Drawer Hardware

I haven't talked about many of the specifics yet of the kitchen, so here is my first. We finally have drawer pulls installed!! It is amazing how it changed the entire dynamic of us using the kitchen. We can actually open one drawer and access what we are looking for rather than starting at the bottom and working our way up to opening the top drawer.

These drawer pulls are gorgeous. They are from Schoolhouse Electric in Portland and we have been eyeing them for a long time. Most of the kitchen has been done on a tight budget, and the pulls were something we decided to splurge on a little. Originally, we were looking at pulls that were similar, but when we got them, the finish was a little too dull. With the dark cabinets, the brass finish needed to be a bit more polished to pop so you could actually see them.

Baby Steps

Now that we feel like we have a functioning kitchen, the rest of it will take just as long, or longer to actually finish. We have been working on installing the light fixture above the sink, and although this was supposed to be an easy task, somehow it took almost three hours. The house was built in 1925, and the majority of the electrical in the house has not been updated. Luckily, there was a fixture in the location we wanted, so we didn't need to run any new lines. The problem was the wiring was so old that it would not cooperate. The wall and ceiling construction is also lath and plaster, so the more we worked to get the connections to hold, the more plaster chipped away. Finally, we have a new light, and another  project for another day will be to fix the plaster at the ceiling.

We have also re-purposed the old ironing board cupboard and made it into a spice shelf. We have matched the countertops with cherry wood shelves and will finish with the same sealer.

Kitchen demo and reconstruction

This has been a big weekend for the kitchen. Everything was ready to be installed and we could finish ripping out the rest of the ugly kitchen!

First to go was the remainder of the kitchen. We took apart the sink and the cabinets and decided to sand the floors one more time without the cabinets in the way. We made the plunge and rented a big sander from Home Depot and it made such a difference. In two hours, the floors were looking pretty good, and surprisingly didn't create too much additional dust. They still aren't perfect, but we are leading towards leaving it a little more scratched since it is Douglas Fir and it will scratch easily always. This way, the new scratches will hopefully be somewhat concealed.

 

By the end of the day Sunday, we had the basics of the kitchen installed. The sink faucet was hooked up and we decided this was good enough for the weekend. The garbage disposal and dishwasher still need to be attached to the water line, but we didn't have those before, so we can live a few more days without them. It's far from complete, but it feels like we accomplished a lot in two days.