In Duchscherer & Keister's Bungalow Basics Bedrooms, they state that "a nursery featured in The Craftsman magazine in 1905 proposed board-and-batten walls with a blackboard installed between the battens, so that the children could be free to draw in chalk."

How'd we do it?  Well, I really wanted the chalkboard to be magnetic as well so I picked up a  can of the magnetic primer.  Recommended having it shaken at a paint store just before applying so I did just that.  Then applied 3 thin coats with a foam roller as the can suggested. 

Next I painted on a coat of the chalkboard paint with the foam roller again.  One coat covered it well.
I managed to get a couple splatters on the newly painted wall-oops!  Even with taping edges-still need to fix that.

So after all of that, I rubbed an even layer of chalk over the entire board as it recommends "priming" it with chalk so that remnants of writing or drawings aren't left behind with you erase.

 Then I tested it out.  Magnets are a big 'ol fail.  Even the super expensive heavy duty ones.  Oh well, waste of $15 for the can of primer.  Luckily, I already had the chalkboard paint from a gift I had made someone so the whole thing only set me back $20 after buying a box of chalk and an eraser.  

But the chalkboard paint is awesome and we love it!  Guess you can tell we are having a girl!  And today was Ben's first day of preschool (sniff, sniff-I didn't cry though and luv the school we chose for him).

 But I didn't stop there.  I wanted another chalkboard area that was hidden from the masses.  A place I could write down dinner ideas/grocery list/to-do list-whatever.  Without being overwhelming and out in the open for all to see.  Enter space on door of spice cabinet.  I was thinking of painting it with the chalkboard paint but it pained me to paint over the freshly painted cabinets and possibly wreck them.  My friend, Stef had some leftover repositionable chalk roll.  I decided to give it a try.  And it is pretty awesome.  The brand of hers is "The Board Dudes"-I think she said that she got it from target.  I like it so much that I may get some of the chalkboard contact paper-$7 for an 18"x6' roll on amazon-it has 4.5 stars. 

The only annoying part is that a lot of chalk dust is on the floor after I write on that big chalk board or erase, even though I bough a "dustless" eraser.  however, I hear that has a lot to do with the chalk you buy and I only purchased super cheap stuff from Ikea so when I use this all up, I will try a different brand.