Everything for the kitchen sink

Ain't she a beaut!!!!!!

When I started gathering ideas for my kitchen I was seeing these apron front sinks everywhere. Who am I to not jump on that bandwagon? After all they are fabulous. I was disappointed to discover that they required a special sink base and since we were painting the cabinets and not getting new ones, I thought I was out of luck. But then I came across this! The Kohler whitehaven sink. It's made to retrofit into a regular sink base for people who aren't getting new cabinets but want an update. Hey! That's me! Well played Kohler. Genius. So I toodle on over to the website and check them out. Pictures are stunning! Description is captivating! Price is........ OOMMPHH..... I. can't. breath. I hate you Kohler. I have never wanted anything for this house like I want this stupid sink. I decide I will do whatever it takes. I'll pick up cans by the side of the road, I'll sell my plasma, whatever it takes I'm having this sink. This is the moment I realized that I would be really picky about what I spent money on and cheap as hell on everything else. Since Joe is a contractor, he knows a lot of people in the biz. Including a plumber friend that was willing to get this for us at his cost. Helped. But I had a new goal. Oh I was still getting the sink, but I was going to pay as little as possible for everything else. I was going to do things on the cheap without looking cheap. Thus is born a thrifty DIY addict.

Cutting out old counter and getting sink base ready for new sink

Boom! That's one heavy mutha!

So obviously the next step was new counter tops. I went back and forth for a long time between granite and quartz. But remember I'm cheap and didn't want to spend the money. So we decided were were going to make concrete counter tops ourselves since there were abundant tutorials all over the place and they all made it look very easy. Joe also felt it was doable. Then one night I literally had a nightmare about having my feet stuck in concrete and woke up in a cold sweat. It was either cabinet painting PTSD or God was speaking directly to me telling me not to do it. The next day I was in Home Depot and they were having a sale on granite. I decided it was God and bought the granite. It's called steel gray and I think it was a very wise move. I can't even imagine what the hell we were thinking. With the way all the projects have gone around here, what on earth made us think we should take that on?!?!?

So we bought the sink and counter tops new. I'm 0 for 2 on the DIY projects for this kitchen. But here's where I start to catch up. We moved the old island cabinet base to the opposite wall making a weird little bump out less obvious.

But now I needed an island. I wanted to keep the butcher block island top that Joe had made when we first redid the kitchen but I was on the hunt for a new base and I wanted it to be open. I happened upon a display table at a flea market that was the perfect size. It didn't appear to be for sale but I asked anyway and she said absolutely. How much? 5 bucks. What? I mean it needed some TLC but still I figured something must be wrong with it but she said no. It was just too big for her, but it did have working casters to roll it. Sold! Brought Joe back the next day and loaded it up along with another metal cabinet I planned to paint to hold the kids craft junk and play dough. He was shaking his head in disgust the whole time thinking I'd turned into a hoarder. He said next I'd be keeping my take out containers and bringing home cats. I don't know why he doesn't trust me.

$5 display table

The rusty beast

Painted in Benjamin Moore Chelsea Gray and butcher block stained medium brown

He really should just trust me

Coming up: Kitchen table and hardwood floor........

Kitchen cabinet do-over

We have a plan for this remodel and addition, really we do. But when the microwave bit it at the same time Lowes was having a sale on appliances, things took a left turn. Since we were going to eventually update the kitchen anyway, I did what I always do..........start a project before we're really ready. It's the thing Joe loves about me the most :) I suppose I could have just bought the microwave but why would I ever want anything to be that easy?

This is what I did 8 years ago. Yup. I did that. It actually used to have fruit wallpaper and burgundy paint. And sadly I did that too.

 If we were going to make this house last forever then we were going to have to do something about this so I could pretend it never happened. First of all, since it is a fact that I am an excellent painter, I thought I could totally paint these. After researching a bazillion other blogs out there claiming that "painting your cabinets is a quick, easy and inexpensive way to update your kitchen", I figured I totally got this! Well, I would like to thank those blogs for inching me one step closer to the loony bin. Fuck all those blogs. They are lying sacks of shit. This project was a complete debacle, and I'M A GOOD PAINTER DAMMIT!

Here's how it went...... Cabinets came off and were cleaned and primed. From previous experience I have found this Zinsser Cover stain primer to be the best. I rolled it on because it's oil based and I didn't want to dick around with cleaning it out of the sprayer.

                                                 




Then an argument between

Joe and I ensued about 

whether to lay them flat

to spray them

Or hang them

So I took his advice and hung them. I bought a sprayer by Wagner that claimed to be for smooth surfaces, you can see it there in the left hand corner, and went to town. The sprayer was a disaster. It looked like Barney spit mashed potatoes all over the doors. I told Joe I thought I needed a sprayer that hooked up to an air compressor. He points to the back wall of the garage and says, "you mean like the one hanging right there" (little silver thing hanging to the left of black and white poster). Shit balls! YES! That's exactly what I need! Why didn't you tell me we had that? And no I couldn't see it hanging in plain sight so shut up! He does this to get back at me for not asking for help. Swear. 

That sprayer did work better but it takes A LOT of practice. And by the time I got it down I had a drippy mess. I'd sanded and repainted so many times I wanted to die. I called my mom in a full on emotional breakdown, (because that's who you call at 36 years of age when you are having a full on emotional break down), and she told me to just give it up and call the guy that had just done a bunch of painting at her house. I knew I could still handle rolling the boxes and frames, but the doors were a lost cause. So I called Ron the painter man, confessed my failure, and asked for a quote to paint 23 doors and drawer fronts. $200. What?!?!?! I've wasted more than that in paint......and beer. He came over the next day and saved my ass. If any of you live in central Iowa and need a fabulous painter man, message me and I'll get you his info. He returned to me the most perfectly smooth and beautiful doors a girl could ask for.