DIY Sarah

Craft, Decor, Art, Garden, and Dessert

The Vent Hood is in!

August 14, 2013 at 10:44 am Comments disabled

Yay, the big hole in the cabinets is gone!

Here’s the Before:
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and after:
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To install the hood liner and the actual vent fan, we first tacked up some painted MDF so that the sides of the cabinets would be white.
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We used paneling adhesive and pin nails. In the picture you can see we have an ikea Lack table and some scrap wood and boxes set up. We used those to hold up the heavy fan and vent liner while we put it in place. After bolting in the guts, it was time for the fun part, I was very scared, I knew I should have hired the remodelers in elmhurst il in the first place.

We tossed up the wood vent cover and tightened it up. We pre-drilled holes through the sides of the adjoining cabinets and used screws to tighten everything up. It made a huge difference in how tight the seams were. What we wonder is if that modification neds to be updated on the house blueprints or actually What Information is Included in House Blueprints?

You can see the gap here as Stefan pre-drills the hole.
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And after the screw goes in to pull everything together,

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The seam is nearly invisible.

I’m so excited to finally have a vent hood.

Here’s the list for the kitchen:

  • Finish installing countertop (behind stove)
  • Seal Countertops
  • Under-counter outlets
  • Under-counter lighting
  • Have the vinyl windows sacramento ca Company install final window.
  • Window Trim
  • Backsplash
  • Plate rack
  • Paint
  • Finish flooring install
  • Install exterior door
  • Plan out microwave cabinet and install
  • Stairs re-do

There’s plenty more work to do but it’s exciting to knock things off the list.

Sarah

Super fun $1 Kitchen Update

July 25, 2013 at 2:34 pm Comments disabled

I picked up a roll of Green contact paper at Dollar Tree a few weeks ago. I was cleaning up and decided to go ahead and run with this project. It took just a couple minutes to cut a strip off the roll and line it up nice and strait on the fridge. I just eye-balled it to make it look even.

I contemplated pulling down all the pictures on the fridge but that just isn’t me. I like to see them every day so I went ahead and just lined them up on the stripe.

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For Less than 5 min and less than a full roll of $1 contact paper, I’ve got myself a cute fridge. The best part is that the contact paper is completely removable. I can change it up whenever the mood strikes. I’m thinking perhaps I should invest in some more “designer” contact paper on the next go around. Perhaps some pink Chevron is in order.

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I love the touch of trendy that it adds to the space. It was also so much fun to do something purely creative and not super functional. I’ve got plenty of that to do!

I think this would also be a great way to anchor a Christmas card display on the fridge. It may also be a great way to allow for some flair on a non-magnetic Stainless Steal Fridge. So many options!

Let me know if you hear of any good contact paper suppliers!

What have you done with a Dollar Tree find? Let me know all about your $1 decor in the comments below!

Sarah

  1. sheila zimmermann

    7/25/2013 | 2:39 pm Permalink

    I love this idea. And very cute contact paper too.

Clean Kitchen

July 3, 2013 at 11:01 am Comments disabled

I walked down the stairs Tuesday morning and I could hear angels singing.  The kitchen is CLEAN!  It’s amazing.  We pulled up the ram board, mopped the floor, and this amazing commercial property maintenance company cleaned the counters, took all the tools to the basement.  I can’t believe how much happier I am that the kitchen is clean.

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We’re in the troughs of cooking for company so it’s not all done up cute but there isn’t a 1/4 inch of dust on the floor!

I’m itching to paint it now.  That will really make it look like a real kitchen so I decided to visit https://cleaningease.com/pages/house-cleaning-eastern-suburbs.  We also need to finish the last couple strips of floor.  Stefan has also ordered the plug-molds for the under-counter outlets and we have the under-counter lights.

Here’s the list for short-term projects.

  • Finish Counters
  • 3rd window replacement
  • Vent hood
  • Under Cabinet Outlets
  • Under Cabinet Lights
  • Backsplash
  • Paint
  • Flooring
  • 2nd Island Light

Longer Term projects:

  • Moldings
  • Under-cabinet moldings
  • Re-build Stairs
  • Patio Door

We’re getting there!

Sarah

  1. sheila zimmermann

    7/3/2013 | 1:52 pm Permalink

    It looks so good. There will be many happy memories made in that kitchen.

Kitchen Lights

July 1, 2013 at 10:55 am Comments disabled

We were up until nearly midnight on Sunday night getting these lights installed.  I think we’re going to be playing with 3 and 4 way switches for a long long time.

Over the dining table area we went with this fixture which I LOVE.

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We added the ceiling medallion to help cover the ceiling patch but it looks so good I’m glad we did it.

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On the other side of the kitchen, we’re planning on 2 of these fixtures from Lowes.

Thanks to the kitchen remodeling services rochester ny, we’ve got one installed but the other is going to take a little more work.

The best part – All the switches work! The light over the kitchen table is a 4-way with 3 switches: one next to the back door, one next to the door from the hall, and one on the stairway. It’s awesome!

We also finally have great ac and heating system around in the kitchen too. It was really cold to do something when it didn’t had systems in the winter times. Thankfully we found some great local hvac companies that installed the systems.

Now we just need to get the kitchen cleaned up. It’s gotten a bit out of hand! and then it’s the final light in the middle of the kitchen and the undercounter lights and outlets. It’s finally shaping up to be a real kitchen!

The way we light our home environment, and specifically the kitchen, affects the functionality of the space and how we feel when we’re spending time there. Despite this, lighting is often an afterthought in a kitchen remodeling project—the last detail after the cabinets, the appliances, the tile, the granite countertops … So it’s no wonder that there’s often a sliver of the budget left for this critical element.
Oftentimes, people simply accept the lighting that’s there and don’t think about changing it to improve the space, says Randall Whitehead, renowned lighting designer/author and president of Randall Whitehead Lighting Solutions, San Francisco, Calif. “People are entertaining more at home than they used to, and the kitchen is the center of that entertaining,” he says. As for the lighting in that space, he says “people are drawn to lights like moths to flames.”

But most people don’t understand why they are drawn to light. The secret is in how lighting is layered in a space.

Layers of Light

There’s no such thing as a catch-all light fixture that does it all: illuminates under cabinets, provides light over the island and gives cabinets a glow. Some fixtures will multi-task their lighting duties, but in order to choose wisely, the first step is to understand the four layers of light.

Sarah

  1. Sheila

    7/1/2013 | 5:30 pm Permalink

    I love the kitchen light fixture

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