Swapping

The weekend before last I finally did a whole bunch of craiglisting and swapped all kinds of furniture. I sold two storage ottomans(men?) and threw in the cushions I'd made for the top because the person who came for them seemed to like them so much. I sold an IKEA bureau that just had camping gear - all that went into the shed. I sold a sideboard and a bedside table, also from IKEA, neither of which had a place to go anymore. And finally our very tall IKEA hutch. Oh, and my old camping backpack. I can't tell you how good it was to clear all those things out!!

Before: this corner of the kitchen used to be a workshop, with all the tools and supplies for the renovation.

Then we bought a new hutch in a vintage style I like so much better, and a glass door bookcase that now holds all my yarn and some spillover fabric. I'll probably post that later once it's sorted out. The new hutch is similar in style to our china cabinet that holds all my fabric, I would guess 1930s, which seems to be my favourite decade for design.It's nice little details like this handle that I like so much:Then we bought the new IKEA Fusion table and chair set, which luckily matches the hutch since the wood finish on the hutch is very nice and I wouldn't want to paint it. So now our kitchen nook is almost done!

The lamp on the table was a family yard sale find, there's a pair of them and I just need to find glass lampshades for them.

It's basically done, but someday we'd like to replace the sliding doors (that don't slide very well), the ceiling fan and the dusty old stucco on the ceiling. The Fusion set is great because the chairs curve around the table and it doesn't take up much room. I didn't care for the black seat covers, so I replaced those with a striped aqua and white fabric that I bought at the Textile Museum Yardage sale.

I was trying to pick a fabric then noticed this one matches the curtains perfectly, hurray!

Speaking of which, I can't tell you how much great stuff I found at the Yardage sale, but to paint a picture, I looked like a bag lady who lives on a bicycle on the way home. I had huge tote bags sort of wedged and tied to the baskets at the back. Most of it is in the new bookcase so you'll see it then...

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Kitchen fan

Thank you for the shelf comments, they really cheered me up! This weekend we finally put up the fan back up over the stove, and I can't tell you how happy I am about it. When I say "we" I mean Bradley because I did very little aside from finding screws and washers, picking them up when they fell, and holding the fan for a few minutes. Also saying things like "wow, it looks so good", "do you want me to leave you alone now?" and "I can't believe you finished that bit already". The latter because it was much more difficult than expected.

The problem in the first place is that given the height of the cabinets and the hole in the wall where the fan used to be, there was a new gap between the two. Otherwise the cabinets would have been too low on the wall and too close to the countertop. This is the kind of thing that makes installing your IKEA kitchen tricky.

So first Bradley used finishing panels to construct a box that would be the shelf. Finishing panels are just big flat pieces from IKEA that have the same finish as the door fronts so that you can attach them to the sides of your cupboards so that they match. So dad-in-law helped cut pieces to size with his table saw. That was a few weeks ago.

Then after assembling the box, Bradley had to move the entire row of cabinets (they hang on a rail) a tiny bit to the left to fit the box in, then back again so that it was snug. This involved taking everything out of all the cabinets. Then finally an extra hole was needed in the wall for the fan to fit in place and then the fan was attached onto the new shelf.

This is sort of what it looked like before (I took this picture before the countertop was installed). The fan was sitting between the stove and countertop since it was still attached by a power cord. It was in the way, was accidentally scorched when I turned the wrong burner on one day, and was generally driving me nuts.And this is the fan finally back in place! With an extra little shelf that I've decided to put our Denby Blue Linen baking dishes on. I just need to do a little caulking and paint touch-ups. And in case you're wondering we don't usually have a blue jug of peonies on the countertop, I went out and picked them specially for the photo shoot. ( I guess without the fan there the countertop was looking kind of bare). I love peonies and was thrilled to see two bushes grow up this spring, one in our front and one in the backyard. Such a luxury after condo living.

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Playing house

These lilies of the valley showed up in our backyard. They last very well if you pick them, and with only these three the kitchen smells lovely!

We took a long break after the main part of our kitchen renovation was done and for the past few weeks we haven't done much at all. But there are still lots of finishing details to do (you know, minor things like baseboards). Recently we've been starting to get back into it and I finally cleared out all the paint and tools that were in one corner. If you're pausing in your renovation I recommend it. It's worth trouping out to our shed to get a paintbrush in exchange for a (sort of) tidy kitchen again.
Today I filled the big bare wall in the eating nook area (we're nook people) with shelves from IKEA. They're just plain white ones, rather than something charming and countryish but they match the cabinets and when we sell the house someday I can leave them behind without any regrets.
As you probably know by now I love monochromatic schemes, and especially blue so I've put lots of blue/green things on the shelves.
Sometimes I feel self-conscious about blogging, I suddenly realize I'm showing you pictures of my kitchen shelves, which is kind of trivial. And I worry I'm boring you. But before I put the shelves up I was looking around on Flickr (how pretty is this) to see how other people had arranged their shelves. And I was trying to decide if I was happy with this style of shelf, or if we should take them back. So my point is I guess I find it helpful when other people post pictures of their kitchen shelves and a surprisingly large number of people do.

While I was looking I also found this brilliant idea for the shelves - if you had a cat. I love how Egyptian the orange cat at the top looks.

p.s. I really really want that couch too

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Workroom trunk sale

I'm doing another trunk show at the workroom (in Toronto, 1340 Queen St. West, 12-5pm) this Sunday. It's a craft sale where everyone shows their wares in a suitcase. One new thing I've made for this show is a messenger bag with barkcloth on the flap. If I have any extra time I may try to finish a couple of needle books.
And I have to tell you, my craft "studio" was featured on Apartment Therapy! I was thrilled because I am a big fan of that site. I find it particularly inspiring because of the focus on small space decor, something I'm always working on. The quotes got lost in translation, so just a reminder I haven't suddenly acquired a craft's studio.. it's still the same front room that has our living room stuff (couch, tv) our dining room table and chairs, all the crafts storage and my two secretary desks with more crafts storage in one and all my illustration supplies in the other. And two rambunctious but lovable sock monkeys.

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Wallpapering

Lately I've been getting kind of obsessed with wallpaper. I've looked in paint & wallpaper shops, online and of course on ebay. I love vintage wallpaper but that's mainly because I love vintage design, not authentic old wallpaper specifically. Many of the modern designs these days are gorgeous and I do like those as well.

The main inspiration has been seeing wallpaper in magazines and decorating books. I was haunted by a magazine photo featuring Neisha Crosland's "anemone" paper and finally found out whose design it was. I also notice wallpaper in movies occasionally. I could not believe how gorgeous the silvery bird and branch wallpapered bedroom in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was. (Which incidentally was an adorable movie with many of my favourite actors.) And finally my friend Jaimie used an inspiringly gorgeous modern floral paper in her newly renovated kitchen, and another friend, Andrea, papered her bathroom in anthropologie "Blossom" paper and it looked so perfect.

While searching around I found a few sites I really like. Plus Jaimie (who works at Canadian House & Home) sent me some fab links, such as ferm living, walnut wallpaper, and Thibaut (very traditional). I found one site that will mail you samples and it seems like a very practical (and affordable) way to buy wallpaper. I bought a few samples and it really does make a difference if you can see them in person.

the secretaries with new (vintage) bentwood chair - needs repainting!

I'd love to paper some walls but I think wallpaper is more personal than paint, and it might be hard to leave behind if we sold the house (+ effort + expense). Which we might do in a few years. I keep flip-flopping on that, because the more work we do the more lovable our house becomes, but it does have certain aspects that are limiting - such as its size. So we probably won't be here for many years. But who knows. See? Flip-flopping.
So I decided the best way to indulge the wallpaper fixation was to decorate a cabinet. And I found some lovely vintage paper on ebay. It has a lattice pattern (which I love) and flowers (which I love) and the colour scheme is fresh with light green and lots of white. It's a bit on the sweet side but I'm ok with that. Luckily when it arrived it was even nicer than in the photos. Vintage paper is a bit fragile so when cutting it I recommend a fresh blade and doing the cuts slowly.
I was planning to line the inside of the fabric cabinet, and I still may but I'm not sure about painting it still.. In the meantime I was thinking that the secretary desks are just a bit too cluttered-looking for the front room (which serves so many purposes). So I've added the wallpaper to their doors and it's just what they needed. Well I think so anyway. Now if only I could wallpaper my ugly printer and scanner. I'll have to make some sort of enclosed shelf for those...

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Spring kitchen

I was informed by my brother yesterday that he is tired of the bedspread and he would like another post. I'm not sure why he's even interested in my blog given that it's pretty girly! But lots of my friends seem to keep in touch with me through my blog so if I stop posting for awhile I get more phone calls. It's a bit weird if you think about it. Another thing is that I find myself not telling friends about some things for fear of repeating myself. Sometimes I mention things and they say "I know. I read it on your blog".

The main reason for the lack of posts is that I've been babying myself due to a cough/cold recently that kept threatening to get worse (but never really did) and now seems to be wrapping up. Right now I just have those throat clearings that sound like I'm about to make an announcement and would like people's attention. Thank goodness I can get back to blogging about our kitchen.

The big news is that we finally have a sink in our kitchen! So luxurious! I have to stop myself from going in to the bathroom to fill up the kettle because after 3 months it's just habit. I love our new sink, it's white ceramic from IKEA (so you know it was very affordable). It's a good size - we can even soak our cookie trays - which admittedly are small because our stove is tiny. We bought the new faucet just before the renovation, so we're enjoying having it again. The gooseneck style is great because we can still fill the kettle with a sink full of dishes.
Not that we'll have any more sinks full of dishes because we have a dishwasher now! The plumber hooked up the water and Bradley did the electrical connection. He just looked online and in some books and figured out how to do it. So clever. I'm so glad he does that stuff because it's beyond me. This picture shows our new baseboards too, we've only done them behind the cabinets but will be adding them everywhere in the house. They had to rip the old ones out when they did our floors.

And lastly I filled the remaining bare wall with two small decorative (and somewhat functional) shelves. We didn't want upper cabinets on every wall so the kitchen would feel airy and spacious but that wall was looking too bare. This is in keeping with my tendency to do finishing touches before the work is actually finished but oh well it makes me happy. Next we have to do the backsplash and attach the fan over the stove and add finishing panels over the gaps at each end of the cabinets... but for now we're enjoying it as is.

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IKEA kitchen - the inside story

This is yet another one of those rambling posts about our kitchen chaos. I was thinking about it and if this was a magazine the story wouldn't be ready until I had a perfect final kitchen with beautifully styled pictures. But that's why blogs have something to offer that glossy magazines don't. When we were wondering if we could actually assemble our IKEA kitchen cabinets ourselves I was looking all over the internet for other people's work-in-progress pictures and suggestions.

So that's what this post is about because we've learned things along the way. But first of all I should mention that we had a very simple situation, relatively, because our kitchen layout was already working well, the appliances, plumbing and electrical are all in the same positions. Also, we have a galley kitchen with no corners, islands or oddly shaped walls (aside from the fact that they're not straight in some places but I'll get to that). So I can only say that if you are in a similar situation you can certainly do it yourself, but it's not easy. Unless you're really skilled with renovation-type work of course. I'd say we're handy, but not particularly skilled.

And after a few weeks of this we are tired out, with sore hands and muscles. I woke up this morning with a weird pain in the middle of my back and I had trouble getting up out of bed. I couldn't even turn over! I've been walking around today saying "ouch, ouch, ouch!" and trying to figure out what I can and can't do just now. I can sit and walk, but oddly I can't really lie down. I've tried a few things and I think it was from lots of sawing. I tried imaginary sawing and that hurt the most. But enough about my back.

On Friday I assembled the upper cabinets. We decided there may be a good reason to put those up first so we should try to do it. Our current deadline is Wednesday because that's when someone is coming to measure for our countertop so everything needs to be in place by then.
Assembling the cabinets is the easiest part. Especially if you've assembled lots of IKEA things in the past and you're careful about reading the instructions. I think I spend more time undoing things (which is difficult) because of putting things in on the wrong side or whatever. I was also frustrated to find that one of the back panels sustained a crack somewhere along the way, and I drove in a couple of nails askew which caused some small chips inside.

I recommend putting the door hardware on before you hang the cabinets. The screws are actually a bit tough and take some work to get in and it's easier if you can brace against the floor.

As mentioned last week, I had this last wall to repair and paint. IKEA recommends that you paint one coat, then put up the cabinets, then do the second coat. This saves a bit of paint, and I guess you can do touch-ups if you scratch the paint. One of my tricks was not doing too much work on smoothing out the walls because in most places the rough spots where the old cabinets used to be attached were covered by the new cabinets.
At this point you need to put up a metal rail that the cabinets hang from (get a nice big level it will be very handy). The rail wasn't long enough, so it was a tricky matter of working out where the studs were, where the cabinets were and cutting two pieces of rail that would maximise the amount of support for each cabinet. I recommend marking your studs on the wall with a pencil and measuring everything carefully and marking it on the wall.

Our oven fan vent can't really be moved and was the biggest problem. It determined where the vent would go, which determined where the cabinet above it would be which determined where all the other cabinets would be. We discovered there wouldn't be enough space between the countertop and cabinets - even our kettle wouldn't fit.
Our brilliant solution was that we would (later on) create a small box that could be used as a small shelf. This box would attach to the cabinet over the stove, and the fan would attach to it. This meant the cabinets could be placed higher up. The other tricky part at this stage is working out the position of the little panel strips that fill gaps. In this case a 2" strip goes beside the over-stove cabinet so that its door can open fully, and this allows for a 1" space on either side of our free-standing stove.

At this point we measured and cut the rails with a small hacksaw. The saw is only $4 and works well but it takes a while to cut through the rails. If you had a power saw that cuts metal it would be much easier. The picture below shows Bradley attaching the first rail. You need to buy your own screws for this, we got some really big ones because there's going to be a lot of weight on this rail. And of course the rail needs to be attached to a few studs. The hardest part for us is that the battery for our new drill isn't working properly and it had barely any power.
Then finally we could put up all the cabinets. This part isn't too bad, the cabinets are heavy but they attach at two places with a simple bolt. Then they can be adjusted afterwards by sliding them along the rail so that they are all snug against each other. Also you can make sure at this point you have a 2" gap on the side for the filler panel.

Luckily the walls on this side of our kitchen are straight. We have a single cabinet for the other side of the kitchen and the wall it's next to is on an angle. If we added a filler panel there it would be really obvious so we're just going to leave a large gap. It's possible because it's a single cabinet, and we can centre it on the small patch of wall next to the window that it's going on, but if it wasn't we'd have had a problem. Or it just wouldn't look right which is frustrating after spending so much time and money.
This is as far as we've gotten. Next, you drill holes and attach the cabinets to each other, then add shelves and doors. Finally you add the hardware for the doors.

The only other difficult thing so far is drilling holes for our plumbing that comes from a side wall instead of directly under the sink. We did three neat holes for the pipes on one side of the end cabinet. We did this with a little hole saw kit - you can get a basic one for under $20. The pieces attach to your regular drill.
But the drill isn't working well now and we have six more holes to go! We're going to need to buy a new battery. If your plumbing comes in directly below the sink it's a lot easier because you're cutting through the thin back panel, not through the thick walls of your cabinets.
In short, you can do it yourself. But you may find yourself getting really annoyed at the IKEA DVD and posters (included with any kitchen purchase) that make it look really easy. I found watching the DVD quite soothing until I realized they were basically installing cabinets in what seemed like a completely perfect room, without any crooked walls, unevenly spaced studs, oven vents, or evidence of plumbing or electrical outlets to worry about.

My biggest tip is to make a list and make sure you do things in the right order. I hope we are, because we're not done yet!

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Reading kitchen

I can't believe what we got done this weekend. Friday I painted the eat-in area and moved in a small white shelf that fit perfectly in the spot the hutch used to have. Having books beside the kitchen table has made it feel so homey, it invites tea drinking and reading. It's so sunny in that spot, we just needed our small table back in place to make it a popular corner of the house again.

If you look just beyond that you can see that all the lower cabinets are now assembled, thanks to Bradley who has recovered from his cold and was behaving like a superhero all weekend. The cabinets even have their feet on now.

And he shortened the closet doors so they're now all back in place. Phew! We kept knocking them over while moving things around. I also finally added the second coat of paint in the hallway. The walls had been a bit scuffed up from the flooring work as well.

Friday I added curtains to cover the sliding doors. As much as I like to make my own, ready made curtains can be a real bargain considering how much fabric they have. I found these at Urban Outfitters, they're nice and sheer and soft. They came with an extra strip of fabric each, I sewed buttonholes and buttons on those to make ties. The rod is from the new Umbra store on John St.
Although not kitchen related, I'd like to mention that we also finally assembled the shower for our clawfoot tub and I can't tell you how thrilled we were to be able to have a shower again.
I also managed to get one of the shelves up. I'd like to get more of the white wicker baskets from IKEA to go on the shelves. As you can see I've painted the Ocean Air on the walls.Realizing it was time to order our countertop we went to Home Depot on Sunday. I had been hemming and hawing for ages about that choice. It was hard to decide what would work with our flooring, cabinets, sink and walls, and what we should spend and which material would be most practical. As I've mentioned before we hadn't planned on gutting the kitchen in the first place so we've been making decisions as we go along. I wouldn't recommend this method but so far we're very happy with the results. So anyway we ordered a countertop but I'll save which one for the reveal!

But before they can measure for the countertop we need to wrap things up, which means installing baseboards (while we can move the cabinets and get back there), setting up the wiring for the new dishwasher, having the plumber over to set up the plumbing and finally attaching the lower cabinets in place. Usually you're supposed to install the uppers first but this won't be the first time we've done something backwards. I guess the main reason was to try to keep the kitchen liveable as we did the work.

These are the old uppers:
Until yesterday we were using these old upper cabinets for storage. But last night we finally emptied and took down the last of the old cabinets (well I moved some things but Bradley did the real work) and the wall now looks like this:
So cleaning, patching, sanding, priming and painting these last two walls is my job for today. Along with some illustration work in case you were wondering if I still have a job...

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Shutters down!

As I expected after my last post I felt the push to get some work done on the kitchen. I've now repaired the walls in the eat-in area, and sanded and primed them. After clearing out the area I was given the chance to rethink the furniture in there.

As I mentioned in the last post the air conditioner is a real eyesore and we're not ready to replace it and fill the hole in our house (!). So I realized I could cover it with our hutch. Better yet, the hutch was on the other side but the heater on the wall was slightly in the way and it was sticking out a bit and not in an ideal spot. So now the hutch is in a better spot and the air conditioner is covered.

This is the "before" shot again so you can compare:Notice that there is also an ugly orange power cord on that wall. Well that cord was connected to the wooden outdoor roll shutters we had that cover the sliding doors. These shutters were built by a previous owner many decades ago and when we tried to have them repaired it proved impossible. This gave us the perfect excuse to just have them removed altogether. Luckily the house was largely intact underneath the huge box that housed the shutters:
So now these shutters are gone, the orange power cord is gone, the ugly plastic button that operated the shutters is gone and the holes are all patched up.The repair men were fascinated by these ancient roll shutters and took the whole contraption with them - possibly to go into some kind of shutters museum. They were certainly welcome to them.

The best part is that the shutters covered part of the doors even when fully wound up, and once they were gone it was such a change. With that dark shadow gone, the room seems so much lighter and brighter. I have to admit that they were practical but I'm glad they're gone. Here's an old renovation photo that shows the old shutters in place. Also the old tile on the walls and some general chaos. I like to look back at these photos to remind myself how much we've done already:And this is the "after" with the walls primed, the hutch moved and the blinds gone:Suddenly the area seems so large. Our table is quite small too, so it will still be spacious once that goes back in. There's nothing like emptying a room to help you figure out how to arrange it.

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Motivation

A few friends have asked us if our kitchen cabinets are installed and the short answer to that is "no!". I think we're a little tired out from all the renovating and we've definitely slowed down. So today I decided to post the state of things to answer that question, but I also thought that possibly the embarrassment of showing the sad state of our house will push me to get cracking.

The picture of our hallway really tells the whole story. Most of the IKEA cabinets are in boxes - and when I say most I mean all but the one that we've assembled so far. Just past that we have the shower fixture that we can finally install onto our clawfoot tub now that the plumbing has been fixed. The new flooring has raised the floor height of the entire area by around 1/2". So we had to wait a few weeks for new supply lines for the tub to arrive.

Across from that you can see our old countertop propped against the wall which we are getting rid of. Also the doors to various closets that are all around 1/2 an inch too tall now to fit back in place. Then on to the kitchen with more IKEA boxes.

This wooden strip is called a "reducer" and bridges the big gap and 3/4" step that was between the tile and wood floor areas. There were rough edges on either side and old floorboards and ditra showing in the middle. I sanded a little chip from the bottom corner of the baseboard to fit over the reducer.

It's partly that everything seems to take more time and trouble than expected. Just finding this wooden reducer to bridge the tile to the hardwood took weeks. But we were thrilled when we found one at Home Depot that was the right wood, the right stain, the right length, with a shallow overlapping bit for the tile side and a 3/4" step down to the hardwood floor side. Then it was just a small matter of borrowing a power saw to cut it, after cutting the adjacent new baseboards to make sure it would be the right length. Then finding the right glue to attach it and then going back for the caulking gun that was needed to apply the glue. Phew! So more trouble than we expected but it's finally done and it looks finished now. Now we just need to do the gap between the hall and bathroom...
Oh... and hidden behind some of those IKEA boxes were these shelves that are going into the bathroom over the washing machine for storage. We also need to replace baseboards throughout (the old ones were removed when renovating the floors and most were damaged and too short and yucky to begin with).

This is the one cabinet we've put together so far - now it just needs soft shutting mechanisms on the drawers, handles, legs and a countertop!

Which brings me to today's goal. I've painted the left side of the kitchen in the alcove area with our new colour. Choosing the perfect grey took a looong time but I'm happy with it now that it's on the walls. It's Benjamin Moore's Titanium, and it's a very soft pale grey that actually seems to look grey rather than a bit green, or blue, or beige as grey's often do. It also works nicely with the cabinets and the new floor which has tiny pale grey stripes in it.

But the walls on the other side still look like this:
And the original bright yellow colour is still there in the eat-in area past the cabinets. The wall was damaged in a few patches so we definitely couldn't have kept that colour. And I find it a bit too heavy. This is the left side:
And the right side:What a mess. I really dislike the air conditioner too - and not sure how to remove it now it's been installed into the wall. But that will have to be resolved later. Maybe we can just put a cabinet in front of it!

And last but not least, the mechanized shutters that go over the back doors are broken and stuck halfway up. Or halfway down depending on how you want to look at it. So someone is supposed to be coming by today to repair those. So that's the state of things, now I'll surely be motivated to post some "after pictures" as soon as possible!

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