technically we are not done with the kitchen, but i am too excited to not share the 95% complete photos with you. i was hoping to have more time to post some of the details along the way, but i think now i'll just do those posts later. so if you have any specific questions, make sure to ask and i'll try to answer them!


as i've mentioned, the only big things we have left are finishing the base along the bottom of the cabinets, and eventually replacing or rebuilding the island. i'm still messing around with some of the accessories and details, and we'll probably end up installing some open shelving.  but we've come a long way from where we started...


just for fun, here's the kitchen when we moved in:

dark, dirty cabinets, a fruit light fixture, wallpaper on the walls and ceiling, and green carpet.





when we installed the new hardwood flooring on the first floor a year and a half ago, we also updated the kitchen floor.







i think that living with the old kitchen for so long really helped us figure out what we needed in the new kitchen.  we needed more storage and more counter space.  as we've renovated the rest of the house, i've been mixing vintage ideas with simple modern elements, and i knew that i wanted something similar in the kitchen renovation.  i also have a thing for unique light fixtures.


anyway, here is how the kitchen looks today (i removed the island in a few photos since the space is difficult to photograph):








i will probably add some of the open shelving that we had in the previous kitchen above the microwave area, the kitchen seems out of balance and i think that will help.  or maybe just hang my giant stendig calendar.




we really love it.  it's hard to believe it's the same kitchen, the space feels so much bigger and brighter now!

fun fact about me, i actually really like tiling. well, i like most construction projects, but next to painting, i think that tiling is something that can very quickly make a huge difference in a space.

we've always planned to use white subway tile for the backsplash. we bought tile samples from several stores and found that the tile from the tile shop was the truest white and looked the best with our counters and cabinets.

we started our tiling project by making sure that the wall was clean and smooth. we installed a scrap piece of wood along the wall behind the range so that we would have something level to rest the tiles on. we also protected our counters with heavy paper.  next we planned the layout of the tiles - this is important to do before you mix up the mortar!  i knew that i wanted the tiles to be centered in the range hood area, so we drew a center line down the middle of the space to establish our working point.

once we had our plan, we mixed up the thinset and got to work. we ended up using a "non-sag" mortar since we were tiling a wall. this was good because we didn't have to worry as much about the tiles slipping, and we found that after the tile had been set for a few minutes we could even remove the spacers.  note to self - next time buy more spacers, one package is not enough for this amount of tile.





a few hours later, we had most of the first wall complete.





the second wall went even quicker because there weren't as many cut tiles. 





the thinset dried quickly and we were able to grout the next day. i used a light gray grout and think that it is a great compliment to the subway tiles and the counter. unfortunately i didn't take any other photos, so i guess you'll have to wait to see the color!

mike and i celebrated our 5 year anniversary on saturday.  it's hard to believe it's already been 5 years since we got married!  we originally thought that we'd try to go on a long weekend trip somewhere, but instead, we spent our anniversary tiling the backsplash.  and i love that about us.

we did take a break from tiling to enjoy a nice dinner on a roof top patio at a resturant in the city.  while the food was good, the staff at the restuarant really made the evening special.  mike had mentioned it was our anniversary when he made the reservation, and they treated us to a delicious dessert, and even had an anniversary card for us that was signed by most of the staff. 

we have been busy the last couple of weekends working on the kitchen. and as of today, we are about 95% done! the only major thing left is cutting, painting, and installing the base along the bottom edge of the cabinets. other than that, we have some touch up painting to do, but that's about it for construction! we decided to wait on rebuilding the island for now (both because we haven't really finalized a design, and so we can recover financially), but hopefully it won't be too long before we are able to complete that project too. we also haven't decided if we're going to install the open shelves above the shallow depth counter like we had planned, although i might wait to see how the island turns out before deciding on the shelves.

i've gotten behind with my photos and updates, so i'm going to start by posting a few from last weekend.



first we had to find the perfect shade of gray paint. after several samples and much debate, we ended up using valspar's "vintage gray" color, mixed by sherwin williams at 60%.   "vintage gray" is the sample on the left, we just had it mixed to be lighter.  the entire kitchen took 2 coats of paint, and i've very happy with the color.



did i mentioned that i wanted to make a light fixture for the kitchen? i had seen several lindsey adelman fixtures and loved them, so when i found out she had a "you make it" tutorial online for the chandelier, i knew that it was the fixture that i wanted in our kitchen. a big added bonus of this fixture is that we were able to customize it slightly to accommodate the off center overhead light location. we are waiting on a few more replacement pieces so i'm going to wait to post the final pictures until it is complete, and i'll also post more information on making the fixture. i love how it turned out though!



at some point, some previous owner had decided to cover up/remove all of the window, door, and baseboard molding in the kitchen, probably when they decided to build out 2 of the walls.  with our project, we decided to install all new trim in the kitchen.  since we could not replicate the profile of the trim throughout the rest of the house, i came up with this modified/simple design.  i'll have to find a photo of the other trim for comparison.



we also had to build out the window sill, you can see how uneven the window wall is based on how i had to cut the sill piece.  now that it's all together, it's not perfect, but i think it looks good considering what we had to work with.



i have a lot to catch up on the blog, so i'm hoping to find some free time this week.

the weather in st louis has been fantastic this spring.  which is unforutnate when you are spending every weekend working on a kitchen renovation.

several weeks ago we were able to take a kitchen break and spend some time outside.  we decided to do a little work on the yard.  we bought some flowers for the pots that i have on the deck.  we also planted a small plum tree at the end of our yard, near our garage.  a few days later, i went outside and noticed that something had eaten the marigolds out of the pots.  we tracked it back to this guy:



in his defense, the marigolds did look kind of like tennis balls, which are his favorite outside toy. we watched him when he was outside playing for the next couple of days and worked on "leave it" and thought we were good to go with new plantings.

so imagine my surprise a few days later when i looked outside in the morning and noticed some tree branches in our backyard.  branches with dark purple leaves...  from the new plum tree.  murphy had pulled all of the bottom branches off of the tree!  while the tree didn't look very good, we thought that it would survive.  again we worked with murphy on "leave it" and tried not to leave him outside for very long.  this has been difficult, because with our kitchen work we tend to leave the dogs in the yard for long periods of time so they are out of the way and safe.  we keep an eye on them, but we aren't constantly watching them.

early last week we left him outside for maybe 5 mins while making dinner.  and sure enough, when i let the dogs back in the house, i looked outside and only saw a short trunk sticking out of the ground where our tree had been planted.  the weird part is that he just ate right through the trunk.  he's part dog, part beaver?  we dug up the remaining piece of trunk, and left the hole in the ground while we decided what to do next.

meanwhile, we discover that murphy's been eating all sorts of things in the backyard.  he's been eating the rose bushes (ouch!), the vines that grow along the fence, and some weeds.  although maybe helping with the weeds isn't such a bad thing...  he's very sneaky about his plant eating.  i don't trust him outside anymore, but we've been working on the plant issue and he's gotten a little better about leaving the plants alone.

except then he discovered the hole.  when we removed the eaten tree, we were left with a 2' diameter hole.  murph thought it was great fun to put the entire front half of his body into the hole.  we decided to try to plant another tree.

we were unable to find another plum tree.  we also started wondering if a fruit tree that has fruit with pits would be something that we should plant in a yard with dogs.  so instead we thought we'd try a small crabapple tree.  we were also limited on space between the fence and the garage, and thought that the miniture size (max size of 10'-15') might actually fit better when grown.



we planted the new tree and added a small fence.  i hope this works.  i was laughing in the fencing area at lowes, everyone else there was complaining about deer or rabbits, and we were trying to figure out what size fence we needed to keep our giant puppy off of our tree. our neighbors probably think we're crazy. oh murphy**, it's a good thing you're so cute...

**murphy has been a great puppy, this is really the first time we've had any kind of issue with him. he's normally very well behaved, i really cannot complain too much. when cooper and reese were this age they ate through a wall. twice.