Kitchen Trimmings

We’re racing toward the finish line of our kitchen remodel.  Can I get a ‘Yippeeeeee’?  After being out-of-town for three weekends (and eight weekdays) in December, we finally got a chance to get back to work.  And waddya know, we crossed four things off our list.

• Add crown molding to the top of the cabinets
• Cut shelves for the cabinets  {Still have to paint three more}
• Build the cabinet doors, including two glass front doors
• More filling, sanding, priming, and painting of the cabinet doors
• Fill bar side cabinets and trim, sand, prime, and paint
• Sand the ceiling and walls smooth
• Prime and paint the kitchen and living room.  Probably the dining room too.
• Add lights: sconces, light over the sink, and recessed light halos
• Trim out the posts and door frames
• Decide whether we want to add decorative trim to the vent hood or paint it to match the wall color
• Install the pretty new marble tile back splash {If you follow us on Facebook, you caught a sneak peek of this.  And I’ll be back to share the glorious details tomorrow.}
• Put everything back in place and enjoy

That’s eight things we have left to do.  See, progress!  So, let’s get on to the details.  Before we could get started on the pretty marble back splash, we had to install a few pieces of trim around the bar support posts.  Ben used 3/4 inch MDF to frame out the ‘door.’

Quotes because we’re trimming the bar opening to match the dining and kitchen door frames on each side of the bar top.

I decided I wanted the post casement to extend and terminate into the counter top.  This way, both the post and the marble tile had a definite stopping points.

Our other option was to keep the casement on the right as it currently is and extend the tile the edge.  The inside casement (on the left) would then butt up against the tile.  Ben wanted this, I argued it would look funny because the door trim is thicker than the tile.  As you can see, he installed the trim my way.  {Yes, Ben often reminds I am a brat.}

After installing the door framing and casement, Ben shed a little light on the bar.  Yep, our sconces are finally up and functional, despite a snag in the process.

With one sconce installed, we put in a light bulb and flipped the switch.  Crickets.  Nothing happened.  So, I got a different bulb.  Still nothing.  Which reaaaaallllly irritated Ben.  So, he took the sconce down, rechecked the wiring and everything was right where if should be.  It had to be the switch.  Sure enough, the brand new dimmer switch didn’t work.  He swapped the dimmer for a regular switch and the lights worked perfectly.  He carried on with the install of the second.

I thought we’d get started on the tile install after the door trim, but Ben was in a trimming kind of mood.  He reminds me of the mouse in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  He got carried away and finished nearly all the trim.  Like this around the bar side cabinets.

Then he put in new baseboard and plinth blocks around the back door.

Before we laid the new hardwood floor, we ripped out the old tile, including the subfloor.  This made our new floors 3/4 of an inch lower than the tile.  Hence the line right above the new base boards that I’ll have to fill and sand before painting.  Luckily it’s only in this small area.

While we Ben was changing out trim, he brought up the idea of changing the half wall along the stairs.  It was boring before, just plain white with baseboard and quarter-round trim to hide the edges.

Ben suggested adding trim to match the cabinets.  WTF.  Well that’s fantastic.  In much the same way we added trim to the cabinets, Ben added some detail to the boring wall.

Of course there’s still filling, sanding, priming, and painting before it looks finished, but we’re that much closer to wrapping up the kitchen.  That was Saturday.  Can’t wait to share our Sunday project with you!  Hint: it’s marbelous.

We had a great weekend, how about you?  Did you get started on your resolutions?  Maybe you tackled your own project?

P.S.  To see the official kitchen to do list, including links to everything we’ve finished so far, check out this post.