Century old barn board bench

One of my first purchases for our new kitchen http://5monsters.blogspot.com/2010/07/99-complete.html was this bench. I fell in love with it when I first saw it at a local antique store (the same store I am now renting a booth in). I didn't think there was a place for it in our house so I passed it up. When I got home I noticed this empty spot in the kitchen, where all our shoes seemed to land. I measured the wall and rushed back to pick it up. This bench now has the perfect spot, great to sit down on to take your shoes off. It also sits under our Grand Central Station board, so it works great for Little Buddy to stand on when drawing on the chalk board.

I love how the boards are weathered and cracked.
Old nail holes!
Beautiful patina. I'm linking up to


Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special

Grand Central Station

One of my additions to the kitchen was a Memo/Chalkboard. Luckily my handy dandy husband was able to build me exactly what I wanted. I finished it off with trim and the same paint/glaze treatment that is on all the new cabinets . The chalkboard is a real piece of slate that I believe my mom got from an old school. This has become one of the best organizational items in our house, since we actually use it. We use the cork board to hold school papers and the kids chore list. The chalkboard is where I leave the kids notes or lists of chores that need to be done. The kids use it to draw on, it is always covered with doodles or teen graffiti.

Now that there are 4 teenagers (well one is preteen) in the house it has become apparent that I can harness all that teen energy. Each child (except 5 yr. old Little Buddy) now has a day to do their laundry. We will be starting this next week so hopefully it works as well as I hope.

The main chores are highlighted.

Pink-Dishes

Yellow-Laundry

Green-Dog Duty

The other chores include wiping off the table and sweeping for the two younger ones. The older 3 have cleaning the bathrooms and sweeping other areas on their list.

Badger Boy also has trash duty. The list also includes items that everyone will be expected to help with.
I'll leave you with Little Buddy's 100 day of school artwork.

When I am 100 years old...I will have a job.

99% complete

We have been working on our kitchen for almost 3 years...3 YEARS!!! That is 1095 days, give or take a few, that we have lived in a messy, dusty, construction zone! I am so very happy to say that we are almost done. Here is a before image, notice the beautiful mustard colored beat up oven, stove, and sink, disgusting chipped up backsplash and counter top, and the equally gross discolored ceilings. We also had huge island (wrap around bar) with carpet on the sides to contend with smack dab in the center of the room.

We still have some floor tile to regrout, finish grouting and sealing the backsplash, outlet covers and drawer pulls to install, and window coverings to make. I have also been enjoying hunting Flea markets and Antique stores for the perfect accessories.
Here's a couple old posts with images.
http://5monsters.blogspot.com/2010/05/were-getting-there.html

http://5monsters.blogspot.com/2008/12/progress-in-kitchen.html

Progress in the kitchen

Here are some not so great drawings of the original and the new floor plans.

Before:

After:
Before: One of the only pictures I have before we started making changes. Although I loved the huge island it was HUGE. It had no flow, blocking the other half of the kitchen and only had a small amount of storage space for its size. It was also covered in carpet, who does that anyways?! The first changes we made were to repaint the cabinet doors, paint the ceiling, and the walls were painted red.
I also faux painted the ugly backsplash, adding the "roadrunner" and fake brick.
It was at this time that we removed the built in oven (that didn't work) and got a new free standing oven. Bryan moved the laundry room door over about 2 feet and installed a new solid wood door. The other doorway (leading out back) will have a matching door.

Bryan has installed the recessed lights and electrical outlets for the new "desk". It is taller than I would like, but we have decided to leave it at that height. Which will allow us to use it as a "workspace" as well as a desk. We still need to buy the upper cabinets and decide on the shelving that I would like for baskets, mail, etc.. Countertops will be a light grey tile. The backsplash will be really cool small granite tiles, with larger tiles around the sink area and "workspace". Stainless steel hardware will be installed on all cabinetry. Since the old drawers were made of plastic, Bryan will be making new wood drawers with the existing fronts.

The floor is almost finished, I still need to grout under the stove and fridge and then seal it. That will be done in the next day or two. Bryan will be hanging the small pieces of drywall and fixing the holes in the wall that were found when we removed the paneling.

Here are a few of the distressed cabinets that I found while searching online. I haven't decided on the extent of the "damage" I will inflict on the cabinets. I plan on beating them up a little, then applying stain to the exposed areas, but I'm not sure if it will be on the edges only or all over.

We will also be leaving the new cabinetry unpainted and they will only be slightly distressed.

The ends of the island, pantry, and workspace will be cover with tongue and groove wainscotting, like the above image. I love the look of the posts on the end of the cabinets, but I didn't ask for them soon enough and will have to do without. I still need to take our existing doors to the cabinet maker so that he can make new pantry doors. The pantry will have two large doors that hinge in the middle opening up to 3 large sliding shelves. We haven't decided on moulding, although I am leaning towards a very simple moulding with either crown moulding around the top of the cabinets or some decorating trim.

New light fixtures and potrack will go above the island. I love the look of these lights, but not the price. We will also be adding beams on the opposite side of the room to balance out the already existing beams. We are still discussing what to do with the hood exhaust. Bryan would like to install a microwave/exhaust system, I would like a simple exhaust that actually vents outside. We also need to buy a new dishwasher, sink, faucet, and fridge, but those will have to wait a few months at least. I would love to install new windows and possibly patio doors, that would lead out to a deck. The deck is not in the near future so I doubt I get my new doors anytime soon. This has been a looooooong project but the end is in sight.