After 3 long months of living through a kitchen remodel we are 99% done - I was hoping to show you the before and afters today but since we are waiting for a few pieces of cabinet glass it will have to wait until next weekend. Above is a sneak peek at my beautiful cork flooring and below is a quick peek at the granite countertop.
I have to tell a quick funny story about our granite. Our cabinet maker is also the granite retailer and he sends you to a warehouse showroom where you pick out your actual granite slabs. I first went on my own and picked out this Giallo Tropical as my first choice and a few others as number 2 & 3. A week later Jeff & I went together and the salesman took my paper and led us right to my first choice. Jeff looked at it and said "that would be my last choice!" He didn't like it at all so we browsed the whole store and had them pull out several slabs with the overhead crane into a wide open area with better lighting. He liked my number 2 choice and a few that I didn't like at all but I couldn't decide if I liked them as much as my first choice. So the salesman pulled out the original slab into the open not telling Jeff which one it was and he loved it as much as me. After choosing it and finding out which slab it was he said "I told you it would be my last choice" meaning it was finally his choice too. That guy is too funny :) I've mentioned this before but I spent a good part of January/February painting. Every room but the office & bathroom had some work done. The photo below tells the story of the ceiling, kitchen & dining room. I had to say goodbye to my pumpkin orange (or Harley Davidson orange as J would say) because I was outnumbered in the votes to change it. I left the paint like this and wrote a note about the remodel on the wall before it was covered up by our built in hall tree bench - I always write a hidden note on most building projects for someone in the future to find when they remodel.
The sorrel brown is misleading in the above photo, it actually has coppery gold undertones so I went curtain shopping for the huge dining room window. I found these simple gold panels on clearance but knew I wanted to "doctor" them up a little.
Then I went fabric shopping and found some coppery brown fabric for $2.00/yard on clearance. I came home and immediately recovered the 6 dining room chairs from orange to coppery brown.
This week I finally altered the 4 curtain panels by sewing them together into 2 large panels and adding the clearance fabric to the bottom and to the top with back tabs.
I love how back tabs can make your curtains hang like they are on drapery hooks...
but what I love the most is when you pull them together all tops and bottoms actually line up!
Having all Jeff's tools up in the garage for the remodel made me want to tackle a few extra projects I've wanted to do for awhile. Several years ago we tore down an old house and put up a spec home for sale and I saved a bunch of the doors knowing I wanted to do something with them someday. After seeing this photo on pinterest I decided that after 15 years without a headboard I could put one of my doors to good use.
Jeff was not sold on the idea but I convinced him it would look nice. First, I painted the previously pink headboard wall green to match the other 3 walls and then went to get my doors out of the shed and cleaned up. I discovered that while they were 4 paneled doors they did not have equal sized panels so I decided instead of hanging one horizontally to go vertical and used 3 doors and some of their old trim pieces.
Jeff sawed off the bottom 1/3 of the 1st and largest door for the center section and hung it on the wall - the crooked top was the way the door was and just adds character. Next, we sawed a smaller door in half and hung the two halves on each side of the center door and with a high mattress the uneven panels are hidden giving the illusion they are the same size. We used some of the original trim boards and corner rosettes to cover where the doors butt up to each other and as accent pieces
Finally, we used the thick bottom piece of the center door and the bottom piece of a third door (that was in really tough shape) and cut out bedside shelves as well as hanging one of the original old door knobs and backplates just because I thought it was cool :)
I left the original worn, cracked and paint splattered finish on the doors and just stained and varnished the cut sides of the shelves. I know this style is not for everyone but I made a believer out of Jeff and we both really enjoy the look of our one of a kind headboard. With all my work in the house done it is time to get out to the gardens and enjoy spring...
