The kitchen redo: Part two

First of all – some winners! The (random) winner of the Jewelry of Lav is April from CT and the winner of the Wuslu giveaway is NadiaAnac from Nadia’s Nest. Congrats ladies! Email me and I’ll get you connected for your goodies!

So I told you last week the fantastically amazing awesome news – I was picked by Amex to promote Membership Reward Points by using them to redo a room in our home – and that room is the kitchen. Gleeee!

I tell you what…our living room is piled high with kitchen stuff, but nothing is installed yet. With our NYC trip over the weekend, I was a little short on DIY time.  :)

This week I was asked to use 100,000 Amex Reward Points and I’m slowly but surely getting some projects going! (And I am so psyched about the changes!)

I showed you last week how I wanted to install crown molding throughout the kitchen:

Since our kitchen and family room are really a big great room, I got enough crown to go around the whole space. Last night I played around with my compound miter saw and some scrap crown and I *think* I figured out how to cut it. I am SO EXCITED!!

I tell you what, the corner pieces I usually use make installing crown VERY easy, but they can get expensive. Because of all the corners in this space, the corner pieces were going to be at least $150 – so figuring out how to cut the molding is going to save some major cash!

I think it’s going to take some trial error and a few bucks worth of crown molding, but I’m determined to get it – and I’ll let you know how it goes!

The next purchase was one I’ve been wanting to get for at least two years, probably more. I present to you…my new pantry door:

Well, kinda.  :) I’m a little worried about it because it’s millimeters too big. Like, just a teeny smudge. I’m hoping when I mortise the spots for the hinges, it will fit better. I’m a  bit worried about this one – really hoping I can get it to work!

I still need to get the film that I’m going to put over the glass to hide the not-always-organized-pantry, and I need to paint the door. In my head it’s always been black, but I’m not sure what to do now. White? Black? Fun color? The room will have accents of apple green and yellow, so I could do one of those colors. Thoughts?

The next purchase for this week was beadboard to redo the backsplash. I went back and forth between a cream tumbled stone in a subway pattern and beadboard. Our counters have plenty of color and texture to them, and I wanted to go as simple as possible – the tile was just WAY too much. (For me anyway.)

I covered our kitchen island in beadboard last year, and I was a little concerned it may be beadboard overload. But now that I look at it, it’s really going to tie the island and the rest of the kitchen together, which is a very good thing.

Then, today, I got a wild hair and started thinking about the demo of the original black tile – and realized I could totally just install the beadboard right over the tile. I know – craaaazaaay:

As I showed you last week, that tile is up there GOOD. I don’t mind taking it all down, but I do mind the mess, the time, and the likelihood that I’ll have to replace all of the drywall.

I have only made some cuts and leaned the beadboard up there for now, because I want to check on one more detail before I glue anything down with Liquid Nails. But just having a third of the black covered is already SUCH a huge difference – I am SO SO excited!!

I got some supplies to start the redo of our kitchen table – and I’m hoping to get to IKEA this weekend for the butcher block island countertop. (Yippee!!)

Otherwise, I’ve been slowly reaccessorizing the room – I got some cutie patoot flower pots from Home Depot to hold all of my herbs on the windowsill:

And today I went to Pottery Barn to look for some fun little accessories – fun little accessories that were wicked expensive! Geesh, that’s hard for me to do!  :)

Half the things I got are actually going back because they just didn’t work, but I did get a couple itty bitty metal pitchers:

(Of course I spray painted one. I couldn’t resist!)

And I’m sorry. But I’m a thrifty girl through and through. Right after Pottery Barn, I headed straight to Goodwill, where I found this little crate for a buck:

I spray painted it (still needs a little touch up) and added green to the front of the letters and it’s as cute as can be!:

The shelves were $4 finds at Goodwill a few weeks ago, and the rest of the accessories were from around the house. I still need to paint the shelves and the stuff on them will most likely move around a bit, but I love the way the they give the wall some depth. The art I had up there before never seemed just right.

It’s going to be a busy week Squeezays! I’m so excited and of course feeling so fortunate that I was asked to be involved in the Amex spring home makeover. Whoo!

So…because you all are SO HELPFUL  – I need your advice once again! What color would you paint the pantry door? Hmmmm? And has anyone out there successfully glued anything over existing tile? Am I crazy?

Don’t answer that.

Thanks in advance!!

 

TDC is one of five blogs picked to promote the Amex Membership Rewards program.
I have received reward points to use as I wish to redo a room in our home.