by Heather -

1 year renovation anniversary (video)

We thought it would be fun to do a walk through of the living space 1 year post-renovation so you could compare. So here you go! About a year ago the space looked like this Jan 15, 2018:

(Full breakdown of the plans, befores and video commentary here)

As of Jan 13, 2019, it’s looking a lot more fresh

A few notes:

  • Did any eagle eyes notice that the exterior color of our house changed dramatically? Yeah, on top of everything else we tackled this year, we also painted the entire outside of the house. More photos and details soon!
  • Laundry room sneak peek!
  • Hallway sneak peek!
  • Dining room chandelier sneak peek!
  • This may be more information than you need about the inside of the cabinets. I couldn’t photograph them properly for the original post and may have overcompensated with this video.
  • Lots of living room sneak peeks! Basically you can see the whole space, but I’ll still take some proper after shots soon.
  • Points to me for not sounding like I was going to pass out during this video. Ha!
by Heather -

Welcome to the pantry (aka Narnia)

Welcome to the pantry… or as our friend, Tim, calls it “Narnia.” I can see where he’s going with that nickname. This super functional, neatly hidden closet is definitely a dream space, but it was borne out of sheer necessity.

  1. We needed to pack as much storage into the kitchen as possible… and we didn’t want upper cabinets.
  2. We were looking for a permanent home for our upright deep freezer.
  3. We needed to push the sides of the kitchen and former dining space together to give the finished room a cohesive feel.

A hidden pantry met all of these requirements. We planned to remove the built-ins on the outer wall and box in the space.

Post demo, wall building and drywall hanging,  we were left with a blank slate.

You probably noticed that we went a little wild with the color in this space. While we joke about painting everything white and often stick to black and gray as the other primary elements of our palette, we have a huge love for jewel tones. Evidence includes our blue couch, the emerald green captain’s suite at the firehouse, our blue master bedroom and the emerald green accent around the windows in our dining room. Keeping most things white/black/gray makes those shots of color even more impactful.

For the pantry, we wanted a big pop, which meant we needed something that would contrast the black cabinets. Yellow felt a bit too bee-like and you can guess why we scratched orange of any sort. Moving along the color wheel something in the red category was the next most obvious option. Black, white and hot pink are a classic combo in my opinion. (long standing IRL friends and family members may remember that those were the colors from our wedding.)Just to make sure we weren’t overlooking an option, we pinned some palettes and grabbed all the jewel tone swatches from Home Depot. Glidden’s Bright Black Raspberry won us over.

Enough suspense, let’s dive into the space.

We packed a lot of utility to the right side of the pantry. A countertop of Absolute Black honed granite is the perfect home for the small appliances that get used frequently but that we don’t want to stare at (or put away) every day. Both coffee makers, the toaster and the Soda Stream live here permanently. Below we nestled the microwave and a drawer that’s perfect for storage bags, foil and plastic wrap. Hiding the microwave in here kept the kitchen U looking seamless. Aaron built a shelf to complete the space next to the cabinet, making it perfect for all of our extra large items, like a massive cutting board and marshmallow toasting forks. You know, the essentials in life.

Up top, the cabinet hides all of the coffee paraphenalia – cups, coffee and filters. Custom shelves to the right of the cabinet house cookbooks. And you might notice that we opted for a motion sensing switch in here. It has made me feel like the lights should just turn on anytime I enter a room in this house. So basically I’m spoiled by it. I also love that it snaps the lights off after a few minutes.

You might also noticed that the entry to the space was not exactly “done” when I took these photos. It has since been trimmed and painted a matte black. We also corralled the undercabinet lighting wires under some trim that was painted hot pink. Basically I took these photos before everything was done…

Flipping around you get a view of ALL THE SHELVES. The long wall holds 6 shelves that are 7″ deep and 5′ long. They are perfect for things like spices and canned goods. The back wall shelves are 16″ deep and 39 1/2″ wide. This area holds larger items like baking essentials and snacks.

Did you notice that our deep freeze didn’t make it in here? While working on the configuration, we realized that we were building a pantry that would house the freezer and then some thin shelves (just the ones on the long wall). Aaron decided to take one for the team and keep the freezer in the workshop space. I was convinced that we could make it work either way… but I’m very happy that he convinced me take advantage of the extra shelves at the back of the space.

Ikea’s Algot system was the perfect option for a customizable and economical storage system. At a few bucks per upright and bracket, the components are wildly affordable. They got a coat of Bright Black Raspberry to make them fade into the background.

For the shelves, Aaron insisted on hardwood. He opted for hard maple due to the relatively economical cost and the beautiful grain. Each shelf required this rigorous process

  1. Cut to size
  2. Plane for smoothness
  3. A pass through the drum sander
  4. Hand sanding (heavy and medium grit)
  5. Wet the boards to raise the grain, then wet sand with medium grit sandpaper
  6. Dry
  7. Sand again (medium and fine grit)
  8. Two floods of dark walnut Danish Oil
  9. Wax all edges

 

In may have been a bit of overkill for pantry shelves, but they definitely look and feel very luxe. This pantry is fancy AF.

In related news, Aaron is not using hard maple anywhere else in this house.

A few other Ikea items make this space super functional. A step stool is a must because short girl problems. The Bekvam step stool was sold out in black, so we grabbed the birch option and discovered it was unfinished. Aaron stained it with Old Masters Dark Walnut Gel stain. It matches the shelves and looks like it belongs to this space. We strategically place the lower shelf high enough to allow the stool to slide underneath.

We snagged a few Algot mesh baskets that clip right to the upright, making them perfect for onions and potatoes.

While I love the look of pantries that have all their items sorted into matching containers, I knew that  was too much effort for me. (Legitimate question – how do you know how to cook things if you chuck the packaging?)  Ikea’s Variera boxes are much more my speed. They come in a few sizes and make everything from pasta to Aaron’s sour candy collection feel organized in a flash. I used these boxes throughout the kitchen and they may be the best $2.79 you can spend at Ikea.

That rounds out the kitchen renovation. I’m still spending an embarrassing amount of time looking at the before/after shots. So don’t feel bad if you’re doing the same 😉

by Heather -

The kitchen reveal and a really big breakdown of all the details

Aaron thinks I may have taken too many pictures of the new kitchen. But when you go from this

to this

I feel like it deserves as many photos and words as I can stuff into one post.

Before we dive in, let’s do a quick recap. This house needed an updated kitchen like woah. Sitting at the literal heart of the house, the original space felt congested and closed off. It lacked counter space and the laundry nook was taking up too much real estate. Here’s the original floorplan with cabinets noted in gray.

We ripped everything out, carved out a laundry room, reshaped the walls and added a pantry space then laid new floors. You can read about our plans here (including a before video) and check out the demo progress here. In the end, we stayed pretty true to the intended floorplan.

Ok, let’s get to the good stuff. I absolutely love the new view from the front door. Here’s the before shot.

Heart eyes x 1000. It looks like a totally different house… and it is.

The door straight ahead leads to the new laundry room. The pantry that was hanging out at an awkward angle in the hallway is gone. We carved out as much of the wall as we could, giving us a view all the way to the back of the house.

Are you envious of the counter tops yet? It’s hard to pinpoint a favorite element of the new kitchen, but the ample counters that spill into waterfalls on each end of the U  are certainly high on the list.

Countertops

The countertops were a saga, as I suppose all major design elements can be. After our first visit to Stone West, we fell hard for a Grigio Carnico marble. The slabs were very moody with white veins cutting through a black and dark gray background.  We found a fabricator who was helpful enough to point out that marble is porous and etches easily. A little googling confirmed that for a hardworking kitchen, like ours, that etching would likely be an issue. I was terrified that I’d mar the counters the first time I cut a lemon.

After that we seriously considered soapstone. We have long loved the look and feel of this stone. Eventually we ran into two problems.

  1. It would be nearly impossible to guarantee an absolute black background and pure white veins. Most soapstone has a bit of a tint, like a touch of green in the veins. In a kitchen that is not ENTIRELY black, it wouldn’t matter or even be noticeable. You’ve probably gathered that we went all in on the black kitchen. So risking a focal point being blackish seemed very risky.
  2. Soapstone is pricey. We probably would have had to cut the waterfall detail. Even then, it was pushing our budget past the breaking point.

 

Our third choice was Absolute Black Granite in a leathered finish. Stone West imports the darkest slabs that are naturally occurring. (Cheap Absolute Black Granite is sometimes dyed to make it darker.) They also had very wide slabs, which we needed for our extra deep counters. Plus they showed us how to oil the counters to get an even darker shade.

Granite is a fabulous choice for countertops as evidenced by the fact that SOOO many people on House Hunters turn up their nose at any other material. The Absolute Black was definitely black enough. But overall I just felt like it was ok. No matter how many kitchens I looked at online with the same material, I couldn’t get excited. It felt like a very proper, adult decision to go with the budget appropriate option.

Now that they’re in, I wouldn’t have trade the granite for anything else. I wish I could have you over to feel these counters. The leathered finish is absolutely amazing. It gives it almost a warm, soft feel.  (If you have friends with leathered granite countertops, tell them I said you need to feel them up so you know why I’m so obsessed with ours.) The countertops definitely warm up the space and the lack of pattern makes them feel cohesive with the rest of the space. The waterfall is everything we wanted it to be. In short, I love them.

Ok. Back to the tour! This next pair isn’t a perfect match, but I think it gives a good perspective of how much space we took for the pantry, and how airy everything still feels.

Converting the former dining room into storage space helped to physically bring that side of the room closer. We kept a generous walkway that doesn’t feel too large.

Writing this blog post took longer than normal because I got kind of obsessed with the before/after shots as I was putting things together. I think this is my absolute favorite before/after.

The BlueStar range

This house had an electric cooktop, but a gas line originally run for a dryer allowed us to switch to gas during the reno. I really enjoyed the Bertazzoni that we installed at the firehouse, but it doesn’t hold a candle to this BlueStar. We opted for the 36″ RNB Range. I’ve been using it for almost 9 months and if you like to cook I highly recommend this range. It gets really hot, which makes searing things a dream. The broiler is amazing (and dangerous if left unattended). Cleaning is relatively easy thanks to a pull out drawer that catches any food bits that fall into the burners, but I will take any advice/tips on cleaning removable cast iron burners.

Dishwasher

While we’re over here, let’s talk about the dishwasher. You can see it in the right hand corner of the cabinets. We went back and forth debating the placement of the sink and the dishwasher. Ultimately it made the most sense to center the sink and put the dishwasher to the left of that. We bought an Ikea dishwasher, excited that the front panels would look exactly like the drawers next to it.  By the time we installed it I was SO ready to stop washing dishes in our guest bathroom tub.

But… it didn’t fit. Our fancy, heavy duty BlueStar range does not sit flush with the cabinets and those couple of inches of overhang meant the dishwasher couldn’t open all the way. This was a major, major flaw. Wine drinking, internet sleuthing and the purchase of a Fisher & Paykel DishDrawer ensued.

This was definitely a hit to our design morale and our budget (coming in about twice as much as the Ikea option… chalk it up as another reason that I’m glad we didn’t bust the budget and buy the soapstone). But it worked out well in the end, blending nicely with the cabinets even if it is not completely hidden. Having separate drawers is very convenient for days where we don’t have enough dishes for a full load. It is super quiet and does a really nice job cleaning once I figured out the optimal loading strategy.

Ikea cabinets

The cabinets are Ikea. To maximize our savings, we bought several thousand dollars in Ikea gift cards on Black Friday 2017. Those came with a $10 gift card for every $100 we spent, instantly giving us a 10% discount. Then we waited for the Ikea kitchen sale, which usually runs sometime in late January or February.  The 15% off was well worth the wait. Aaron visited early the first day of the sale, armed with the designs he made online and a ton of gift cards. Due to the sheer size of the order, we figured the $100 delivery fee was money well spent.

In addition to the kitchen, we purchased cabinets for the pantry, dining room, laundry room and some new doors for the cabinet at the end of the hall.

The kitchen got black Kungsbacka fronts. These doors are flat and feel very modern. For the U, we opted for drawers on the sides to give a cohesive look. These drawers are super versatile and even hide a third, small drawer in the very top – perfect for utensils. If you haven’t been to Ikea to play with their cabinets and organization options, you are missing out. The corner cabinets included clever rotating shelves that let you take full advantage of the space while providing easy access to everything.

 

So far everything is holding up great, including the fronts which have seen their fair share of Dane slobber. (TMI?)

Ikea didn’t have any pulls that we loved. We turned the internet and eventually found simple, affordable ones on Etsy. One size worked for drawers and doors.

Elkay Quartz Sink

I know I keep saying I love everything in this space, but I do. The Elkay Quartz Single Bowl Undermount Sink in black is no exception. We stumbled on Franke granite sinks while browsing a fancy appliance store in Calabassas. A little internet research led us to the equally beautiful and slightly better priced Elkay line. The sink is huge (33″ wide)and 9 1/2″ deep) making it ideal for washing everything from wine glasses to oversized cutting boards. The drain is offset and the whole sink slopes slightly toward it. Why aren’t all sinks made this way? It makes cleaning up a breeze.

Moen Faucet

Aaron pinned a LOT of very lovely, very modern faucets. When he showed me his favorites, I had one question “do they have pull down sprayers.” Have you ever used a kitchen sink without one? I have. Apparently he hasn’t. It was my one request and I stand by the need. Thankfully, the Moen STo Black One-Handle High Arc Pulldown Kitchen Faucet fit his need for form and my need for function.

Moving on, the view from the living room side is SO MUCH BETTER (due in part to changes in the living room itself).

Backsplash

We knew we wanted matte black oversized subway tile across the whole back wall of the kitchen. We probably went to nearly a dozen tile shops before finding Buena Tile + Stone. Their selection and prices are second to none. They get bonus points for a stunning, modern showroom staffed with genuinely nice and helpful people. The tile was actually the first thing we bought for the kitchen and nearly the last thing that was installed.

Forgoing upper cabinets in order to keep the space feeling open meant we needed to pack a lot of storage into the former dining room.

This wall was also the perfect spot for the wall oven and fridge.

Samsung fridge

I lied up above. The first thing we actually bought for this kitchen renovation was the fridge. The house didn’t have one when we bought it, and we were able to sell our old one to the new firehouse owners. So we actually purchased Samsung’s 4-Door French Door Fridge in black stainless before we left the firehouse and plugged it in once we arrived here. We love the black stainless steel finish and the sleek look thanks to the lack of bulky handles. It has a lot of great features, including deep drawers on the doors, easily adjustable shelves and a middle drawer that can be customized to a temperature based on what you want to store there (we use it as a deli drawer.)

Samsung wall oven

The Samsung 30″ Wall Oven with Flex Duo is a cook’s dream.  I’m so happy to have an electric oven back in my life. Every cake, cookie and cheesecake has come out of the Samsung oven flawlessly. It can be divided with a center panel to allow for cooking at two different temperatures. It bakes, roasts, convection bakes, broils, steam bakes and I’m sure I’m forgetting about 5 other functions. Plus it’s very easy on the eyes.

The rest of the wall is covered with super deep storage… and the entrance to the pantry.

We’ll take a peek in there next time. In the meantime, I’ll just be continually scrolling through this post and spamming my Instsgram account with photos of the kicthen.

by Heather -

The slab finally became a table and the dining room is almost done

When we started the process of condensing our lives to move across the country, we did a lot of paring down. We hosted an epic garage sale that helped whittle down Aaron’s massive camera collection. We sold furniture to friends and the new firehouse owners. We donated an entire carload of items. Even after that, we moved lots of things with a “We’ll see if this works in the new house” mentality. One of those things, was the enormous slab that was intended for the firehouse dining room.

This beauty was sourced specifically for the large-roomed, tall ceiling-ed firehouse. Clocking in at around 110″ long and nearly 4′ in one section, we honestly had no idea if it would fit anywhere in (or outside of) our new house. After settling in, we realized the amount of space we’d have in our future outdoor dining room would accommodate a table of this scale. Although leaving such a nice piece of wood outside in the elements (we do get occasional rain), didn’t seem like the best idea, we slated the slab for that space due to lack of options.

Once the renovation was underway and we had a better idea of the space we’d assigned in the front room for the dining area, we took some more measurements. Taking about a foot off the end of the slab would make it a sizable, but not overwhelmingly so, table for inside. Done and done.

We ordered some heaving duty legs from Etsy, bought some heavy duty saw horses, and asked a neighbor for help moving  the slab to our patio.

Time in the sun was not kind to this piece.

But, thanks to sanding (so much sanding), natural Danish oil and several coats of furniture wax, Aaron was able to revive the wood into this showstopper:

It is SOOOO pretty!

I’m particularly obsessed with the swirl.

8 of the 10 vintage chairs we’ve been hoarding longer than the slab now have a permanent home!

We have actually made a ton of progress in this front room… even going so far as to break out some decor items! Here are a few before and after comparisons

The next set isn’t a perfect match up because I’m refusing to show the kitchen in this post. (I’m the worst.) But you do get a sneak peek at the wall of cabinets and hidden pantry.

Let’s start with the basics. This space got

  • White walls
  • Smoothed ceiling and white (duh) paint
  • Overhead lighting thanks to a bunch of LED can lights
  • Contemporary crown molding (which I forgot to photograph)
  • New floors

We’re injecting doses of jewel tones in this home and we opted for an emerald green to accent the corner windows. Then we filled this super sunny spot with bunch of succulents. Basically I am in plant heaven over here.

Against the pantry wall, we added a small banquet area for extra storage and serving space.

We paired glossy white Ikea cabinets with a section of their Barkaboda walnut countertop and some undercabinet lighting for ambiance. This has been the perfect spot to store our wireless router, adult beverage glasses and some backup bar gear.

The shelf was kismet in the form of a Design Within Reach Outlet store just down the highway in Oxnard. The outlet pricing puts the beautiful designer pieces much more within reach (har har!). One our first visit, we easily talked ourselves into this ladder shelf for 300 bones. We knew we’d need something for this space and it fills it perfectly! The walnut ties into the countertop, and I was finally able to pull out some of our favorite decor pieces.

The other side of this space is still a work in progress, but you can see where we’re headed. We’re planning a casual seating area (for pre- or post-dinner drinks and games). The Ikea shelves (longtime bedside tables that we FINALLY retired) are now serving as a “for now” bar area until Aaron builds a custom piece for the space. We also have a cool plan for a unique coffee table for this area.

  This space is SOOO close to being done. It needs a chandelier (in progress, just waiting for the correct hanging hardware to come in) and some art. I love everything about it, but the table is definitely the superstar, as it should be.

by Heather -

New floors

Continuous flooring throughout the firehouse was never a real possibility, mostly because it was 5,000+ square feet and we are not made of money.  Taking on a much more modestly sized California ranch made a flooring upgrade realistic, and it didn’t take much online browsing to feel pretty certain that new floors would be a must in any home we bought.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Aaron “Master Sourcing Expert” Hawes jumped into the task with glee. Here were our parameters:

  • Click-together flooring  that we could float over a slab foundation
  • Solid wood (rather than engineered) so it could be refinished some day if needed
  • Hard wood – because Great Dane claws
  • Not hand-scraped or faux distressed – No offense if you have this style. We just don’t love it.
  • Mid-tone brown
  • Under $5 per square foot

Bamboo instantly jumped to the top of the list thanks to the hardness and price. The biggest struggle, and one of the most important considerations, was finding the right color. We love the warm mid tone brown that is common in much of the mid century furniture we gravitate towards. Real life: We ordered enough bamboo floor samples (usually free or really cheap) to floor a child’s play house.

Ultimately the winner was Warm Brown from Trinity Bamboo. (Top sample below.)

It’s a stunning tone that warms up our white-walled rooms. We also loved the matte finish and wide planks. It fit nicely in the budget at under $4 per square foot.

After chatting with the company, we opted to buy tongue and groove planks rather than click-together and glue them down. This provides a nice base for everything, like the cabinets in the kitchen. The glue works in place of the vapor barrier that would normally go under a floating floor installation.

Ordering was easy and delivery was prompt! That may be where the “easy” part of this story ends. Gluing down wood floors is HARD work. After pre-cutting the planks for a section, Aaron had to work quickly to trowel the glue and set and tape all the boards before the glue setup. Adding to the time sensitivity was the relatively short pot life (time before the glue dries too much) of the large buckets. The glue isn’t cheap so basically any time he opened a pail it was a race to use it all. The good news for you is that buckets have been discontinued. The glue is now distributed in much more manageable (and resealable) tubes.

It’s a ton of work but the end result is absolutely stunning! The boards have enough variation to give a nice natural feel and the color is exactly what we wanted.

So far he has finished all of the floors in the public spaces of the house, including new baseboard and trim throughout the kitchen, dining room and hallway. Our bedroom is up next and I cannot wait to tear the carpet out and extend these floors into that room!