A Place for Everything ...

...and everything in it's place.

It's important to Jens and I since we both like to cook that our kitchen functions well more importantly then good looks. Don't get me wrong, I loved creating the kitchen mood board and picking out finishes, but the layout and storage needed to be well thought out.

In our original kitchen floor plan we had a major traffic flow problem as illustrated in the floor plan below.

 

The traffic flow cuts across the work triangle and the kitchen was pretty closed off from the rest of the house as is pretty typical in houses of our home's era.  On top of that, our family and guest always ended up congregating in the kitchen and there was never a good place to sit and converse with the cook. So this is where we ended up with our floor plan.

No more traffic flow issues, an "open" floor plan, and a place for people to sit at the peninsula. We took down the wall and moved the fridge, but besides that, the footprint, most cabinets, and plumbing stay the same keeping this from becoming a complete gut job.

Once I had a floor plan nailed down, I starting looking at the elevations and how our kitchen storage/work "zones" would function.

The Kitchen Zones (source: dynamicspace.com) consist of:

• Consumables Zone: items used for cooking/baking which much be replenished (e.g. bread, cereal, canned goods, rice/pasta, flour, sugar, snacks). Includes refrigerator and freezer.

• Non-consumables Zone: non-foodstuff such as flatware, dishes, glasses, plastic containers.

• Cleaning Zone: dishwasher and sink area, waste/recycling receptacles, household cleaners, broom and mop

• Preparation Zone: cutting boards, measuring equipment, knives, mixing bowls, oils/sauces, spices, small kitchen appliances

• Cooking Zone: cooking utensils, pots, pans, baking tools and ingredients, cookbooks

Here's how the zones lay out in our kitchen.

 

We'll be gaining some additional storage space with the new peninsula and the plan is for it to function as the main prep area. As the kids get older and become more self-sufficient, I thought it'd also be nice to have the microwave and a snack drawer within easier reach.

So that's the game plan folks. Anything I'm forgetting or have any suggestions for us to make our modestly sized kitchen as functional as possible?

New Kitchen Appliances

I hope everyone had a great mother's day weekend. Mine was busy but lovely and I got to spend a lot of time with my mother enjoying one of our favorite past-times - hunting for bargains. We hit up a load of garage sales during our community's city-wide garage sale weekend. I walked away with a lot of clothes for the kids and we even picked up a few freebies on the curb which I have no shame in admitting. One of our freebie finds was a Jacobsen mower for my Dad which he'll hopefully be able to bring back to life. I've never seen a mower like it but it's the motorized reel style that they use to cut the grass on greens at golf courses.

Jens, however, was the one who came home with the real bargain of the day while he was out with my father and the kids. For $10 he picked up a couple new Kenmore appliances (seriously, they have the brand name Kenmore on them) and a new sink (not pictured).

The kids are having a great time cooking me mac 'n cheese... their favorite. I'm still kinda shocked that Jens actually bought these since he's kinda anti-space-consuming-kid-stuff but I'm very proud of him for his garage sale prowess.

Post garage sale-ing (yes, it's now a verb), my mom, neighbor, and I scoped out some more bargains at the Friend's School Plant Sale which boosts 2,300 varieties of plants for sale. I've been making the sale an annual thing for the past 3 years now and I've had pretty good luck with the plants. You have to be a patient gardener since most of the plants are not as mature at typical nursery plants but it's a good way to stretch the garden/landscaping budget.

And speaking of gardening, although I'd love to try a vegetable garden this year and add more to our landscaping, I realize that I'm going to have my hands full remodeling a kitchen this summer. I set my ambitions for gardening pretty low for this season - some tomatoes and strawberries for edibles and a few annuals in containers out front and in hanging baskets.

Here are my north-facing, shade-loving containers (new guinea impatiens and coleus) I just planted tonight .

That also means that I just got around to pulling out the winter evergreen containers from this holiday season. I should have gotten on that one a little sooner than May 13th but in my defense there was measurable snow accumulation as recently as 10 days ago here in Minnesota.
 

Jens also made a snazzy new rod to replace the broken one on my lamp post out front for my new hanging basket. It still needs a little spray paint to blend it into the post, but it's serving it's function well. And for my own benefit and recollection the flowers are double impatiens and should do well in the front of the house shaded by our huge oak tree.

Shower Serendipity

Our kitchen remodel has been the focus of most of my energy lately but I have to take a quick detour to share a little update I made in our bathroom. Back in February I shared this mood board for the bathroom and I had my heart set on the West Elm Chevron shower curtain.

My hopes and dreams for the West Elm shower curtain were crushed when I couldn't find it anywhere so I accepted defeat and moved on to focus on the kitchen with a clear PVC liner sufficing until I could stumble upon something similar. And then last week by serendipity, I found this shower curtain at my favorite place to go in for toilet paper and dish soap and then walk out $100 lighter.

Target Room Essentials Chevron Shower Curtain, $14.99

I think it was meant to be - check out how well it coordinates with the print I had purchased on Etsy.

It has the chevron thing going on like my original inspiration and as an added bonus also includes some sexy hexy pattern happening (which btw was predicted as the next trend in patterns by Sherry and Mandi). So now I'm my shower curtain is completely color coordinated and "on-trend" and I'm no longer bummed about missing out on the West Elm shower curtain. I also picked up the coordinating hand towel and I think it looks pretty darn cute next to my little color dipped pot over the toilet. Anyone else have any serendipitous discoveries lately?

Floors Finished with Monocoat

We completed our floor refinished project yesterday and now I'm anxiously awaiting for 36 hours to pass so we can move our furniture and appliances back onto the floors. It was a long weekend and I've got some very sore muscles but the results were worth it. I also need to give a big Thank You shout out to my parents who watched the kids all weekend for us at their place in Wisconsin.

We started by moving everything not nailed down out of the rooms and into our family room or basement. Our neighbor was kind enough to loan us a fridge dolly which made moving the stainless beast a bit smoother.

Here's our kitchen with all of the appliances moved and the chaos that was going on in our family room.

 

 

 

 

Before we could finally begin sanding we put up some plastic in the doorways to the family room and basement and covered up our vents with cardboard to mitigate the dust getting places we didn't want it.

 

 And then it was time to put on our hearing protection and get down to business sanding.

Jens did the drum sanding since I'm not even coordinated enough to walk and chew gum at the same time. The drum sanding can be loosely compared to driving a manual vehicle since when you get to the end of your forward or back motion you have to smoothly pull back on the lever to pick up the drum a la releasing a clutch. Thankfully we both got a little practice on this machine during our training at Pete's Hardwood Floors.

I was responsible for all of the edge sanding which was the source of some very sore muscles the following day. It probably weighs close to 40 pounds and with it's spinning motion wants to go one direction and you have to pull/push it another direction.

To get under our stair banister (please just ignore our zip tied paneling/childproofing) and toe kicks we also rented a handy dandy radiator/toe-kick sander. This worked like a charm for those otherwise hard to reach areas.

 

The dust wasn't too bad until we started getting into the finer 60 and 80 grits so we broke out a couple dust masks. Kayden was sneezing and wanted was forced to wear one too (just for a silly photo op).

 

The last sanding step was a 100-grit with a buffer to blend the edge sander and drum sander areas together. And then there was a lot of vacuuming to do so we had a clean floor to put our finish on.

 

Here's some photos of the freshly sanded floors one we were completely done sanding and vacuuming. Oh and pay no attention to the half-removed bead-board wainscoting, we're going to be redoing it with some board and batten.

 

The last thing we did in preparation for the finish was to lightly mist the entire floor with water to water pop the grain of the wood. We took a lunch break to let it dry completely before we began applying our finish.

 

The finishing went on really easily once we had done all of the work getting to this point. Similar to the method we used for sanding, I did the work along the perimeter and Jens did the field.

 

The finish we used is Rubio Monocoat Oil Plus 2C in Chocolate. It is a stain/finish and although it's not cheap, it was very easy to work with. It's zero-VOC and has a faint natural odor which I thought was actually kinda pleasant. It has a matte appearance compared to a traditional glossy polyurethane. You can walk over it right away with your socks on but be prepared to trash that pair of socks.

 

The oil is applied directly on the floor with a squirt bottle and is spread into the floor with a buffer and 3M pad. We worked in small manageable sections because after about 5-10 minutes you need to go back over with a clean 3M buffer pad (or lint free cloth on the edges) and remove the excess oil. And then that's it, we are able to walk on it but are waiting a full 36 hour cure time to put our appliances and furniture back. Here's some after shots or our rich brown hardwood floors.

(Note: our future kitchen peninsula will cover up that awkward section in the middle that's we have scrap wood/vent sitting in)

Now we get to start putting stuff back together and install some new trim and baseboards. I'm relieved to be past this seemly daunting task and excited to be another step closer to a remodeled kitchen.

Floor Sanding/Finishing Update

Our floors are looking beautiful and I can't wait to share some finished pics but I figured I'd give a quick progress update. So far things have gone according to plan. We added a grit step (24) for taking the finish off of the original hardwood floor but other than that everything is running on schedule. We'll be applying our finish today - yay!

 

Day 1 (Wednesday, May 1, 2013) Tasks

1. Install wood plugs in trim piece
2. Set finish nails
3. Fill nail holes and cracks with wood putty

Day 2 (Thursday, May 2, 2013) Tasks

1. Remove baseboards and register covers
2. Move kitchen appliances
3. Move furniture, window treatments, home decor
4. Raise chandelier

Day 3 (Friday, May 3, 2013) Tasks

1. Tape plastic on ducts and doorways
2. Rent equipment
3. Sand
• Drum Sand w/24 grit
• Edge Sand w/24 grit
• Drum Sand w/36 grit
• Edge Sand w/ 36 grit
• Vacuum
• Drum Sand w/ 60 grit
• Edge Sand w/60 grit
• Vacuum
• Drum Sand w/80 grit
• Edge Sand w/ 80 grit
• Vacuum

Day 4 (Saturday, May 4, 2013) Tasks

1. Use a radiator edger to sand under the toe-kicks
2. Hand sand all the corners
3. Hand sand and remove edge swirl
4. Final polish with buffer and 100 grit screen
5. Vacuum windowsills, counters, and floors
6. Tack the vacuumed floor and water pop the wood
7. Open windows for proper airflow for curing of finish
8. Finish Floors
• Mix Monocoat oil
• Brush oil along wall or bufoilf  into center of floor using red buffing pad
• Wait 5 minutes
• Remove excess oil with cotton cloth or white buffing pad
• Repeat previous three steps in manageable sections
• Allow finish 24 hours to dry
9. Return Equipment/pat self on back/have a beer/take pretty after pictures for blog

Colorado and a Little Pot

Alright hippies, this is not what you may think, this is after all a family/DIY/crafting/cooking blog and there is no wacky tobacky involved in any fashion. But we did take a family trip to Colorado this weekend to visit my brother-in-law and his family and I did want to share a little craft I finally got around to doing last weekend while the kids where napping. So here's the craft.

Ohhh-ahhh. I painted an IKEA pot to give it a little color lift and I'm sure it's nothing original that hasn't been done before but I'm digging my little pot and faux plant which is the only vegetation in my home with any hopes of surviving my black thumb.

Here's a much prettier example without my awesome home decor staging reality that includes flushable wipes (which are btw a toddler toilet training necessity).

 Photo taken by King Au for Better Homes & Gardens via Wit & Whistle

Amanda at Wit & Whistle gives a cute little tutorial which involves the rubber band method that I employed to make my gilded stemless glassware.

And now on to topic numbero dos - our little family vaycay to Colorado which gave us a little break from our kitchen remodel. It began (and ended) with an experience the most parents have vivid nightmares about weeks prior to - flying a commercial airline with little ones. We survived and the kids did amazingly well looking back on it. Ivan and Claire have both flown on a plane on two separate occasions but this was a first that we'd have all four of us on a plane together. 

The stars must have aligned because on both the way there and the way back because we lucked out with short security lines. One thing that I found extremely helpful is the baby carrier. I recommend to anyone who is in a similar situation and has the option, to skip the strollers and car seats. Put the little one in a carrier to get thorough the airport and rent a car seat with the rental car. For an additional $6 a day to rent the car seat, it was well worth the money for not having to hassle with checking a car seat (or two).  My second bit of unsolicited advice is to have plenty of snacks for the kids on the plane - if their mouths are busy chewing, they're not going to be screaming. This worked like a charm for our two hour flight.

During our visit we stayed at my brother-in-law's newly built home and Ivan and Claire got to spend some quality time with their two cousins. We attempted a two/three year old slumber party in one bed which ended abruptly at about 5 a.m. with Ivan being pushed out of bed. Woops!  It's too bad we don't live closer since it was fun seeing the boys who are so close in age interact and Claire adores my sweet little niece. I'll spare the boys and Claire the future embarrassment of sharing cousin bath time photos but here are a couple other favorites from the weekend.  I wish I had my camera out more and captured some more of this weekend but it's not always conducive to parent/play from behind a lens.

 

I hope everyone else had a great weekend and got the chance to get outdoors and enjoy some great spring weather. It seemed like it was never going to happen in Minnesota, but apparently spring finally decided to make an arrival while we were away for the weekened. FINALLY!

Linking up to:

Hosted by these lovely ladies:

Emily @ Sparkle Meets Pop Katie @ Bower Power
Sherry @ Young House Love

Renee @ RedBirdBlue 

Ready for Sanding and Finishing

There you have it, proof that I actually did something productive this week. We wrapped up the installation of the hardwood floor in the foyer and now we are ready to move onto the sanding and finishing. And yes, you guessed correctly, we'll be DIYing it. It's gonna happen not this weekend but the following weekend since we are going to be taking a little break from the home improvements this weekend and spend some family time together.

Neither Jens nor I have refinished a floor before so we've spent some time researching the heck outta it and came across an awesome little shop in St. Paul called Pete's Hardwood Floors. As their tagline indicates they specialize in DIYers and give free, hands-on, personal lessons with every equipment rental. Can't beat that with a stick can you? The website is super helpful and has given me a pretty clear picture on what we are getting ourselves into. We have a pretty aggressive timeline to get it all done in a weekend and since I'm kinda OCD I made a schedule/list. Here's the game plan:

Day 1 (Wednesday, May 1, 2013) Tasks

1. Install wood plugs in trim piece
2. Set finish nails
3. Fill nail holes and cracks with wood putty

Day 2 (Thursday, May 2, 2013) Tasks

1. Remove baseboards and register covers
2. Move kitchen appliances
3. Move furniture, window treatments, home decor
4. Raise chandelier

Day 3 (Friday, May 3, 2013) Tasks

1. Tape plastic on ducts and doorways
2. Rent equipment
3. Sand
• Drum Sand w/36 grit
• Edge Sand w/ 36 grit
• Vacuum
• Drum Sand w/ 60 grit
• Edge Sand w/60 grit
• Vacuum
• Drum Sand w/80 grit
• Edge Sand w/ 80 grit
• Vacuum

Day 4 (Saturday, May 4, 2013) Tasks

1. Use a radiator edger to sand under the toe-kicks
2. Hand sand all the corners
3. Hand sand and remove edge swirl
4. Final polish with buffer and 100 grit screen
5. Vacuum windowsills, counters, and floors
6. Tack the vacuumed floor and water pop the wood
7. Open windows for proper airflow for curing of finish
8. Finish Floors
• Mix Monocoat oil
• Brush oil along wall or bufoilf  into center of floor using red buffing pad
• Wait 5 minutes
• Remove excess oil with cotton cloth or white buffing pad
• Repeat previous three steps in manageable sections
• Allow finish 24 hours to dry
9. Return Equipment/pat self on back/have a beer/take pretty after pictures for blog

You may have noticed (if you didn't just skim through the above) that we are only doing one finish coat since we are going with a product called Rubio Monocoat. It's a zero VOC finish that only requires one coat but it doesn't build up a glossy plastic-y looking finish on the floor that in inevitably going to get scratched by this graceful ballerina.

Instead, the finish will have a satin/matte appearance and the eventual wear and damage to the finish is apparently really easy to spot touch ups unlike a traditional polyyurethane finish.

Well, that's all I have for now. Wish us luck!