Perfectly Disgraceful

Martha is a genius

I'm no Martha hater and, as you've probably figured out, I have fantasies about having a clean and organized house (in my eternal anti-hoarding fight, I removed six bags of Goodwill-bound clothes from our closets this weekend). If our Ikea kitchen cabinets are ever installed, this a fantastic idea for storing trays:

Knobs and handles

So, yeah, the kitchen. It's coming along, Rex has been doing a lot of work whenever he has time, which usually means a big burst of work about once a month. We now have the new floor under 80% of the kitchen, yay!

Of the many advantages of having Rex do all the work is that when he does things like removing the cabinet beneath the sink, but instead of leaving us sink-less for months, he built a structure to hold the old sink until we're ready for the new one (which is actually old and may have a crack in the porcelain, which may be a problem). He also taught himself to hook the gas stove up to a longer hose so that it can be moved over six inches. Impressive. Seriously.

Image round-up

The Ikea cabinets-- glossy white Abstrakt with birch counters-- are purchased, but not yet delivered. All the decisions have been made, except for handles and lighting, so I really should stop scouring the internets for inspiring pictures, but I can't. It's a sickness.

So cute. (Two following pics.).

I'm still contemplating chalkboard paint.

Does this look like a kitchen?

It's gorgeous. And it's making me rethink some of my kitchen ideas. Decorno posted about this kitchen yesterday, but then I found more pics here. I had decided to use one of Ikea's pantry cabinet in the redone kitchen, next to the fridge. Like this:

We badly need a broom closet somewhere. Anywhere. I really like how the Ikea pantries have all the little places for everything, but it would probably be a lot more interesting to have a pantry cabinet made from reclaimed wardrobe doors.  Hmmm. One of our original ideas was to use new cabinets beneath the counter and reclaimed, interesting-looking cabinets above the counter. But then I started thinking new! shiny! cabinets are what I want. And now I am possibly returning to our original ideas. Remember how it took us nine years to buy a couch? Yeah.

Shallow sink

I die.

Pic by Simon Watson found at Remodelista.

Floor!

Look at this sexy floor:

I can't tell you how happy this floor makes me. Best anniversary present Rex could have given me.

Staining the floor

I did like the unstained pine planks (that's Rex, hard at work), but they would get filthy in the kitchen, and I think the dark stain will look lovely with white cabinets.

That's the first coat of polyurethane. The second coat is being rolled on right now, and it's not unlike a chemical attack. How many coats do you think we should do in the kitchen? More than three?

White paint

I'm in love with white paint right now. I wasn't until recently. I wanted color, even if it was a neutral color, on all the walls in the house. I now realize that the problem was dingy old no-longer white paint on most of our walls. Now I've got bee in my bonnet to paint everything a fresh white.

I love the plain walls and simple bedside tables in this picture. Our giant king-sized bed will probably never look that cute, but it is damn comfortable.

Appliance paint

I wish I had heard of this years ago. The only appliance in our kitchen that's working well right now is the dishwasher. The 20-year-old second-hand dishwasher. It's loud, but it works just fine. Its biggest drawback is that its beige. But maybe I'll take a cue from the $30 kitchen makeover and paint it an interesting color.

From Sunset.com.

The other appliances? The fridge started freezing one area and getting lots of condensation. I fear this is not an easy fix and means a new fridge is in our near future. So far I've experienced frozen eggs and icy milk. The stove works okay, but not great. I guess it doesn't have to be replaced, but I'd really like to. The washer leaks, the dryer doesn't stop drying of its own accord. The toaster oven (third in three years!) takes about ten minutes to make toast and you have to flip the bread halfway through. So yeah, the beige dishwasher is all we've got going for us. Beige.

Demolition

The much-hated tile counter is gone. No more grout!