Kitchen Remodel

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 8):  “Smuffy’s 99% Kitchen!”

~ Midwest Storyteller ~ 1 Comment

This was to be my real “TAH-DAH!” moment, complete with video tour, but for some reason my six-minute video refuses to load to my computer. Others have, but no, not this one. I started to get into my “I’ll conquer this one” mode and then remembered how I am trying to simplify my life after being held hostage by this kitchen for so long and gave up. Photos will have to do.

We are 99% finished with Smuffy’s grand kitchen makeover! It’s been a long, long road – years in fact. I won’t count them because every time I do it makes me cry.

Here are some photos of how things turned out.  Due to the lighting, the cabinetry appears at times to be more yellow than it actually is. They are a creamy white with antiquing.  Actual paint colors, along with the process are explained in the links below that cover the journey through this whole process, so be sure to click on those to see the “before” photos to appreciate what miracle Smuffy performed and the “during” photos to see what we endured!

I’m sure if you look closely, you’ll see areas in the trim and such that still need a little work. I’m happy to say that most of those are completed now. I just keep telling Smuffy that I’d like to have the final touches all finished before something actually breaks.

This photo is a straight shot of the kitchen through the double archway of the dining room.  I wanted a homey look where I could display some of my farmy and shabby family heirlooms without them looking out of place.  I think I’ve achieved a look I won’t get tired of anytime soon. The sink base is my design. All the beautiful walnut backsplash is from a tree Smuffy dragged home from the woods and he did the whole thing himself. I chose to add travertine tile down the middle as an accent. I think it’s the highlight of my new kitchen. That, and the furniture-style sink base cabinet which I got to use my artistic talents on. All the cabinets and pull-outs are designed by me and built by Smuffy from scratch and the painting and antiquing is all done by me. Since this photo, the pull-outs you see through the mesh doors have received a dark wood tone so they now “disappear” into the recesses. Did I mention that Smuffy replaced the windows and added all the beautiful framing on them? Yes, he’s pooped. As you can see, Phoebe June is nodding off because this story isn’t about her.

Kitchen Wall with Sinkbase www.midweststoryteller.com

This is a look at the east wall where you can see Smuffy’s custom pantry and the roomy drawers he built.  I love this door which is actually a casement window out of an old house that we stumbled across in an antique mall.  Smuffy made all the adjustable U-shaped shelves and I wallpapered the inside of the pantry. Getting all the shelves and contents in there just right took me an entire day! The pendant light you see here is my mom’s old milk strainer from down on the farm.

Vintage Window Pantry Door www.midweststoryteller.com
Walnut Backsplash www.midweststoryteller.com

Here’s the west wall with the refrigerator, wall oven and dishwasher.  Not many people put their wall oven above their dishwasher, but necessity is the mother of invention, is it not?  I almost wore a hole in my graph paper trying to figure out the appliance placement problem.  There ended up being a compromise between my grand design and Smuffy’s “do you want me to be 105 when I finish this kitchen?” exclamation and that pitiful puppy dog look in his eyes.  At the far end of this west wall is valuable counter space with Phoebe June’s Diner below and cookbook shelving above.  This is a fabulous step up considering this area used to be an exit to the side entry of the house, making it unusable as kitchen space. I have the doors closed in the photo, but above the wall oven is a fabulous built-in Smuffy made which has square cubbyholes that can hold rolling pins, bottles, drying mats and such and above those are tall slots for all the cookie sheets and baking pans. Being a tall cook, having all that up there is perfect for me.

Smuffy's Kitchen www.midweststoryteller.com

Here’s how things look at night when I can turn off the ceiling light (and yes, that is a “fandelier” up there, but somehow it looks way oversized in the photo) and turn on Smuffy’s under-cabinet lights along with the lighted glass upper cabinets.  He has those all wired to switches just as he’s done in the pantry so that not only makes the kitchen look really nice at night, but also spotlights the work areas!  I must also brag on another of his hand-made pendant lights.  I handed him the old pulley from our barn along with my mom’s old colander and showed him a ton of Pinterest pictures.  I think they turned out great and I think Mom would approve of both her contributions to lighting. Smuffy also made the walnut shelving you see on each side of the window. On there you can see the little blue metal box which is my mom’s lunch pail from her one-room schoolhouse days. Also on display are my grandma’s butter churn and mom’s old cookie jar. That little mug goes way back also. I remember being so little I could hardly lift it to drink from it.

Under cabinet lighting www.midweststoryteller.com

My kitchen is a working kitchen. Practicing clean eating and being a certified coach with Trim Healthy Mama means daily meals prepared from scratch. The counterspace I gained has made a huge difference and oh! the joys of getting to have a gas cooktop! I also chose a dishwasher with bottle jets and a third rack and am asking myself where this marvel has been all my life. And the refrigerator! I hear a lot of folks complaining about Samsung refrigerators and felt squeamish about getting one, but when I saw this baby with French doors on both top and bottom, the design won me over. Plus, the lower right freezer section is “flex” and a push of the button transforms this from freezer to refrigerator and back again! I said a prayer when I ordered it that God would send me a peach and not a lemon. We purchased it locally so we could have hometown service on it and a good service plan and we’ve been happy with it.

Smuffy does more than just build things.  My Life With Smuffy page is loaded with stories that will make you laugh, cause your hair to stand on end and probably bump us up to the top of your prayer list!

The kitchen makeover chronicles include my embarrassing “before” photos in “Death of a Kitchen”.  After that, you can catch up with “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel”, “Birth Pains of a Kitchen”, “My Not-A-Kitchen Kitchen”, “A Trim Healthy Pantry and Some Plywood” and “Transition of a Kitchen”.  Be sure to check those out.

Leave a comment!  I’d love to know what you think of what our efforts have wrought and hear your thoughts after seeing the “before” and “after” photos.  Are you planning a kitchen remodel?  What great ideas are cooking in your brain for design and function?

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 7 of ?):  Playing “Let’s Make a Choice!”

~ Midwest Storyteller ~ 3 Comments

I know what you’re going to say once you start reading this – “Aren’t those people ever gonna finish that kitchen?”

That, my dear friends, is exactly what I ask myself, sometimes multiple times per day.

We’ve got to cut Smuffy some slack, though.  After coming home from his day job, he tackles everything else that pops up (or falls down, as the case may be) with this seventy+ year old house.  There’s all the yard work, the garden and how a huge outdoor project he’s had to undertake.  My “new” kitchen goes forward in spurts and I try to have patience.  I will admit to having tears, though.  Every once in a while, the whole thing about having a toddler here every day with no cabinet doors gets to be a bit much.  Careful placement and a good boy are all that stand between us and disaster.

Well, the doors have arrived!  I’d do the happy dance, but they’re not up yet.  You see, they’ve been handed over to me.  Yikes!

I’ve done a lot of DIY in my time, so I had a hard time figuring out why these made me so nervous.  Then, I realized where my jitters were coming from.

It’s one thing to drag something home from a yard sale or resale shop and dive in to give it a whole new life.  It is quite another to take brand new things that Smuffy has poured blood, sweat and tears into and risk screwing it up!  As I said in an earlier post, most people who say they did their whole kitchen makeover by themselves have few bragging rights compared to what we’ve undertaken on this project.  Ripping out things, bringing home new cabinets and installing them and then slapping on some trim pales in comparison to what we’ve done.  It’s been me with my sheets of graph paper and research and Smuffy painstakingly hand-crafting each and every cabinet, pull-out, replacing windows, framing in new ones, building the pantry and making all the shelves to my specifications.  It’s been a long, long road and each interruption and setback has been tough. 

Now, Smuffy has handed me his beautiful cabinet doors and it’s turned me into a big chicken.  My design all along (I tell him that at all times he must remember that he’s Chip and I’m JoJo), was to have antiqued creamy cabinets.  I went to great lengths to get just the right paints, additives, glazes and colors to achieve the end look.  I did all right through two coats of primer.  I did all right through two coats of paint.  Then, somehow, as soon as I got ready to antique them, nerves kicked in.  How could I ugly up Smuffy’s beautiful doors?

It was all I could do to go down to the basement and smear the glaze over the perfection and start wiping it around with old rags over that pristine first door.  It was as though I kept forgetting that the  installed cabinets upstairs had already been antiqued and it was too late to turn back now.  Duh!

There are reasons I chose antiquing.  So many kitchens are what I call “hospital white”.  I hope it’s a trend that ends soon.  Sometimes I think way too many folks out there are working in labs or schoolrooms or medical offices and this look is seeping into their souls.  Anyhow, I didn’t want that.  I wanted homey.  I have a working kitchen – a really working kitchen.  With homecooked healthy meals every single day and all the prep for cooking demonstrations at the classes I teach, it would be hard to keep a sleek kitchen looking sleek all the time.  Also, I have some things of my mom’s I’d like to use to decorate my open shelving and they’re just pretty shabby and farmy.  In honor of her, I’m calling this my Emmabelle Kitchen.

Cabinet Doors Before and After www.midweststoryteller.com

As you can see in the photo, I went ahead with Door #2 and then I started to calm down. In game shows, there is something behind the door to jump up and down about.  In my case, I’ll just have to wait a while longer.  Smuffy keeps assuring me we are in the home stretch.  I nod and sniffle.  The home stretch is every bit as exhausting as the rest of this turtle race.

Just in case you’re wondering, Smuffy’s masterpieces are finished off with two coats of Benjamin Moore primer, have had a light sanding and received two coats of Benamin Moore trim paint in “Fresh Narcissus” with Floetrol added.  This additive makes all the brush strokes or roller marks “melt” away.  The antiquing is done by taking eight parts Benjamin Moore Studio Finish Acrylic Glaze and adding one part Benjamin Moore satin finish paint in “Devonwood Taupe.  This is wiped on and then off immediately with cotton rags, leaving accents in the wood details.  Two coats of Benjamin Moore polyurethane are added after glazing to restore the hard finish.  Otherwise, the glaze would remain too “soft” for durable cabinetry.

I must add that in this photo, the antiqued door looks like it has much more antiquing on it that it does in actuality.  There’s no explaining why photos do that sometimes.

Smuffy does more than just build things.  My Life With Smuffy page is loaded with stories that will make you laugh, cause your hair to stand on end and probably bump us up to the top of your prayer list!

The kitchen makeover chronicles include my embarrassing “before” photos in “Death of a Kitchen”.  After that, you can catch up with “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel”, “Birth Pains of a Kitchen”, “My Not-A-Kitchen Kitchen”, “A Trim Healthy Pantry and Some Plywood” and “Transition of a Kitchen”.  Check those out and you’ll be ready for the next and, hopefully, final stages of my kitchen.

Leave a comment!  What do you like/don’t like in your kitchen?  Or, have you seen something online or in someone else’s kitchen that you’d like to have if you could remodel your kitchen?  My kitchen is small.  Give me your best storage tips and tricks!

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 6 of ?): “Transition of a Kitchen”

~ Midwest Storyteller

Today’s post is actually a report on what is actually “old news” around here – by a few weeks at least.  I find that by the time I take care of my sweet little grandson all day every day, blog posts are to be squeezed in around all the fun and games.  He began crawling a couple of days ago on the very day he turned eight months old, so now I am really having to be on my toes around here.

Smuffy continues to plug away at the new kitchen in his off hours and those seem to be few.  It’s been amazing how long it takes to make something that looks so simple to those who have walked into the store and walked back out with the item or who have told their contractor to “make it happen” and had it appear magically in their house.  But, when every single piece of the puzzle has to be custom designed by the designer (me) and then created to fit perfectly by the master carpenter (Smuffy), it does drag on and on.

I’m tickled pink with this great storage cabinet he’s completed for above my wall oven.

Upper Cabinet Storage midweststoryteller.com

I’m a tall cook, so I have no problem reaching up there for cookie sheets, cooling racks and oversized pans.  I added the bottom row of small holes for rolling pins, pastry mat, tall bottles, drying mats and anything else that needs stashing there. 

We had originally planned on walnut countertops made from a tree that Smuffy cut up and hauled home from the forest.  Due to a concatenation of circumstances, we opted to abandon this plan along with the bowed front antique buffet we’d bought for a sink base.  I shed a tear or two over that before sitting down to design my own furniture style sink base and then go shopping for the right countertops to go with it.  We’ll still use Smuffy’s walnut for our open shelving areas and some ideas I have for other rooms.

Granite soon rose to the top as the best choice for us and we ended up choosing one called “Giallo Fiorito”.  With my creamy cabinets, I didn’t really want any granite with white in it and I did want one with the same tones that my walnut would have had. 

I don’t know if you recall that in my last kitchen update, I was a tad nervous about the installation of my long-awaited countertops and expressed my desire to escort the installers personally to my door lest they go to the wrong house.  Well, you can call that woman’s intuition if you like, but that’s exactly what happened.  They were just a bit late and then, wouldn’t you know, they called me and told me that they were knocking on my door and no one was answering.  After some discussion during which we arranged all the digits of my house number in proper order, they continued on their way.

I remained a bit tense.  I knew I would be until that breakable hunk of rock was safely installed.  I followed the man who seemed to be in charge of the crew of four into my kitchen.  Having a rear view, I saw his shoulders sag as he let out a heavy sigh and breathed the words, “This is going to be difficult.”

Those four guys got their morning’s exercise!  When it was all said and done, we had no breakage, beautiful countertops and a sink that beat my “farmhouse” one all to heck!

Giallo Fiorito Granite midweststoryteller.com

Phoebe June had to wait for the guys to leave before she could belly up to the lunch counter.

The next day, Smuffy got busy and installed my new gas cooktop, Delta faucet with soap dispenser, reverse osmosis faucet, reverse osmosis water filtration system and garbage disposal.  I hardly knew how to act!

You’re supposed to ignore the towel rack applied with floral duct tape and the hideous window that has since been ripped out. Only the storm windows have been temporarily re-installed while we await the arrival of our new windows.

A cabinet above the refrigerator is finished and ready for installation and then we are on to upper cabinets, open shelving, more pull-outs and doors.  Somewhere in there, I’ve got to remove old wallpaper, paint the walls and shop for backsplash.  I am not following the crowd on subway tile here, so I’d appreciate all your comments and ideas on backsplash.

In the midst of all this, Smuffy has undertaken a couple of other things that took up his time and slowed things down.  He doesn’t seem to know how to do that without bringing sudden bursts of excitement into my day and giving me something else to write about so I’ll share that with you soon – now that calmness has returned to the household. 

I know you’re bored these days with so many activities cancelled.  What better time to catch up on my Life With Smuffy?  He has his own page here on the blog for good reason, so why not start at the beginning?  He’s full of surprises!

The kitchen makeover chronicles include my embarrassing “before” photos in “Death of a Kitchen”.  After that, you can catch up with “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel”, “Birth Pains of a Kitchen”, “My Not-A-Kitchen Kitchen” and “A Trim Healthy Pantry and Some Plywood”. 

I truly value any tips you can leave me in the comments concerning features you like/don’t like in your kitchen.  Or, have you seen something online or in someone else’s kitchen that you’d like to have if you could remodel your kitchen?  Do you have any great storage ideas?

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 5 of ?): “A Trim Healthy Pantry and Some Plywood”

~ Midwest Storyteller

Sometimes, it’s the little things in life that make all the difference.  For instance, Smuffy’s custom “farmhouse sink” installation.  That certainly breathed new life into the old kitchen!  But, alas, I suppose I’m one to never be satisfied, because I found myself wanting more of life’s little luxuries.

The last few weeks have brought some advancements that have at least gotten the kitchen back into the kitchen.  If you’d like to see my “Not-A-Kitchen” which was in the dining room, click here.  With Smuffy’s addition of plywood along one kitchen wall, we now have a countertop (sort of) and I’ve cut my trusty vinyl tablecloth in half and moved it onto the counter to be able to wipe up messes and keep the plywood from getting icky.  Just in case you’re wondering, those don’t rank high in durability.  The poor thing has lost its luster and has a couple of melted spots and will soon be ready for the trash can.  Bless its tacky lil’ heart, though, it has helped it make this giant leap into actually cooking in the kitchen!

In order to allow for adjusting the base cabinets, there are gaps in the temporary countertops.  This makes food prep interesting as I try my dog-gone-dest not to drop food and utensils down inside those holes.  While I am grateful for each baby step forward in this kitchen remodel, I do have to admit, if I am being totally honest, that there are some days when I’ve had just about as much ugly as I can stand.  And weird storage made of cardboard boxes stacked on their sides.  And this hot plate that is second only to my old stove in the category of “burners with minds of their own”.

I am loving the giant drawers Smuffy made. They hold a lot of stuff and I’m loving the smooth glide.

This has all gone on for so long now that I feel the urge to go over next week and personally escort the countertop installers to my door for my appointment just to be sure they don’t get lost or end up at the wrong house or something.  Perhaps I should also deliver nourishing meals to their door between now and then to reduce the likelihood of them calling in sick on the Big Day.

I like to find my bright spots where I can and when Smuffy finished my pantry, I was over the moon!  He advised me to cram it tight “for now” and wait for the final touches until the kitchen was much further along.  I vetoed that idea, knowing that it would give me a much needed mental boost to have a spot of loveliness and an area of organization.  I added the large red and cream medallion print wallpaper I’d chosen as a backdrop for all my pantry goodies and headed to Hobby Lobby to stock up on lots of nice jars and chalk labels (at half price, of course) for my ingredients.  The tall, antique ten-pane casement window will show off my efforts.  My theory is that you can always put anything unsightly in a nearby closed drawer.

As you can see, all my ingredients are conveniently at hand for making THM plan-friendly meals – my Gluccie, beef collagen, gelatin, baking blend, stevia, Super Sweet, Gentle Sweet and all the rest.  It’s really been a stress reliever to have this small area of the kitchen complete. The pantry goes floor to ceiling, so I overlapped three photos here. That’s the explanation for any oddities in viewing.

All the shelves are adjustable with strips and clips that make them easy to move, but it took me longer to get those exactly where I wanted them than it did to wallpaper the whole thing!

Some of the items won’t stay in the pantry, such as my food processor, blender and mugs, but right now they have no other home, so…

This concludes Part 5 of these special episodes of my Life With Smuffy.  With each completed step, I remind him that he’s my hero.  He’s not all about remodeling – not by a long shot – so check out his page if you need stories to curl your hair and broaden your smile.

The kitchen makeover chronicles include my embarrassing “before” photos in “Death of a Kitchen”.  After that, you can catch up with “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel”, “Birth Pains of a Kitchen” and “My Not-A-Kitchen Kitchen”. 

Next week, when I finally stop kissing and stroking my new countertops, I’ll be back to share the joy!

I’m curious. How do you organize your kitchen?  Do you have a pantry? Do you stock it only with food and ingredients or pots, pans and small appliances?  Do you have any great organizational tips?  Leave a comment!

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 4 of ?): “My Not-A-Kitchen Kitchen”

~ Midwest Storyteller ~ 4 Comments

We still have no kitchen as we live in this cluttered world of hitches and compromises.  So, you may ask, how does a Trim Healthy Mama who is dedicated to eating healthy managing to keep on track during all this?  Let me introduce you to my Not-A-Kitchen!

These photos are really embarrassing, but hopefully will make the end reveal all the more glorious. And, please forgive the spastic decorating. I find that as things change, I keep poking things onto empty nails “for now” and the house is starting to look like I’ve lost my marbles. The chairs will go also – just gotta give Smuffy the time to get my new old ones re-done. Poor fella.

I’m hoping the reveal of this mess may help someone else who is going through something similar and knows that you can’t eat out all the time – not if you want to be trim, healthy and pay for a renovation!  The last thing we need around here is for me or Smuffy to get sick in the middle of the remodel.  That happened to us years ago and I still have PTKSS (Post Traumatic Kitchen Stall Syndrome) from that experience that put us three weeks behind and left us with a two-year-old and nothing – nothing – but a microwave in the otherwise empty kitchen for the whole time. 

I followed my original plan for daily function by shoving my dining room table as far over as possible to make room for incoming cabinets and then filling it with everything we’d be needing on a daily basis. I covered it with a felt-backed vinyl tablecloth first so that it would survive the ordeal.

Not-A-Kitchen Kitchen MidwestStoryteller.com

Tall items at the back included a rack of plates and bowls, a spice rack and the mixer.  In front of that, I lined up glassware and often used items such as salt and pepper, olive oil and salad vinegar, nuts, jars of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and other things we grab to snack on and, of course, my big, fat jar of Dutch cocoa powder because, though I may not have a kitchen, I’ve gotta live!

I left an empty strip along the front for food prep and placed a cutting mat there.  This area also serves to hold the hot plate, crock-pot or whatever else may be in use at times when Smuffy is pounding away and I can’t get into the kitchen at all.

Smuffy had built huge new drawers for the new kitchen, but prior to them being installed, I stacked them on one another and filled the top one with flatware and utensils so they’d be in easy reach.  Needless to say, we fill our plates and head into the living room to eat.

My “buffet” (I think this is, in reality, a gentleman’s dresser that has seen changes over time) now serves as Appliance Row with the food processor, blender and toaster oven perched atop a towel and ready to go when I need them.  One of my old wall cabinets got its doors removed and is shoved against a wall and filled with plasticware and other food prep items we might want to grab.

Appliance Row MidwestStoryteller.com

Over in the “new” kitchen, once Smuffy got the base cabinets in, I was relieved to find that the holes in the tops were the perfect size to catch the rims of my cookie sheets!  We take our small blessings where we can find them and give thanks for them.  I filled in an area and plopped in some cutting boards.  Then, as if in direct answer to prayer, Smuffy discovered that one of our old cabinet doors dropped in perfectly to another cabinet top!  We celebrated that discovery by placing the hot plate there and felt like we were really getting somewhere!  Sort of.

Cooktop MidwestStoryteller.com

The problem remained that we had no water.  Family came to the rescue, sending us jugs of drinking water, but as for rinsing things for the dishwasher and washing up anything extra, we were running back and forth to the bathtub.

That is, until that glorious day!  Smuffy, that man of many talents, installed a true farmhouse sink!

Farmhouse Sink MidwestStoryteller.com

I’m feeling mighty stylish over here!  This is where we stand until countertops are finalized.  I love the way he placed the decorative part to the front so I would remember not to insert the grandchild.

Take heart if you are in the midst of a makeover.  We’ll get through.  When?  I have no idea.  In the meantime, I’m fixing healthy, balanced meals or pulling out frozen versions of the same that I prepared in advance and stashed in the freezer. In case you didn’t notice the bottle warmer and formula in the photos, I’ll point out that I am caring for my four-month-old grandbaby most days in the midst of it all. I have to admit there are days when I’m just a tad pooped.

If you have a friend in the middle of a renovation and finding themselves disheartened, share this post.  It helps to know you’re not alone.

That’s the tour of my Not-A-Kitchen.  Stay tuned for what I hope will be next – my pantry and remaining cabinetry and their insides.  Then, countertops!  I’m expecting to be downright giddy when that happens.

Now I’m leaving you hanging again.  I’ll bet this has your curiosity piqued more than back when some of you were wondering who shot J. R.  Others will have to do a search on that.  Life With Smuffy is never dull.  That’s why he has his own page here on the blog.  (He’s not all about construction, you know.)  If you need adventure and laughs, check that out.

Missed a portion of my kitchen makeover story?  It all began with “Death of a Kitchen”, followed by “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel” and “Birth Pains of a Kitchen”.  Catch up on those and you’ll be ready for the next installment.

I’ll be sharing some of the meals I made ahead in order to get through this. and some of the ones I was able to whip up without losing my marbles in my Not-A-Kitchen.

Can I have your kitchen remodel ideas?  What would you have in your dream kitchen that you don’t have now?  Leave a comment!

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 3 of ?): “Birth Pains of a Kitchen”

~ Midwest Storyteller

I promised to keep you posted on Smuffy’s monumental project.  Welcome to the third and hopefully, most painful, installment.  It’s a little late in posting as the clogged internet has been refusing to put photos in my posts.

Earlier, in “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel”, I shared the little chunk of the project that propelled me forward into the world of a glorious new refrigerator, wall oven and fancy-schmancy dishwasher.  After that, we took time out for Thanksgiving, Christmas and to become grandparents.  Smuffy then entered another busy season with his business while it was way too cold to be in the workshop messing with wood.  Now, at last, we are making progress again! 

If you’d like to see my embarrassing kitchen “before” photos, click here, but read the whole post so you’ll have a little compassion.

Have you ever had one of those uneasy feelings – as though you’re being followed by a mysterious “something”?  Your Pollyanna nature tries to reassure you that you’ll never have to turn and face it and that it is probably just a series of spooky shadows, but eventually, you round a corner and there it is – the “thing” you knew was there but dreaded meeting face to face.  Trying to duck your head and peer at it through only one squinting eye doesn’t help.  We’ll, sooner or later it happens to us all and it has happened to me.

Smuffy is a marvel when it comes to undertaking almost any project, but he’s a numbers kinda guy and likes things in columns and rows.  Nuance and the artistic sense elude him in some instances, though he does have appreciation for it.  For some time, even though I’d labored over the perfect off-white paint for my cabinetry and the antiquing glaze that would go on over it followed by a couple of coats of polyurethane, I’d been deluding myself into thinking Smuffy would be the painter of these glorious creations.  I should have known.  Full of the can-do spirit he is – gifted with an artist’s touch he is not.

He got the primer on and the first coat of paint and asked me to inspect.  I murmured a prayer and did so.  Difficult as it was to declare them a tad crummy, I forced myself to be honest.  It was mere practice as I then pushed past my lips the notion that perhaps I needed to paint these myself.  (Though painfully slow, I am neat as a pin.)  Smuffy’s eyes lit up and he rushed to hand me the paint buckets and all the rest of the supplies.  I’d known, deep in my heart that Smuffy’s painting style and choice of tools, while fast and thorough, might not produce the results I desired.  He’s an expert at detail work, just not this particular kind. That lurking instinct had caught up with me and how here I was, holding the brush, the mini roller and newly sanded face frames, shaking my head, groaning a little, but not surprised that I hadn’t managed to outrun this dreaded task.

Antique Glazing www.midweststoryteller.com

First I used a Benjamin Moore trim paint in Fresh Narcissus with Floe-trol (from Home Depot) added to make the finish smooth as buttah.  After letting each coat of this dry overnight, I mixed one part paint in a Benjamin Moore Devonwood Taupe into 8 parts clear latex glaze.  I brushed this on and wiped it away with lint-free rags.  It doesn’t appear too impressive here on the face frames, but will show nicely on the finished cabinet doors where it will collect in the grooves of the panels and give definition.  Once this dried overnight, I applied two coats of clear polyurethane, allowing each to dry overnight.  This is because the antiquing glaze is not as hard as trim paint and will wear off if not sealed in between the layers.

Once ready, we started Demo Day for the lower half of the kitchen.  In order to have some functionality, we opted to complete this phase and tackle the upper portion once we can actually cook and have water again.

Chaos reigned.  Smuffy ripped and tore.  I shoved, shifted and fetched.  Phoebe June, caught in the cross-fire, opted to enjoy the exploration opportunity of a lifetime.  When cabinets, bags and boxes filled with the kitchen cabinet contents began filling every room on the main floor, she considered all rules null and void and flung herself into the spirit of the thing with wild abandon, jumping into bags of canned goods and strolling through utensil drawers.  After a while, I just shrugged and made myself a mental note that it could all be washed and wiped down later.  To say she was wide-eyed with excitement would be an understatement.

Wide-eyed Phoebe June midweststoryteller.com

By the end of Day 1, we had uglified the kitchen to the point where we were committed to completion whether we liked it or not and as I looked around the house for a bright spot, I found myself thankful that our little grandson has yet to reach the walking stage.  I have a feeling he’d make Phoebe June’s escapades seem like nothing at all!

Demo Day 1 midweststoryteller.com

With the lower cabinets in place, we’ll now attached the face frames and anchor everything in place so that Smuffy can begin the process of installing his beautiful walnut countertops and the oak furniture piece that will serve as our sink base.  Oh, to have water again!

I’m going to leave you hanging there and end this special episode of my Life With Smuffy. Coming up soon, I’ll give you a peek at my “not a kitchen kitchen” that will have to serve until the counters, sink and gas cooktop are installed.  I’m hoping that is very soon!

(After writing this post and struggling to get the photos inserted, we hit some snags. I’ve had to give up my design for the oak furniture piece and I may be having to part with my walnut countertops. I must confess to having two or three mid-remodel meltdowns already. I’d love to think this is the last of them, but… old houses are full of surprises and unless you open up a wall and find a chest full of gold and jewels, they are never really good surprises.)

If you’re not all caught up on the latest Smuffy episodes, check out, “A Studebaker in the Hands…”  and “Why Stop When You’re on a Roll?”  His river adventures here and here will having you longing for summer days on the water – or maybe not.

I’d love to have your input on a kitchen remodel?  What one mistake have you made that you’d like to un-do?  What feature of your new kitchen do you love the most?  Please comment! I need all the encouragement I can get.

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 2 of ?): “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel”

~ Midwest Storyteller ~ 4 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for around here and I’m sure you’re probably feeling the same way. A couple of years ago Thanksgiving came along amidst a period of grief, but it came along anyway and we paused to give thanks for those we could still hold close.

This year, we are simply giddy, for as I’ve already announced here, Smuffy and I are about to become grandparents and that is enough to hoist our thankfulness quotient up several notches all by itself!

For me, today is also a great day to rejoice in the progress of Smuffy’s custom kitchen makeover project, because even though in the grand scheme of life it can’t compare to what really matters – the Lord who gives graciously, our family, dear friends and a place to call home – every little step in the right direction certainly makes life easier!

I’m thrilled to say that three new appliances are installed! I’ll give more detailed reviews on those later, but I can’t even express how much simpler and easier the Thanksgiving meal preparations have been since this phase of the project has occurred.

As you can see below, refrigerator, oven and dishwasher are in place, although surrounding cabinetry and trim are not.

Appliances Phase 1 www.midweststoryteller.com

This new Samsung 4-Door Flex French Door Refrigerator is a dream and I love being able to have French doors, slide out shelves and drawers on the bottom as well as for the refrigerator on top. The right side of the lower french doors is a separate flex unit that can be used as a refrigerator or a freezer, depending on the need. For us, it will be used as a freezer most of the time. It’s lots bigger than our old refrigerator and so nice inside that if it wasn’t so cold in there, I might move in

The GE dishwasher with its bottle jets and, yes, third rack, is just fabulous. My advice would be that if you are ever shopping for a dishwasher, don’t settle for one without these two features. Where has this been all my life? I think they finally must be letting women design appliances.

The thing I love most about my Kenmore Elite wall oven is that it is not in the basement. Earlier, I shared here in Death of a Kitchen, how our appliances marched off single file to the graveyard, beginning with my oven. However, until Smuffy got the kitchen to the place where some cabinets could come out to make room for a wall oven to go in, my new oven had to wait, ratchet strapped to his workbench in the basement.

There is much more to glory in today than new appliances, but I am truly thankful for them, especially the part where I don’t have to haul this turkey down and back up the stairs!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Hug the ones you love and tell them how much they mean to you. It is a wonderful life and we have so much to be thankful for.

I’ll post more updates on Smuffy’s grand kitchen makeover as they occur.

Helpful Hint: This is the best time of the year to get your appliances on sale. Prices will never be lower than they are during Black Friday sales, which began this year on November 5th and continue into December.

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 1 of ?): “Death of a Kitchen”

~ Midwest Storyteller ~ 8 Comments

Smuffy, that love of my life, has been immersed in a vast project for quite some time now and I thought it might be time to share.  As always, when he dives into these endeavors, I am thankful if he can manage to keep his body intact amid the whir of power tools.  So far – so good.  I don’t like to think of his angels nappin’.

My kitchen was adorable.  Let me see, that was…take the year Pookie was born…add two…add a couple more months plus time out for the flu…carry the one…and, Yep!  My kitchen was adorable and up to date in…1986. It was all done out in wheat speckled wallpaper and bordered in what looked like quilted chickens. Really.

Now, lest you think I just left it to decay, I have given it a spot of paint here and there, a change of wallpaper and various window treatments since.  It may have had a couple of new microwaves along the way, a different refrigerator and a replacement dishwasher, but all those old stuck windows, clunky cabinets and poor layout remained.

A couple of years ago, the oven died.  Smuffy smiled at me.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting me to get you a new stove.”

“No,” I said, trying to be gentle.  “I’ll be wanting you to get me a new kitchen.”

Smuffy has proven himself over the years to be a man who can do anything.  I hated to see him wear himself to a frazzle, but I knew he’d insist on doing the whole thing himself.

For the past several years, I hadn’t done any updates at all.  It seemed like a waste of time and energy on something that needed a complete overhaul.  Though it embarrasses me to show the state of decline, here we go.  After all, we’ll be even more impressed with the “afters” if we’ve seen the “befores”, won’t we?

Kitchen Before www.midweststoryteller.com

Still trying to hold my head up after showing you that.

Don’t get in a hurry to see the “after” photos.  I’m going to let you peek into the process as it unfolds.  Smuffy works on custom cabinetry and all the other aspects of the remodel every chance he gets in the midst of his busy work schedule.

As I said, the oven passed on a couple of years ago.  I pulled out the graph paper and began work on my if-not-larger-then-super-efficient dream kitchen and I stressed the concept of “Me, JoJo – You, Chip” in this fixer-upper and have been pleasantly surprised to find Smuffy 95% cooperative with all my unique designs. 

We began shopping for new appliances.  Since I wanted a wall oven and we had no wall yet to put it on, we brought it home to our basement and Smuffy ratchet-strapped it to his workbench.

That, folks, is when everything went south.  This would be the longest blog post in history if I paused here to tell of every interference, delay and situation that sprang up to derail this remodel.  Suffice it to say that I am getting mighty tired of carrying sloppy pies down and hot lasagnas up.  Still no kitchen.

Progress has been made along the way!  Let’s take a look –

Kitchen Walnut for Countertops www.midweststoryteller.com

Leave it to Smuffy to go all out.  Hearing of a downed walnut tree several years back, he couldn’t leave it just lying there in the forest.  With permission, Smuffy hauled it home, had it cut into planks and as you see here, he now has it planed and ready to install as my new countertops.  Click here to see the inspiration photo that got me started with my kitchen design and you’ll have an idea where we’re headed with this.

Here he is, when he began building base cabinets.  I’m thrilled with all the deep drawers that glide along on their soft-close hardware. 

Building Base Cabinets www.midweststoryteller.com

Since the demise of the oven, it has seemed that the rest of the kitchen has lost the will to go on.  The burners on the stove have taken to whimsy, choosing their own heat settings without regard to how we adjust the knobs even to the point of desiring to stay on when we turn them off.  The dishwasher began to dislodge some of its more minor parts and finally, a couple of weeks ago, developed a funny smell, shorted out and stopped entirely.  A few days later the microwave stopped in mid-nuke to let us know that it had joined its comrades in their march to the appliance cemetery. 

This is when I started to sigh every fifteen seconds or so.  The next decision I need to make is whether to use regular silver-gray (like stainless steel, right?) or floral duct tape on the refrigerator door handle.

Meanwhile, we inch forward.  Saturday we had Demo Day Phase 1.  The dishwasher went into its new cabinet over the weekend and it is a fabulous thing with its third rack, bottle jets and all the bells and whistles.

Phase 1: Dishwasher www.midweststoryteller.com

While I wait, I’m cooking lots of wholesome meals for my contractor and trying not to sigh more often than necessary.  Since I am going to use my mom’s authentic farmhouse décor, I grabbed my chalk markers and brightened up my kitchen chalkboard with this –

Smuffy Built Sign www.midweststoryteller.com

I’ll keep you posted with updates as we go along and, eventually, those glorious “after” photos!

That’s it for Part 1 of this special episode of my Life With Smuffy. Let’s all say a prayer that this tale of kitchen remodel doesn’t become as “exciting” as some of his other adventures.  At least I can be glad my house is not on wheels.  If you’re all caught up on the latest Smuffy episodes, then, Dear Reader, you know what I mean.  If not, check out, “A Studebaker in the Hands…”  and “Why Stop When You’re on a Roll?”  His river adventures here and here will having you longing for summer days on the water – or maybe not.

Do you have advice and ideas on a kitchen remodel?  What one mistake have you made that you’d like to un-do?  What feature of your new kitchen do you love the most?  I’d love to hear from you.  Please leave a comment!