RENO WEEK 5

Finally the waiting is over! After a solid week of paint and wait and paint and wait, WE HAVE WHITE CABINETS! I took last Friday off and reattached all of the hinges to the doors and screws to the cabinet bases then after 1 coat of paint together that night they were done, D-O-N-E, done! The door painting fiasco did take 1 day longer than planned because we decided to caulk the insets of each door. Basically when we painted there was a gap between the door frame and the inset and it wasn't pretty so we caulked it up and painted some more and achieved a much cleaner look. Friday night Murph wanted to see just a couple doors up at 10:30p and well needless to say I fell asleep on the couch and woke up at 11:15p to the most beautiful sight .... behold!

Here's a little before photo for a refresher too ...

What a clean and fresh difference! We still need to add some cabinet hardware, in ORB (of course) and right now we are leaning towards bin pulls and simple knobs something like this ...

  

This week we are tying up loose ends before our new floor goes in, including 

• Trimming up paint in the kitchen
• Texturing the bathroom walls where we took out the old vanity
• Priming the living room subfloor to seal in the former owner's pet stains
• Removing/installing 3 new doors

Are we there yet?!

BACON FEST

Partially in honor of Stacy's 29th birthday, and partially because we all love bacon, a group of 10 of us hit up the hot ticket event, the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival this past Saturday. Held in the varied industry building at the state fair grounds, we joined 8,000 of our closest friends for some bacon indulgence. It was quite the experience and besides a frew brews and several bacon strip samples, here is a list of what I can remember eating.

Bacon Explosion - BBQ Addicts 

I don't even know how to describe it, click here for delicious details!

Maple, Bacon, Bourbon & Pecan Ice Cream - Exile Brewing

I would eat this Ice Cream on a regular non-bacon day it was that good. We also tried one of their beer floats ... that I would never eat again

Bacon Pad Thai - Cafe Fuzion 

I would order this off the menu, super good and a big portion size

Bacon Brownie - Carefree Patisserie

I really wanted a cupcake, but they were sold out by the time I went there so I settled for a brownie. Not much bacon flavor, but it was chocolate so I was happy.

Man Candy and Bacon Potato Chips - Trostel's

The Man Candy was brown sugar candied bacon and then chips. The Man Candy was delish and the chips were just chips. I sampled this from one of our friends.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Pizza - Gusto Pizza

Murph and a few others had a piece of this and I wish I would have too! Mozzarella, caramelized onions and 6 types of bacon topped off this pizza.

Caramel Bacon Bar - Chocolaterie Stam

A chocolate bar filled with caramel and bacon. 3 of these went to Murph as he loves caramel, however in a non-bacon activity filled weekend, he may not have eaten these :)

Fried Pork Belly - Dos Rios

This was a little fatty for my taste, but the meaty side of the dish was delish!

RENO WEEK 4

Wow we've been at this a month?! Insane! Not much to update on other than this procedure. Paint, wait, paint, wait, paint, wait ... I think you get the point. We finished up our drawers last week and it's nice to see our kitchen slowly coming back to life. Something simple like having all of our silverware accessible this weekend was just amazing. The drawers took 1 coat of primer then 4 coats of paint, Murph also added some cabinet cushions to make sure the closing drawers don't ding up the new paint job on the cabinet bases.

Now we are focusing on the doors. So far the backs have 3 coats of paint on them and we will see tonight if they will require a 4th, I am hoping no. Since the paint requires 24 hours between coats it's a lot of hurry and wait right now, but hopefully on Friday or Saturday we will have everything put back together and I will have some white cabinet pictures to share!

The doors and drawers had no hardware to begin with but I am hoping to add some by the end of the year, I think we will want a little color contrast in there. I also hope to begin investigating new counter top options. I know we won't be replacing them this year most likely but it's never to early to start looking!

Murph also began work on patching our power room walls up and I hope to get painting on the sink base this week. We also purchased a new white toilet (it's the little things I tell you!) that I am pretty jazzed about, ours all are almond colored and I think they are just dirty looking all the time.

So that's our current progress, keep your fingers crossed for no delays on our flooring, the install date is about 2 weeks away now!

VANITY PLANS

So the more I stared at our desk in the living room that I plan to turn into the vanity (Murph has deemed this my project BTW) the more I wasn't sold on it. So the wheels got to turning. What is it that I am not loving? Ok it looks like a desk with a sink basin on it, I think I've got it! The shiny black finish wasn't really jazzing me up either so I took to the internet for some inspiration.

I have fallen in love with Houzz, it kick's Pinterest's booty in the home department I must say. You can really search about anything from "oak wood work", "painted cabinets", to one of my favorites "desk turned vanity". As I perused photos I realized I was happy with the shape of our purchase, I didn't want something too rustic because in 2 years I don't want to look at it and go, "what was I thinking", so I liked the lines, CHECK! Then I put my finger on it. I don't like the top of the desk, I want something more table like, maybe even with a planked wood top, CHECK! So I made a phone call to a personal carpenter friend of mine who works for dirt cheap (that would be my dad who rebuilt our home as well as all of the furniture in it) and racked his brain about a table top and before I knew it he was making it for us.

I'm hoping this will really pull the idea in my head together and with a little paint I think I'll be closer to the inspiration photo's below. I've really been hooked on the idea of using Chalk Paint (gives a matte sandable finish that you wax to seal and requires no sanding or priming), but don't think I can justify the price ($36 / qt.), so I plan to make some of my own since Pinterest has tons of recipes on there. Right now I am stuck between a graphite gray or going with the creamy white that the trim and cabinetry will be throughout the house. I might have to see the finished top before I make a choice, but either way I am feeling more excited about this idea and hoping it will really turn out well.

About as close to colors as I can get and love. The bathroom is already this wall color "Templeton Gray" by Benjamin Moore. Loving the wood top with the white distressed bottom and dark fixtures like our bronze faucet.

This is good for size and styling of the shelf below, the sink will not cover the entire top though

This is the image that made me realize how much of a difference a top could make

Same with this one. This also gave me a good feel for the wood top with a painted bottom and a sink that does not fill the entire space of the "counter top". I'm hoping to fit a large basket like this under ours! I also love the towel ring attached to the side.

This really has the lines of what we have picked out, even the X sides. Loving this finish as well, and I can easily picture with a dark wood top on it.

If I keep it black I love the matte finish this has with an appropriate amount of distressing as well

If I used a lighter gray chalk paint and sanded it to reveal the black under it, I might end up with something like this

Or maybe just a nice graphite gray color is what I am feeling

RENO WEEK 3.1

MONDAY, TUESDAY & THURSDAY: Well it's a messy job but we are sanding through 21 cabinet doors, 6 drawer fronts and 4 other small pull out drawers. I swear the varnish on these bad boys is impenetrable! Monday night we stopped after just 5 fronts but Tuesday night we managed to power though 8 leaving another 8 to go on Thursday (we took Wednesday off this week and Murph did the drawers on Sunday while I was bartending). The majority of the door can be done with a palm sander but each door also has an area that is inset requiring hand sanding. Bleh. I think this is where Murph thinks this whole cabinet painting was a bad idea and I should have talked him into using chalk paint so we wouldn't have had to prime or sand at all :) But it's $36 / quart .... pricey anyone?! Since the flooring is all up we have taken the liberty of setting up a "sanding tent" in our front room. Using a large plastic tarp we created an area blocked off from our furnace vent and return hoping to corral the dust from sanding. It seems to be working fairly well although it is clearly not a vacuum seal so we will still have some cleanup throughout the house once the sanding is done. After round 1 we will apply any wood filler we need to to the fronts then hit sanding round 2 (hopefully Friday night) and finish with a coat of deglosser to insure we have as much of the finish removed before we prime (fingers crossed for Saturday)!

Murph working away in the "tent"

Selfie just for Holly and Heather - Don't let your cabinets define you