No Contact.

This was my least favorite kind of project.  Dirty, difficult, long, & unavoidable.

About two weeks before we moved into the house I tackled the interior of the kitchen cabinets.  This is what we were working with.

Old contact paper makes me sad.

You're probably thinking that after 30 years, the adhesive would be weakened and tearing up the paper would be easy.  I was too. 

Well friends, that was incorrect, and I had the bruises for a week to prove it.

Cute, right?

Once all the paper was out (and it took most of a day; not even kidding), I scrubbed all the surfaces inside and got to work recovering the shelves.  I chose this non-adhesive liner for the bottom of the cabinets, and used it as an excuse to buy a staple gun.  It's nice and grippy so my glasses don't slide all over the place, and wipeable which is handy for spots like under the sink.  I used this adhesive paper to line the drawers and wrap the upper shelves.  The glossy finish makes it all look a lot more updated.

Isn't that better?  I think so.

I should also call your attention to the fact that the cabinets were painted gray in order to sell the house, and on the inside of the doors we can see the color they used to be.  Is anyone surprised?

While hanging out with my staple gun inside one of the upper cabinets, I found a little piece of history.

Nov-7, 1966.  I never really doubted that the cabinets are original to the house, but it was still neat to find the date stamp.  We're making history here people, one evil piece of contact paper at a time!

Salted Caramel Pretzel Bark

I'm finding it impossible to resist anything with "salted caramel" in the title lately (you hear me Starbucks? you take that mocha off the menu right now!!), and since the kitchen is still in awful disrepair from the move, I recently made this recipe twice within 3 days.  It's quick, it's foolproof, it requires few ingredients, and it's the perfect treat for a crowd, or someone who especially deserves one.

SALTED CARAMEL CHOCOLATE PRETZEL BARK

from Legume Loyalist via Pinterest

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1 cup brown sugar

12 oz. bag chocolate chips

Sea salt - I used Kosher because I already had it

Enough pretzels to cover a baking sheet - original recipe calls for mini pretzels, but I used sticks because I already had them on hand.  They worked fine, but next time I would try using standard pretzels to amp up the salty/sweet contrast.

Let's Do This:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Assemble the team.

Spread pretzels evenly over a foil-lined baking sheet

 

Melt butter over low-medium heat.

Once melted, add brown sugar and simmer until sugar has dissolved completely.

Pour caramel mixture over pretzels, and bake for 5-7 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt chocolate chips.

Spread melted chocolate over the pretzel-caramel combo, sprinkle with salt, and chill for at least an hour.

Break into rustic, bark-type pieces.

I would write some more detailed instructions, but I really don't think this recipe needs any more explanation.  I actually did something wrong both times I made this over the weekend, and both times it was still delicious.  That's what I call a keeper.

Like Being On The Face Of The Sun.

I literally shielded my eyes from the white-ness in our kitchen the first time we looked at the house.

Listing photo

Whoa, put those sunglasses back. on.

Our long-term plan is a major renovation, but we have a few minor cheap updates in the works to make the kitchen feel a little more "us" until then.

The highest priority was warming up the color on the walls.  Winter is coming, and standing in a kitchen so reminiscent of the Arctic Circle is not how I want to spend it.  We had already chosen (and purchased) glass tile for the backsplash, and were waffling over whether to paint the cabinets or not, so there were a lot of variables in play.  It was a really tough decision, though I'm not sure why...

...because some of those colors were really, truly awful.

The final color was the most beigy beige we could find.  The only one apparently without obvious hints of pink, green, or ghastly gold.

I really love the wall color (especially since it means no longer feeling like you need sunscreen to have the lights on in the kitchen), but it caused a problem.

The gray cabinets now look very blue in comparison.

Thus sealing their fate, and mine.  I have to paint them.  In fact, I bought the paint the very next day, but then completely chickened out.  

Stay tuned.

Melted Vanilla Ice Cream

Just a quick post to introduce our dining room!

I don't know why I enjoyed painting this room so much, especially since I did most of the work very late one night after a full day at work, but it was definitely my favorite project so far!

You may recognize the original color from, oh, I don't know...everywhere else.

Yeah, I love that chandelier.  With the right decor, I think it could look super awesome and shabby-chic.  Such a shame I haven't a clue how to pull that off.

Husband painstakingly taped off all the trim and did the first coat of green.  I really prefer to paint without tape, and needed to repaint the chair rail anyway, so I may have pulled it all off immediately after taking this picture...

Shhh, don't tell him.

Here's the finished product:

The green is Weeping Willow from Olympic.  It's the most perfect, fresh, light sage.

Below the chair rail is Cloth from Eddie Bauer.  In the can it looks exactly like melted vanilla ice cream, and on the walls it's beautiful and warm.

The ceiling is white.  That's all.

This room is my absolute favorite in the house at the moment.  Next, we furnish it on a budget!

The Break-Up: Powder Blue

The previous owners of our house really loved powder blue.  Virtually every room in the house is painted this color, or has evidence that it was once painted this color.  Even the kitchen cabinets.  Really.

We were lucky enough to have almost 5 weeks between closing day, and moving day, so the first thing we did after the house became ours (actually, maybe the weekend before) was collect all the paint chips we could get our hands on.  We tackled the living room first.

Here's the listing photo of our living room.

And here's what it looked like all ready for a new color!  As you can see the previous owners left the rug because they heard we love powder blue too.  We left the brackets for the curtain rods up partly because we thought we might be able to reuse the rods, and partly mostly because it wasn't really clear how to take them off....

Husband made the inaugural brush strokes, marking our very first moment of home improvement.  It took him a long time to paint the whole room with that tiny little brush...

The new color is Linen, by Eddie Bauer.  It's warm gray, taupe, and occasionally olive (which was unexpected).

Here's the big moment where we said goodbye to powder blue forever!

...err, don't look in the adjacent room.

Here's the finished product.  We also repainted the window trim, and replaced 2 vent covers so they all match.  The stool you see here was officially the only chair  in the house until we moved in, and it only ended up here because of an unrelated mishap.  In the early days, a lot of frozen pizza was consumed while leaning or sitting on the kitchen counter very late at night...it never occurred to us to bring over something to sit on.  We prefer to whine.

About A Door.

A lot of things in our house have been painted over (and over, and over), which is a little annoying if you don't want your outlets to be blue or your light switches to be brown.  It's even more annoying if you plan to actually use the deadbolt on your door...

We weren't really willing to live without the option to lock the door from our kitchen to our garage, and it stuck in the frame so badly that I had to use my entire body weight to get it open.  It also was the original door from when the house was built, and therefore not appropriately fire-rated.

HOW TO REPLACE A PRE-HUNG DOOR WITH NO EXPERIENCE AND MODERATE SUCCESS:

Step 1:  Assess your existing door and determine that it just won't do.  

Step 2: Consider all replacement options, and watch a lot of youtube and ehow videos to inflate your DIY confidence (we primarily used these).  Buy a new pre-hung door (steel, fire-rated), and other necessary supplies & tools.  Realize that every home improvement project costs twice what you estimated it would. 

Step 3: Remove the gorgeous screen door by unscrewing the hinges from the frame.

Step 4:  Pry off the interior trim and the exterior brick molding with a putty knife and hammer.  Hopefully your garage door openers won't be stuck to your brick mold with some kind of impenetrable adhesive like ours are.

Step 5: Breathe a sigh of relief when what you discover underneath the trim looks exactly like the videos said it would.  Seriously, phew.

Step 6: Knock out debris and shims in the space around door frame.  Cut through big scary nails holding it in place with a reciprocating saw.  Remove the whole frame. 

Step 7: Unscrew threshold.  Marvel at three layers of linoleum under current flooring.  Worry briefly about tearing it all up someday...

Step 8: "Dry-fit" the door (make sure it fits and works properly in the space), and check plumb & level approximately 210 times.  Adhere the threshold to the floor, and use shims to keep the door in place, and some really long screws to attach the door frame to the house framing.  

This is where things went a little wrong for us.  The first screw went in too tightly, pulling the door slightly off center within the frame.  We were so focused on making sure it stayed square, that we didn't pay much attention to this, and by the time we realized, we already had 3 screws on each side, and 2 along the top.  We tried to correct it by loosening/tightening screws, but this only pulled it out of plumb because the floor adhesive was doing it's job.  Consequently, the door frame was slightly off center, and stayed slightly ajar when it should have been closed.  Sad^2.

 

Step 9: Spray foam insulation into the open space around the door.  Wait 8 hours for it to grow by "more than 50%".  When it doesn't (above photo), use up the rest of the can and squeal with amusement (below photo).

Step 10: Shave off the excess foam, and break off the shims.  Here's where you can see why the fact that our door frame is not centered is going to be a problem.  I love love the shelf which runs the length of our kitchen, but the left bracket is now too close to the door hinges for us to replace the trim around the door.

You might also have noticed that we changed the direction the door opens - it just made more sense to us.

Step 11:  Paint the door.

Step 12: If you're classy like us, stuff the holes with plastic bags and do nothing for several days.  Yes, the door was still naturally slightly ajar.

Step 13: Caulk around the exterior brick molding, and along the base of the threshold.

Step 14: Install the hardware, and celebrate the fact that your kitchen door has a working deadbolt, and now successfully stays closed.

 

Step 15:  Avoid doing anything about the trim situation for several weeks indefinitely.

As you can probably tell from these photos, Husband did 90% of the work, and I mostly manned the camera, spray foam, shop-vac, and said encouraging things like "uh-oh", "that doesn't look right", and "oh my god, that saw is loud".

The final photo is still the situation we're living with at the moment.  When we eventually do something about the trim, I'll post an update.

Any suggestions?

That New Formaldehyde Smell

Luckily for us, the hardwood flooring throughout most of the house is in pretty good shape.  We knew immediately though, that we would be replacing the two carpeted areas because they were old, worn, blue, and because carpet cooties give me the creeps.

Stairs - BEFORE

That is unfortunately the only picture I have of the original stair & landing carpet.

AFTER 

It's not actually as pale as it looks here, but we did have to go lighter than we expected due to the color of the floor - a lot of the shades we liked were too similar.  So, now we have borderline impractically light stair carpet, and a fierce no shoes rule.

The night before the installation, Mum & I hurriedly repainted the trim around the doors on the upstairs landing, attempting to avoid any painting-over-new-carpet situations.  Imagine, then, my dismay to discover the difference in plushness/thickness between the old and new carpets...

Ugh, not the look we were going for.

Not only did I now have to paint in the vicinity of the carpet, but IMMEDIATELY NEXT TO IT.  Taping around the five doorways up there was brutal.

Then, after painting, the tape pulled up threads around the edge of the carpet.  It was tragic.  There was nothing I could do about it...so I just shoved them back down.  Don't go picking around my baseboards, ok?

Anyway, it looks much classier now:

The other space we had replaced was the den next to the kitchen.

 Den - BEFORE

The only things I can currently tolerate about this room are the blinds.  

AFTER

Walls painted, carpet replaced.  Slightly better in there, but still miles to go I think...

Recap:

Project: Replace carpet in den and on stairs

Cost: High

Payoff: Great - there's nothing like that new carpet smell...at least, there wasn't, until I was told it's actually formaldehyde.  Hooray for specimen-preserving chemicals!