Kitchen Reno: One Week Down

It's officially been one week (and a day, by the time I'm getting to post) in to our kitchen renovation. Over the weekend, Jamey ordered the exhaust hood and started relocating the duct work. The original kitchen didn't really have a hood, but instead a built in fan with a shelf over it. New plans call for a stainless decorative hood (no cupboards on top).

Today the sheetrock crew comes in and starts repairing. The big mess will get bigger. We left the plastic coverings over everything in the family room. I'm afraid to go home tonight. Elway is lit because he's locked up in the laundry room (the kitchen is his usual day-time hang out spot).

Last night Willa and I made no-bake cookies. They never actually formed balls (we're eating them with spoons), but they're delicious.

Here's what we used:

1 cup oats
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1 cup coconut
1/3 cup ground flax
3/4 cup mini-chocolate chips

Mixed it all together, dished it into a bowl (like chunky granola) and had it with a glass of milk as our night-time snack. Delicious!

Kitchen Reno Day 5

We have lights! We have a BIG mess. Good bye to the sad, old track lights, hello to five bright recessed lights. I can't believe putting five little holes in the ceiling generated enough drywall dust to coat the entire family room. I'm glad I ran home in the afternoon and at least covered up the couches, ottoman and rug with plastic. Still it looks like someone exploded a powdered sugar bomb in the house.

Jamey brought Cam to the pool after his gymnastics class so we could all watch Willa swim for awhile. When Cam and I got home, the electrical guys were hard at work in the kitchen. Then Willa and Jamey came home. There were ladders in front of the fridge and blocking the doorway back to the pantry. I ended up going out the slider and sneaking back in through the garage to at least get to the pantry. Crackers, yogurt covered pretzels and leftover brownies from a catering job I helped with on Wednesday made up the dinner and night-time snack menu.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Kitchen Reno Day 4

The electrician came last night; our first step in re-construction (instead of DEconstruction).  I didn't realize or know that our job isn't that big, therefor he's doing this job AFTER "real" day jobs. He showed up around 4:30 and worked till 8ish. He'll come back and do the same Thursday and Friday. Our make-shift cooking/eating set up still revolves around the location of the kitchen; so when he's here working, making a dinner in any form is not really possible. I've packed most of the foods/daily dishes into the pantry, the refridgerator is still in it's original location, the sink is still functional in it's original spot and the microwave has moved on to a small table directly outside of the kitchen (along with bowls of fruits and boxes of cups).

Since I didn't actually know this was all going to down as it was until about 4pm yesterday, Willa and I punted on dinner. She had swimming at 6pm, we got home at 4:45 and found Andy working away. So we hung out a bit, catching up on homework, then hit Blimpies on the way to swimming. I'm not sure what J & C did, but we found them hanging out downstairs when we got home.

Tomorrow, the recessed lights will get installed, and the wiring for the hanging pendants and under cabinet lighting will go in. The pendants I ordered arrived yesterday, so hopefully they'll get installed also. "Let there by light!" Lighting was a major problem in this kitchen. Daytime? No problem. Two nice windows to the back yard and a giant skylight. Any other time it's a cave. There were two lights left on an old track-lighting set up, no lights over the peninsula, no lights under the cabinets and one light above the stove.  The new plan includes five recessed lights, lights under the cabinets on both sides, lights above the stove and three hanging 10-inch pendant lamps.

Tonight, in order to be prepared for the rest of the electrical, we'll rip out the rest of the counter under the windows. We'll keep the sink in tact for another week. Whew.

Free Pallet Ottoman

I saw a post for a pallet ottoman on Pinterest this fall that consisted of two pallets stacked together with industrial wheels underneath. That looked do-able. Pallets are all over - usually free. I tucked it into my mental 'projects' bucket and randomly thought about it whenever I'd see pallets lying around.

Then, after the Turkey Trot in mid-November, my friend Larisa was helping me finish my barn-wood table. That project didn't take as long as we thought it would, so we decided to tackle the ottoman project. Her idea included padding though - so....

Project: turn an old piece of crappy-wood pallet into a really cool, padded ottoman.

Step 1:
Find a pallet. We found ours for free at a tile shop. Mine is 34 inchs by 35 inches. ($ = 0)

Step 2:
Shore up the pallet. We moved most of the boards from one side (so it was hollow on the bottom). We then used two of these boards to fill in the sides. We wanted all four sides to be solid (the pallet originally had two sides open). We used some left over luan (a thin plywood) on top. The other boards we trashed. Loosing a few boards made the pallet only slightly less HEAVY. ($ = 0)

Step 3:
Install foam. I used 16x16x5 inch foam squares. These were cheaper than getting the big giant foam cut to the exact size. I attached the foam to the pallet with spray adhesive, but I'm not sure this actually did anything or not. I ended up using three squares of foam; I cut the three squares down to size, and used left over chunks to piecemeal the fourth square area.

I'm not sure the spray adhesive did anything to hold my foam to the base or to each other, but I used it generously, anyway.  ($ = $16/per foam square = $54)

Step 4:
I collected old towels and wrapped the wood base/sides. I wanted to soften the hard edges of the pallet base and wanted padding all the way around. I used staples to attach the towels to the bottom and sides of the pallet. After this, I needed something to "tighten" everything up. I deconstructed an old fleece blanket (you know the kind where two chunks of fleece are tied together at the edges?). A single-yard baby-blanket size was perfect. I took one piece and stapled it underneath one edge, then tightly pulled to the opposite side and stapled it down. I took the second piece, layer it perpendicular to the first, and stapled at both sides. This created a taute finish. ($ = 0)

Step 5:
Upholstery. I bought a yard and one fourth in standard width of upholstery. I did not want to sew any pieces together; my pallet size was almost perfectly proportioned to the width of my upholstery. Almost...is the key word. I did not have enough fabric to get completely all the way under the pallet to staple; on two sides I had to staple at the very bottom edge of the pallet (more photos coming to demonstrate). This was OK, except I needed something to finish or cover the selvege edge which now showed at the base of my ottoman. My initial thought was a leather strip, about the size of a belt, attached with upholstery tacks all the way around. I haunted Michael's craft story, JoAnn's fabric, Hobby Lobby and online retailers looking for this material, which apparently doesn't exist. I bought small samples of several other materials (canvas belt material, quilt bindings, etc) with no satisfactory results. In an effort to help me finally get this bad-boy done, my partner graciously offered up his old belts. Four "vintage" leather belts, complete with buckles (for a touch of whimsy) now finish the pallet. We had to improvise the attachment. The upholstery tacks I had were 7/16th of an inch: much too small to go through a layer of leather, a layer of fleece and a couple of layers of towels. We ended up using wide screws to attach the leather belt. Then we removed the actual tack part of the upholstery tack and I  used Gorilla Glue to attach the decorative tack head to the screws. Worked like a charm, except for the heavy amount of glue on my finger tips (which stayed on for about a week before it finally wore away). ($ = $33 [purchased on sale])

Step 6:
I pre-stained and waxed four wooden furniture legs before attaching them. We had some black landscaping mesh (the stuff you put down to prevent weeds from growing up through your mulch) that we used to finish off the bottom (to essentially hid the mess of layers underneath). This is totally unnecessary; this thing is so heavy no one would EVER lift it up to look underneath. ($ = $6 x 4 legs = $24)

I couldn't have purchased an ottoman for this space for what I've invested in my "free" pallet ottoman. Plus, I never would have gotten this perfect color pattern for my space. We've been using it now for the past five months and it's very sturdy; I have a four year that uses it as a launching pad between couch jumping. It's solid, so it never shifts, or moves and it's easy to care for (I just lift the vacuum up and vacuum the top occasionally).

Kitchen Reno Day 3

The $19.99 single burner hot plate is being put to good use. I bought it at Target, mainly because I couldn't think of a way to prepare oatmeal every morning without a stove. Both Jamey and Cam eat it daily. I buy oatmeal in 25lb bags through the North Linn Food Buying Club, and I didn't want to switch over to instant packets; mainly because I'm sure Cam would get hooked on the sugar!

We've enjoyed our oatmeal for two days, and last night, for the UNO game, we even made popcorn on this little contraption. It's much slower to heat than the gas stove we're used to, but it's doing it's job. Willa has requested ownership of the hotplate after the reno. She has visions of getting electricity in the yet-to-be-completed tree house/fort structure. She thinks after hooking her crib up with electricity, she'll be able to put in a mini-kitchen, so she and Will B. can experiment with snack recipes. I'm sure a mini-fridge request will also be in the works.

Kitchen Reno Day 2

I found myself turning around looking for a non-existent towel hanging on the non-existent oven door handle. Silverware is on the dining room table, food is in the pantry, microwave is in the family room. Craziness.

We had toasted bagels for breakfast, grilled cheeses on the George Foreman for lunch and salad with crock-pot veggie lasagna for dinner. Didn't even miss the stove or oven!

Kitchen Reno Day 1

Deconstruction Day.

The day I've been anticipating and dreading. Today all upper cabinets came out. Good-bye to the double ovens, the cook top and convection oven and the thing most likely to be a trash compactor (complete with trash from former owners). So long to the bright yellow and blue Mexican tiles. 

Before demolition this morning I baked a loaf of banana bread and browned some sausage for crock pot pizza soup; my final farewell to the stove top and oven. 

With the help of JP and Larisa, we knocked out our work in about 4 and a half hours. Not bad, considering it included three trips to Habitat for Humanity Restore in good ol' Rusty but Trusty. 

For the next six weeks (or so) we will rely on a grill, an old displaced microwave, our crock pot and rice cooker. I think we'll head out to look for a hot plate tonight. I can't figure out how we can do with out our daily morning oat meal!

Crock Pot Pizza Soup

2 cans of pizza sauce

3-4 cups of chicken broth

chopped onion & green pepper 

mushrooms (sometimes I saute in EVOO before, sometimes I just throw them in)

Italian sausage, browned

Put everything in to a crock pot. Cook on high 4-5 hours or on low 6-7 hours. To serve, put a handful of croutons in the bottom of a soup bowl, ladle in some soup, top with mozzeralla/parmesan cheese mix. Pizza in a bowl!