New Home | Beneath My Heart

Unfinished Project in the Kitchen is Now Complete!

April 16, 2012 AT 10:40 pm 10 Comments

April 16, 2012 By traci 10 Comments

Today’s RED LETTER WORDS feature of the day is the

All this month, the Hymn and Folk Songs collection is 20% off!!! I love every single one of the prints in this collection. Each one of them makes my heart smile.

But my very favorite print is the How Great Thou Art print because that is one of my very favorite hymns.

You can visit Red Letter Words by clicking on the button below.

Remember, the Hymn and Folk Songs collection is 20% off all month.

If you see something else at Red Letter Words that you would like to purchase,

just enter the code myheart15 to receive a 15% discount (excluding custom prints).

Dee has graciously agreed to give 50% of the profits of all purchases by my readers to help sponsor my trip to SNAP! Read more about it here.

Now to my post!

If you were following my blog before Christmas, you probably got to the see the madness of our unplanned Kitchen Makeover!

Though I didn’t think we were going to make it through that renovation at times, we finally made it! Literally just a few days before Christmas.

If you want to see the before and after pictures of our kitchen renovation click HERE and HERE, or click on the picture.

When we got finished right before Christmas, we didn’t have any energy left to do anything else! We were wiped out!

One of the little things we left undone was putting the shelves back in the cabinets by our microwave.

I just put a few things in each cabinet and called it a day. As you can see, I have never really decorated the space above the microwave since Christmas either.

Part of the reason I didn’t fool with putting the shelves back in is because I couldn’t find them! I thought maybe Cy thought they were scrap wood and threw them away in all the chaos of our renovation.

I went to Lowe’s and bought some wood to make new shelves for the cabinets. Then I thought I would check in the “basement” of our guest house (where we were storing the other cabinets that we took down in our kitchen) and see if there were some shelves I could borrow from them.

To my surprise, I found the four missing shelves for these two cabinets! We had never taken them down to our house in the first place!

All I had to do was prime the shelves with Kilz Spray Primer and then paint them with white spray paint!

It feels so good to get these shelves finally in place and to have some extra storage.

Why did it take me so long to get this done?

Do you have any “little” projects left undone in your home? What are they? What’s stopping you from doing them?

(besides time, money, energy) hee.hee. Smile

MY NEXT PROJECT: We still have to make little open shelves below these two cabinets to hold my cookbooks and spices. I am hoping to get that finished when I get back from SNAP!

I am also hoping to finish my sister’s laundry room. I’ve been waiting for her to buy some more paint, but she keeps forgetting or something! That stinker! Smile

Why don’t you go visit my sister’s blog and give her hard time. Tell her to get busy and go get me some paint!

Maybe I can have an update for ya next week?!

BTW, many of you have been asking me about Jonathan’s performance at the Ky Opry this past Saturday.

Well, he did a great job and is advancing to the semi-finals!!! I am hoping to share the video with you soon, but I am waiting for them to upload it to youtube.

It was a wonderful evening, and I took a bunch of pics to share with you. Smile

Have a blessed day!

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Molding Inspiration for our New Doorway

March 19, 2012 AT 10:27 am 18 Comments

March 19, 2012 By traci 18 Comments

Hello, friends!

I hope you had a great weekend! Ours was full of basketball games, of course. AND a trip to the emergency room.

Adam got a deep cut on the bottom of his foot yesterday afternoon while walking barefoot in a creek. Sad smile

He had to get four shots and three stitches in his foot, and he is hanging out with me today and trying to stay off his foot.

It was a pretty dramatic scene yesterday, but we are all good today! Smile

Last Friday, I showed you how we tore down a wall to open up the entrance to our new addition.

Now we have an entryway that we could just cover up with new drywall, or we could use this opportunity to frame out the new entry way with some beautiful molding.

I choose the latter, don’t you?!

So I searched around for some images of what the type of molding that we might be using in our new entryway.

Enjoy!

This one is my favorite. The top of the doorway is very similar to the trim work we are doing on the windows in our new addition.

source

I love this doorway with the transom windows on top. We are not planning on doing windows in our new doorway, but we do plan to do something like this down the road when we tear down a wall in our kitchen area.

source

This doorway molding is a little more “fancy” than we want, but beautiful!

source

The molding in the picture below is the type of molding that we are going to do on all the doorways in our new addition and eventually throughout the house. (Is that floor gorgeous, or what?!)

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Lots of beautiful molding in the picture below!

source

I am working on a post to show you the trim molding my husband installed on our master bedroom windows. It is absolutely gorgeous, I must say. Smile

Have a blessed day!

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Filed Under home addition, New Home 18 Comments

Finally! An Update on our Addition! {Wood Walls}

March 14, 2012 AT 9:17 am 23 Comments

March 14, 2012 By traci 23 Comments

Happy Hump Day!

Just wanted to take a second to show you what we’ve been up to lately in our addition.

The plumbing and electricity is finished, and we are now getting to the fun part.

We had originally planned to put drywall on all of our walls. However, I love the look of wood walls, so we decided to put the wood that we were going to use on our floors and put them on our walls.

We will be painting the wood and trimming out all the windows and doors.

Cy has already trimmed out two of the windows since I took these pictures. I cannot wait to show you how they turned out!

They are beautiful!

Now we are in the process of hanging drywall upstairs in the boys’ rooms and adding more wood to the upstairs ceilings.

And we’ve torn a wall down! I will show you that on Friday! I cannot believe the difference it has made in “opening up” our home.

If you want to see a video of our addition, including the upstairs, I made a quick one for you.

(If you cannot see this video in your reader, you may need to click on the post title to view it on my blog.)

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Fireclay Farmhouse Sinks {Durability and Quality}

January 19, 2012 AT 1:51 pm 23 Comments

January 19, 2012 By traci 23 Comments

Well, I said I wasn’t going to talk about my kitchen anymore.

Oops.

But I’m not really talking about my kitchen, just my kitchen sink!

I’ve had many of you ask about the durability and quality of my sink, so I thought I would share with you a few of the things that I found out. (After I made my purchase.) Smile

I will be honest that I often choose form over function.

Here are the two things I considered when looking for my sink online:

1. I wanted a pretty farmhouse sink.

2. I wanted an inexpensive, pretty farmhouse sink.

That’s it.

Here’s what I didn’t know before I started looking for a farmhouse sink:

Farmhouse sinks are NOT cheap!

Sheesh!

I about died when I started searching the web for a farmhouse sink! The prices are steep!

The best deal I found was the farmhouse sink from IKEA. It was only $313!

I bought it, brought it home, and it didn’t fit in our cabinets. By like half an inch! UGH!!

If our dishwasher wasn’t right beside our sink, Cy may have tried to rebuild some cabinets to make it fit. But he wasn’t able to do it with out some major changes to our lower cabinets, which would have ended up taking a lot of time and more money. Not good.

After looking online for hours, it seemed the cheapest farmhouse sinks were $600, and then they go WAY up from there.

I found my farmhouse sink at Signature Hardware. You can purchase items online or at their store. We needed our sink quickly, so I picked it up at the store since it was located in Northern Kentucky.

I LOVE my farmhouse sink! It is was the most expensive part of the budget for our kitchen makeover, but it was worth it.

Since buying our sink, I’ve done a little research online to find out more about fireclay sinks.

I wanted to share with you what I found out.

First of all, What is Fireclay?

Widely used in London, England, for their durability and style in the late 1800s, fireclay sinks finally have made a design comeback. Fireclay sinks are forged at extremely high temperatures, which cause the clay and glaze to unite. The result is a sink that is not only extremely durable, but also will look shiny and new for many years to come. (source)

source

How durable is fireclay?

The modern fireclay apron sinks are commonly covered with a thick layer or glaze which is irrefutably acid, alkali, chip, scratches and impact resistant. (source)

I love the look of fireclay farmhouse sinks because they are classic, elegant, and a great focal point for you kitchen.

Fireclay sinks do not rust, discolor, or fade. Yay!!

(source for the two pictures above)

How is Fireclay different from Cast Iron?

(cast iron sink – source)

A cast iron sink is beautiful as well, but here is the difference…

Cast iron is fired at a much less temperature than fireclay, and not as durable. The glaze is softer than the glaze on fireclay. Cast iron also chips easily, and when it does, rust appears under the glaze. Plus customers are specifically asked not to use abrasives or harsh cleaners. (source)

We had a cast iron sink in our last home, and I loved the look. But I accidentally chipped part of the white glaze off when a pot slip out of my hand. Sad smile

Cast iron sinks are usually more expensive than fireclay sinks, but some believe they are more durable. Here is a great link that discusses the pros and cons of fireclay vs. cast iron sinks: http://www.ehow.com/about_6672827_fireclay-vs_-cast-iron-sinks.html

As you can tell by what I found out about fireclay sinks, I am very happy with our purchase!

And after living with this sink for almost two months, I can honestly say that I am VERY pleased with our fireclay farmhouse sink.

It cleans up so easily and truly makes cleaning the kitchen more fun. I’m not kidding! Smile

So I hope that helps you out if you are looking to buy a farmhouse sink in the near future.

What is your favorite type of sink?

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Filed Under kitchen inspiration, kitchen makeover, My Kitchen, New Home, New Kitchen Makover 23 Comments

Budget Breakdown of the Kitchen Makeover

January 12, 2012 AT 11:59 pm 73 Comments

January 12, 2012 By traci 73 Comments

Happy Friday, friends!

I am still trying to answer the many questions about our kitchen makeover.

One of the main questions I keep getting asked is: “How much did this cost ya?”

Well, we paid approximately $3,300 for our floor to ceiling kitchen renovation.

That sounds like a lot of money!

But when you remember what it used to look like…

And compare it to what it looks like now…

I think it was DEFINITELY worth the money, don’t you?

Let’s be honest. If we had hired out all of this work, from floor to ceiling, it would have cost us about $11-12,000!

However, we did 100% of the labor ourselves, so this renovation was a third of what it would have cost us otherwise.

That’s pretty darn good.

So here is the (approximate) breakdown of what it cost:

(click on the pictures to see the post about each project)

375 square feet of Southern Yellow Pine (Lumber Liquidators)

(3/4 inch by 5 inch) – $1.25 sq foot = $465

Flooring supplies (oil-based stain, semi-gloss polyurethane,

wood conditioner, floor sander rental, sand paper) : $200

Baseboard and Crown Molding: $175

Paint for cabinets and walls: $120

Cabinet hardware (Lowe’s): $50

Wood plank ceiling (Lowe’s): $240

Pantry doors (Lowe’s): $300

Recessed lighting: $40

White Subway Tile (plus adhesive and un-sanded, pre-mixed grout) from Lowe’s: $175

Open Shelving (3/4 inch MDF cut at Lowe’s) and Corbels (Home Depot) and Trim: $240

IKEA butcher block countertops (stain and poly): $525

Farmhouse Sink (Signature Hardware) $600

Faucet (Home Depot): $100

Supplies for making extra lower cabinet: $40

And that’s it!

I’m sure there were a few more miscellaneous expenses that I forgot about.

Like maybe the 128 times we went out to eat because I had no kitchen in which to cook.

Or a table to eat on…

Oh, those were the good ole days!

But we made it through!

And I’m so glad we did!

(I promise this is my LAST kitchen renovation post for a while!)

Now it’s time to get (back) started on our addition!

So, do you think all of our hard work was worth the $8-9,000 savings?

Did you think our renovation would have cost more or less than what we spent?

(Please say more, please say more, please say more…)

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Filed Under husband's handiwork, kitchen makeover, makeover, makeovers, My Kitchen, New Home, New Kitchen Makover 73 Comments

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets (Supplies and Process)

January 10, 2012 AT 11:09 am 34 Comments

January 10, 2012 By traci 34 Comments

Happy Tuesday!

I am still trying to answer a lot of the questions we had about our kitchen renovation.

Many of you were wanting to know how we painted our kitchen cabinets.

I had planned on doing a detailed post about the process while we were working on it, but things were happening so quickly, I just couldn’t fit it in.

Painting kitchen cabinets is not difficult, it’s just a pain in the wha-toosey! (How do you spell that?)

But it is sooooo worth it!

Remember what they used to look like?

Painting your cabinets is one of the quickest ways

to update the look of your kitchen!

We basically did three things:

1. Cleaned/Prepped the cabinets.

2. Primed the cabinets.

3. Painted the cabinets.

Now let me break it down a little further.

1. CLEANING/PREPPING

We removed the cabinet doors and drawer fronts before we cleaned them.

We also removed the hinges and the handles from the cabinets doors/drawers and threw them away because we knew we wouldn’t be reusing them. If you will be reusing your hinges or handles, keep them (along with the screws) in a bowl to use again later.

Then I laid the doors out and cleaned them with Krud Kutter.

This stuff worked great! I just used an old rag to clean the doors and the cabinets frames. I also cleaned inside the cabinets since I knew we would be painting those too.

Next, we prepped the cabinets by applying this Liquid Sander/Deglosser.

This stuff is the best invention ever! Instead of sanding all of the cabinets with a sander, all you have to do is wipe them down this this deglosser, and they are ready to go!

2. PRIMING:

Next step is to prime the cabinets.

We almost always use KILZ primer. It has always worked well for us.

We covered up our appliances and used our paint sprayer to apply the primer.

We didn’t have to cover our floors or our countertop because we knew we were going to be ripping them out soon. Yay!

When using a paint sprayer, be sure to clean it out thoroughly (and according to the instructions) between each use.

3. PAINTING:

Last step is to paint!

(If you are getting new hardware for your cabinets, you may need to put some wood filler in the old holes, let it dry, and sand it before painting.)

Here is the paint that I always use on my kitchen cabinets:

It is by Valspar and is usually located over by the spray paint at Lowe’s.

It only comes in a quart size, and I think it took us 2 or 3 quarts to paint our cabinets with the paint sprayer.

I used this same paint during our kitchen re-do at our last home:

This paint goes on so smooth and is extremely durable! And it is also easy to wipe clean.

I use the “gloss” finish to give the cabinets a little shine.

Cy used the paint sprayer again to paint the cabinets.

We were thrilled with the results of the paint sprayer, and it saved us a ton of time!

However, if I didn’t have the sprayer, I would have just painted the cabinets with a paint brush and roller.

On our previous kitchen, I used the paint brush to paint around the edges of the cabinets or around the parts with “grooves”, and I used a small paint roller (like 4 or 5 inches) with a low nap to paint the smooth parts of the cabinets.

Looking at the above picture gives me hives! I really did not think those days would end!

But they did! Halleluiah!

When you are finished painting, all you have to do is attach the hardware and put the cabinets back on. Voila!

And then you will look (and feel) like you have a brand new kitchen!

If you have any other questions about how we painted our cabinets, please be sure to ask me in the comments, and I will shoot you an email back. Smile

(Because I feel like I am forgetting something.)

Have a blessed day!

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Filed Under husband's handiwork, makeovers, New Home, New Kitchen Makover 34 Comments

A Light for my Kitchen Sink

January 5, 2012 AT 9:12 pm 57 Comments

January 5, 2012 By traci 57 Comments

I cannot write this post without first thanking you for the over 200 amazing comments on yesterday’s post.

I read every single one! I read them to my husband. I forwarded some to my sister. My dad and I were talking about them today. (He read every single one too.) Honestly, if you need encouragement, you may want to go read them too. They were amazing!

Your comments were heart-felt, loving, humbling, praise worthy, gracious, kind, heart-breaking, joyous, compassionate, empathetic, encouraging, and I could go on and on.

I cried as I read the comments too.

I wish I could write every single one of you back. I really, sincerely do. But I just don’t know if time will allow it. Please know that if I could, I would hug each of you. I would invite you to meet me at Panera, and we would talk for hours over soup and salad about life and blogs and everything in between! Wouldn’t that be the best thing ever?!

That post was hard for me to write. I cried as I wrote it. And it took me almost two hours to write.

But I am so glad I did.

God is using YOU and this blog to continue to grow beauty in my broken places.

I praise HIM!

Now let’s talk “kitchen”, want to? Smile

Many of you asked about the lighting in my kitchen.

Truth be told, there’s not much of it.

We have installed recess lighting above the shelves, but that is all the light we have in that room right now.

I do not want to hang lights in the middle of the room or above the table right now, because I am not sure how I want the room to look yet.

We may be creating a new space for the table, and I may or may not be putting an island in the center of the kitchen. Until I make those decisions, I do not want to install anymore lighting.

But I do want a light for above the kitchen sink. Doesn’t the window look bare without my Christmas wreath?

I took the wreath down to try and figure out what type of light I want to put there.

Of course, I could always put in a light above the sink like the one below. I call those “school house” lights, and they are very characteristic of older homes. (I like that island too, don’t you?)

source

Here are some more “school house” lights…

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I also thought about putting a mini chandelier above the sink to give the kitchen a little “bling.” Isn’t this one gorgeous?…

Source

Here is the look of a lantern above the sink. I like it too!

source

These are probably my favorite. I would only want one over my sink, but oh my goodness! Aren’t they gorgeous?! I would love to wash dishes under those beauties!!

Source

And I love these mercury glass pendant lights! I found this picture on a site where it is just a list of emails talking about a subject, so I couldn’t find a source. Someone called this pendant light an Argento pendant light. I googled it, and these babies are hundreds of dollars!

But I think it would look AMAZING over my kitchen sink!! I’m wondering if I could find a cheaper version somewhere else?

This last picture is just a glass pendant light. It is simple and beautiful, so maybe I should go with something like this?

source

Decisions, decisions!

What type of light do you think

I should put above my kitchen sink?

(Inspiration pictures in the comments are welcome!)

Smile

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Filed Under kitchen inspiration, kitchen makeover, laundry room, lighting, makeovers, My Kitchen, New Home, New Kitchen Makover 57 Comments

Decorating Open Shelves

January 3, 2012 AT 1:43 pm 40 Comments

January 3, 2012 By traci 40 Comments

I will be honest that when I began putting items on my open shelves in the kitchen, I was a little nervous.

Mainly because I have seen so many pictures of beautiful open shelves in blogland, that I knew mine would never look that good.

source

http://jonesdesigncompany.com/decorate/our-kitchen-2/

But two days before Christmas, I went to work putting items that I already had on my shelves.

And to my surprise, it wasn’t as hard as I thought.

Now, they may not be arrange perfectly (as far as a “designer” may be concerned.) But for me, they work!

Most of the things on my shelves are hand-me-downs or Goodwill finds. The only “expensive” dishes I have are my Willow House dishes. (Most of which I got free for hosting parties or I bought them when they were severely on sale.)

I wanted a wreath for my window, so Cy went to Lowe’s on Christmas Eve day and picked up this real one on clearance. It was a little dry, but it was just what I wanted!

I just added some ribbon that I already had to hang it in front of the window.

The only part of the shelving that I did not like was above the microwave. It was Christmas Eve, I was tired, and I just threw what I had left up there.

I tried to space the pops of red and green dishes throughout my shelves.

Like I said, I know that someone else could probably do a better job styling my shelves (like my buddy, Layla), but for me, I love the way it looks.

Some of you (like my sister) said you would not like open shelves because you would always worry about it not looking “right”. Or it would stress you out when things were out of place.

I totally get that. I mean I REALLY get that.

I worry about that too sometimes.

But it was so easy putting this dishes out, that I think I will be okay.

I will let you know how I like my shelves throughout the year. It’s going to be fun to “grow” with this kitchen.

Do you worry about styling open shelves?

Also, winners of the

Jeanne Oliver Designs Ecourse are:

1. kelly (cooperkelly4)

I would love to win this!!! I need all the crafting help I can get. =0) Your Winner

2. Misti (sabinecreek)

This sounds wonderful!

3. Kim (ckaasa)
This looks so fun and like a great way to start the new year!! Happy New Year to you!! :)

4. Connie Wuske

This would be AWESOME! Thanks!

5. Cindy Burke

What a perfect giveaway for the beginning of a new year!! I would love to participate ..what a blessing! thanks, cindy

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Filed Under makeover, makeovers, My Kitchen, New Home, New Kitchen Makover, open shelves 40 Comments

IKEA Butcher Block Countertop {Answers to your questions}

January 2, 2012 AT 4:08 pm 42 Comments

January 2, 2012 By traci 42 Comments

Happy 2012!!

I am so excited about this New Year! And I am so excited to share it with you.

The holiday rush is now over, and I am in the mood to get things in order. Are you?

One of the things I wanted to do is try to share a few posts with some more details about my kitchen. I had a lot of you ask questions about the specifics of our makeover like paint colors, stain color, etc.

So I am going to try and answer those questions. (Hope you are not getting sick of my kitchen. Smile )

Here is some information that I wanted to share about our IKEA butcher block counter tops:

Here is the link to the exact butcher block that we purchased…http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20057397/#/60057395

They come in different types of wood, lengths, and depths.

Cy cut the pieces of butcher block so that there would be a seam right under the faucet, and two 45 degree seams in each corner.

Cy wanted me to make sure that I told you that he used PL Adhesive to adhere the seams together.

This stuff is the bomb! When it dries, it is actually stronger than the wood that it is holding together. By using this adhesive, it eliminates the chance of the seams splitting or shifting over time.

He also attached a 1×2 underneath the seams with screws for extra strength.

After the butcher block was attached to the cabinets, we needed to fill in any gaps in the seams with wood filler.

Here is a little trick:

When sawing the butcher block, be sure to save some of the saw dust from the floor.

Then mix some of the saw dust with the wood filler before filling the seams.

This will help the wood filler blend more evenly with the wood and help the seam to accept the stain the same as the rest of the countertop.

Next, just press the wood filler mixture into the seam with your finger.

Once the filler is dry, you can sand it smooth with a sander.

Once the seams were all filled, Cy then sanded the whole countertop really well and then applied ONE coat of this stain…

You can see that the stain gave the wood just a little bit of a deeper color.

Then we applied 4 coats of Satin Polyurethane, sanding lightly between each coat.

Perfection! I love the way it turned out!

In the video below, you can see how Cy made the rounded corners in the wood around the sink. We applied a bead of caulk between the wood and the sink to keep the moisture out.

I’ve had my countertops finished for a couple of weeks now, and I can honestly say that I am thrilled with them. They are extremely durable and easy to clean.

Here is a little video I made of some footage of Cy working on the counters.

If I didn’t answer one of your questions in this post, please let me know in the comments, and I will get back to you. Smile

Have a blessed day!

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Filed Under husband's handiwork, kitchen makeover, makeover, makeovers, My Kitchen, New Home, New Kitchen Makover 42 Comments

Before and After Pictures of our Kitchen Makeover {without mouse over effect!}

December 28, 2011 AT 2:30 pm 65 Comments

December 28, 2011 By traci 65 Comments

I know these pictures are a repeat, but I wanted to share the before and after pictures of our kitchen for those of you who cannot use the mouse over effect on your computer.

It was just too many pictures to put in yesterday’s post.

So here they are!

Before…

After…

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After…

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After…

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After…

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After…

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We have a few more things left to do, and I will share those with you soon.

I will also answer a bunch of your questions about our counters, lighting, floors, etc. in a future post too.

THANK YOU so much for all of your sweet comments! Sharing this kitchen renovation with you made it so much more bearable during the difficult days.