BEACH HOUSE: PART 3 - PROGRESSING NICELY

Things have been moving along steadily at the beach house.  In our last update we installed flooring - except for the kitchen and dining area as that area had to stay put for a while.  It would eventually become a very different floor plan than the original.

Now, the kitchen is nearly complete, the master bath is nearly complete, the living room has more updates and we have a new dining room.  The 2nd bathroom is complete.  There have been major changes in the yard.  Not a lot that is totally complete - but, a lot of progress.

Want to see what's been happening?

KITCHEN....

In this cottage, what passed as a kitchen was barely big enough to turn around. Shawna could stir a pot on the stove with one hand and wash dishes with the other - seriously.  Just adjacent to the tiny kitchen; however,  was a larger space with outside access to the front patio.  This was probably an addition at some point in the life of this house and was possibly used as a dining room.  Originally I thought that we could push everything in the kitchen forward to create a larger space... but it really made more sense to just switch spaces with the adjacent dining area.   One of the charms of an old beach cottage is that there is a crawl space under the house - so rerouting plumbing is a piece of cake....

I sketched out two options for the kitchen.

The first one left the front wall and entry door intact.  Shawna wasn't sure she wanted to eliminate that door to the front deck.  It wasn't my favorite option.  There were 4 doors to enter this part of the house and I felt we could do away with one of them.  It would barely be missed.

The second version - replaced the outside door with a bank of windows and placed the kitchen sink under them.  So much better to have a window at the kitchen sink, don't you agree?  This version provided a lot more counter and storage space. Another reason it was my preferred choice was it just had a better look.  Instead of seeing a wall of major appliances and cabinets at your first glance into the room (i.e., fridge, range, microwave, cabinets...) there was a pretty spectacular wall of beautiful tile, a stainless range hood and open shelving on either side.   Sort of like this picture...

Shawna agreed she could do without that extra door to the patio and she liked the 2nd plan.  We were off and running.  Well, jogging...

Okay, we drove to the tile and cabinet stores.


On Demo Day, the first thing to go, was the outside kitchen wall...

In no time at all, the wall  was up again with a bank of windows and we were ready to map out the cabinets.

which we did with tape on the floor to make sure we could make everything fit.

Meanwhile, everything else Shawna owned, including the fridge, was crowded into the living room...
A remodel is hell - don't let anyone tell you otherwise.  But it is short lived and really, really worth it...

The rest was pretty much by the book as they added recessed lighting, rewired electrical outlets, updated plumbing and framed out doors and windows.

Ready for paint...and flooring.

Then the cabinets came and were installed....and suddenly it felt very much like a kitchen...

(minus one panel...on back order..)

A coat of fresh paint - Sherwin Williams ACCESSIBLE BEIGE.  (It is now Shawna's favorite color.)

New appliances...

A big, deep farmhouse kitchen sink and wall mounted faucet.

Things were starting to look a lot like a kitchen...one you could even turn around in.

 Next, big, fat, luscious marble tile...all the way to the ceiling..

and pulls and handles on the cabinets...

When the tile was in and grouted they installed the stainless steel hood.

NOW we have a beautiful kitchen...and nearly complete...

we await the open shelves and the final touches to finish the room - 

more to come.....  

DINING ROOM...

About the same time the kitchen demo and remodel was going on, the former kitchen space was also being transformed...into the dining room and pantry.

Another outer wall was removed and rebuilt (formerly the old tiny kitchen's outer wall)...

and french doors were installed which will eventually open onto a deck or patio (yet to be built).

This former kitchen had an odd angled wall, which was walled in to create a good sized pantry...

For the pantry door, Shawna found a vintage rustic door 

and had it installed on sliding barn door hardware

The same flooring that was installed in the rest of the house was carried into these areas and sealed with satin polyurethane.  We are hoping it weathers and looks 'lived in' very quickly.  

More to come on this area, too...

When the kitchen and dining rooms were as complete as we could make them for the time being, we started on the master bathroom.

MASTER BATHROOM ...

The tub was removed and replaced with a walk-in shower.

 More of the large format marble tile was installed and a quirky round porthole window was added (salvaged).

We chose a pebble mosaic for the floor - and this room went from basic to 'charming beach' in the blink of an eye.

 Soon the vanity will be installed - but more on this room later.

LIVING ROOM

The living room ceiling had a beauty upgrade - from flat to fabulous.

Shawna found salvaged windows and replaced the small front windows with larger windows and then painted the amazing ceiling and the front door.

living room window before...

bigger window after..

front door paint before...

front door paint...after

The front door - formerly black - blends in a little more and allows the fireplace to take center stage in the room - as it should.

Speaking of which, it has gone from red brick to fresh white paint...

with a new rustic wood mantel

and a marble hearth 

before hearth picture..

BATHROOM

[Bathroom before photo...]

The 2nd bathroom was completely gutted and transformed.  It may be small but it packs a true beauty punch.

Outside of the house my green thumbed friend has made big changes.  A flagstone path is in progress and the big bad tree that decided to visit the neighbors (with its roots) is no longer standing.  Its big sister, not as bad as her brother, still offers lots of shade.

Little by little Shawna is making her beach cottage - barely livable when she first moved in - a charming, enviable home.

Stay tuned!

If you have missed the previous posts on this endeavor, you can see them here:

BEACH HOUSE - PART I
BEACH HOUSE - PART II

MY KITCHEN REMODEL

OR HOW THREE FEET CHANGED MY LIFE...

There have been changes at the Barnett house..

Exciting changes, brought on by not so exciting events.

A kitchen slab leak, gave us the nudge we needed to take the remodeling plunge.  We figured if we were going to have to replace flooring, wall board, paint and repair cabinets, we may as well just remodel the whole kitchen.

Right?

I actually love my little house.  

But I hated that cramped kitchen
A remodel had been on my wish list for a long, long time.

There is no getting around it.... a kitchen remodel is HELL, but we seemed to manage to take it to a whole new level.
We started the repair and renovation and then 

just about everything else happened -

I traveled to Texas on business and landed in a hospital with a blood clot in my leg -
My sweet 97 year old mother passed away...
We had another slab leak.
We had to redo the plans because of new building code changes.

Because of the delays caused by the above life events,
our contractor had to take another job in the interim, and we had to wait again...
My oldest sister became seriously ill.
Life events - both good and bad...
We had them all.

In spite of having our entire downstairs torn up,
we decided to try to relax, and be grateful for the life we have.
We ate out a lot, ignored the dust and counted our blessings:
We have lovely memories of my Mother.
I survived the blood clot.
My sister is getting the care she needs.

and FINALLY - it was complete...

These are the BEFORE and AFTER views of my kitchen...

(Before)

A peninsula separating the kitchen from the family room created a tight U-shaped space

on one side of the kitchen. (Just try to get more than one person in there preparing meals..)

The peninsula made the area too tight to have any sort of island or prep area...
and I REALLY wanted an island.

(Before)

So, we removed the peninsula, pushed out a wall in the family room,
 and added an island

And found slightly industrial style pendants with cute Edison style bulbs.

The old cabinets were solid wood
but that was about the only thing going for them...
yellow oak
ugly
cramped
showing their age...
Usable counter space? - don't get me started...
30 inches over the dishwasher next to the sink, then a tight corner next to the range,
followed by an even tighter corner between the range and the refrigerator.

(Before)

Oh, and OAK.
Did I already say that?

Yes, we were long overdue for a change...

We'd never changed the previous owner's choices in this room,
not even the paint,
because we planned to remodel and didn't want to do everything twice.

We chose black honed granite counters (Zimbabwe) 

and on the island, beautiful walnut butcher block.

It reminds me of furniture.

Breaking up the range/oven/microwave into a cook top and wall oven/microwave combo

made cooking much easier - especially with more than one person in the kitchen

Beneath the counter were small, narrow drawers and equally small cupboards 
that were accessible only if I wanted to get down on my hands and knees.  
Which I really didn't. 

There were things lost in there...
waaaay back in the corners.

Instead of bottom cupboards, we opted for deep drawers wherever possible.   

They open effortlessly and close softly.  

I'm in kitchen heaven.  

No more digging in cabinets on my hands and knees...
We chose bronze toned pulls for the drawer hardware and knobs
in a clean lined style that compliments the dark granite and the simplicity of the cabinets.

We wanted to have a beautiful back splash without the eyesore of ugly outlets dotting the wall, so we had the electrician install outlet strips under the upper cabinets along with led lighting.  

A white kitchen can look cold and stark if you aren't careful -

To counteract all the whiteness we chose subway shaped (3"x 6") marble for the back splash.  

It was still light in color, but had creams, grays and beige.  

We had it installed super close together - no grout lines!

(Before)

Before, there was nothing on the other side of the room, but a small pantry cabinet.

I hated that there were only cabinets on one side of the room.
I really only had half a kitchen...

(Before)

(Pardon the clutter, these photos were taken after the slab leak -
so stuff everywhere as we emptied cabinets......)

We moved the sink  (formerly in the peninsula) to the window.  We installed a 16 gauge stainless steel sink - single bowl - which I love.  Most common gauge for sinks is 18 - 22 gauge - the smaller the gauge, the thicker the steel.  16 gauge will be stronger and thicker than the 18-22 gauge. 

We added lower cabinets and wall ovens to that side of the room. For the kitchen faucet I chose streamlined stainless by Hansgrohe.

Not a large house here, folks... which is why the available space needs to be put to good use!
The architect for this home must have been
MAD, NUTS, BONKERS!
But we fixed all that....

No more 1/2 kitchen!

None of this would have been possible without the remodel.
Our kitchen's outer wall actually extended 5 feet beyond the adjacent family room outer wall.
We decided to bump out the family room wall a little in order to open up the floor space in the kitchen.  

So we pushed it out 3 feet because the second story overhang came out that far.

That seems small, doesn't it?
Hardly worth the effort.

But those 3 feet changed our lives.

It opened up the entry to the kitchen, creating more usable floor space,
and made this whole renovation possible.

Its amazing how three feet can change a room.

New windows and french doors in place of the sliders were also added.

Going from the tired yellow oak cabinets to soft white was like night and day.  

I cannot describe how just that change made the entire space feel.  

My kitchen isn't huge, but I feel we made the most of the space, and the change is dramatic.  We had our first party here shortly after it was finished and I was delighted that there was room for everyone that wanted to help or just hang out and talk.

After waiting so long for the remodel, we wanted to make sure the cabinets we chose were good quality. A Plus Kitchens created my custom cabinets. They are simply the best.  They manufacture their own cabinets with full 1 inch thick doors and drawer fronts, wonderful finishes and impeccable craftsmanship.  I chose a soft white finish to make my space feel light filled and spacious. They helped me to design my cook-top hood and worked with me on all the little details... 

I would love to hear your thoughts on the remodel!

Best,
Claudine