Kitchen Before and After

I've definitely neglected my blog since returning to work in the engineering field. The kitchen was completed months ago, but I hadn't taken time to get my husband to snap some nice photos. Finally made time for that, in between work & using my days off to painting & reorganizing the other rooms in the house after the re-wiring job. I put together some before & after shots so you can see what a big improvement the new kitchen is.

Happy to see go: wallpapered ceiling, vinyl floor, old hardware on cabinets.

Favorite new additions: recycled glass countertops (vetrazzo), DSC range, bosch dishwasher (nice & quiet), new bar/counter & window valance made with the glass bottle bottoms & LED lights. Eco friendly marmoleum floor and bamboo cabinets with a tall pantry.

Flower Embellsihed T-Shirt

This is a recent birthday gift I made for one of the family members. Most of the fabric I used for the flowers were remnants from the 1970's hence the psychedelic, hippie look of the top. A few of my vintage buttons are in there too.

Mounting Bottle Bottoms in Wood

Bamboo Finish on box to heighten Brick Wall

Bottle Bottom Template for Valance

Sometimes simple ideas are harder to execute than you expect. My idea of mounting glass bottle bottoms into the wood we used to build-up our brick wall to counter height took days & days of planning & practice to figure out how to accomplish it. 
First of all a lot of beer bottles appear the same size, but they vary ever so slightly. Also since we are using LED lights to shine through from the inside of the box, the bottles need to fit snug in the hole so light doesn’t bleed around the edge. The cleanest way to get a nice round hole in wood without chewing up the edges is with a hole saw. Only problem, they come in just certain sizes & the larger ones get pricey. Between the contractor & ourselves, we had quite a few, but not enough for all the sizes of bottles. We splurged on a few additional ones. My husband also found an adjustable hole maker, but it wasn’t cutting through thick pieces of wood easily. So after various practice holes and shaving down of glass bottles, he decided to use the adjustable hole saw to cut holes in a template, clamp that template to the box and use his router to cut the smooth round holes. So we ended up going out & spending almost $25 on the right router bit. In the end it was worth it.

Bob cutting Circle Templates

Adjustable Hole Saw

Hole Cutters & practice cuts in Bamboo

The Circle Templates

Special Router Bit

Box with Circles Cut Out (protective tape still applied)

Glass Tile Samples

Today I received some glass tile samples for the kitchen backsplash. As with anything you order online, you can't always tell colors on a computer monitor. I ordered 3 different samples, one of the 3 was a different manufacturer than the others. They all looked slightly different online, but two ended up an almost complete match (both the glossy ones). The other one is a matte finish and we like it better, but it does appear a little more blue than green. You can see scratches on the surface of the glossy ones and since we're planning to use larger 4"x12" tiles to cut down on grout lines, the scratches may be a problem.  I may order a few others yet.

New Kitchen Cabinets

Bamboo Cabinets

Maple Slab Door

Our kitchen renovation we were planning last year had to be postponed because we couldn’t afford the additional cost to rewire the entire house that would be triggered by moving the fuse panel out of the kitchen. We now have the financing together and are back to the project.
The original bamboo cabinets I had found are no longer available, so I had priced some slab front maple cabinets that were available locally. Then a few weeks ago while searching microwave cabinet ideas, I came upon a new source for bamboo cabinets. I’m still waiting on the sample door and hoping it fits the bill because they carry more of the cabinet sizes I prefer for my layout.

ODD DUCK BAZAAR NEXT WEEKEND

The Fabulous Odd Duck Bazaar is coming up next weekend, Saturday March 31, 2012. Although my new job prevents me from either vending or visiting the craft fair this year, I encourage all who have the time to stop by this incredible bazaar. This year the location has moved to Hollywood, Fl and more space is provided 80+ vendors. Some of South Florida's most talented Indie Artist and Crafters will be selling their wares. The venue provides both indoor and outdoor shopping areas, plus live music. Follow the link to preview the creative vendors you will find.

Halloween 1977

Minnie Mouse Attacked, a photo by b-a-boop on Flickr.

Since this is October, I thought I’d scan my old Halloween Photo Album for something to post. Here are a few photos from way back in college for Fashion Design. I think most of us in class were dressed up, but these two were my best friends, Gloria as the Ghoul, in her handmade costume of gauze fabric and Cheryl as Dolly Dagger, an idea we created from the Jimi Hendrix song. The three of us worked together on her costume. The body suit with the flames was handmade, the boots were spats we made from vinyl and studs that strapped over spike heeled shoes and I think the choker was a dog collar. She had a dagger in her boots and handcuffs chained around her hips. The cape was my grandmas nursing cape which has since gone missing (wish I knew where). I had made the Minnie Mouse hood/ears years before and the red satin skirt was from a box of costume items that had been in our family for years (mom made us many a costume over the years). I just got a ruffley thrift store blouse and a scarf belt to go with it and used some cut off black hose over my arms. I’m pretty sure we all went out partying together that night; it may even have been the year we saw Billy Joel in concert & saw some truly amazing costumes in the audience.

Renovation Existing Tile

When renovating a bathroom, most home improvement sites and books will recommend completely ripping out all the fixtures and tiles and updating everything. They say that you will usually recover the cost when you resell the house. That’s fine if you can actually afford the thousands of dollars in demolition and replacement. Many of us don’t have those resources. And with the current housing slump and home values having dropped dramatically, sinking thousands into a renovation may not pay off.
I have updated both the bathrooms in my home without replacing all of the tile. I have redone just portions of it. I did it myself, and it does involve some delicate precision and hard labor. I’m not sure tile contractors would like my approach either. Hiring someone to do this work may not be easy as they most likely feel it’s easier to tear it all out and then cover a clean flat wall.
Easy doesn’t always mean best for the environment. My approach is to preserve as much vintage tile as possible and to add as little as possible to the waste stream. Where does all that old tile end up? Probably a landfill. Maybe if it were being recycled for some other use, it wouldn’t bother me so much, but most of the time, you see large amounts of construction waste just packed up into dumpsters and trucked away.
Here’s what I did with the 1st renovation. We had broken tile on the windowsill, some edge tiles at the floor that were cracked, a broken ceramic wall mounted towel rack and worn out ceramic soap dish and toothbrush holders above the wall hung sink. After removing the sink, we also found holes through some tiles and cracks in others.
I loved the 50-year-old tan speckled tile but knew I probably wouldn’t be able to match it. The room had black edge tile, so I had to come up with a pattern to insert black tile to fill in the spaces where I removed the broken stuff. It required placing black tiles where the new towel bars would attach to the walls, black tiles on the new windowsill and a few rows of black behind the sink. It also involved preserving at least one tan tile to fill in a spot where one towel bar was removed. Getting tiles off in one piece is the trickiest part & mostly comes down to luck.
Here’s a few links on how to replace a broken tile…

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20051584,00.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_114958_replace-cracked-tile.html

perhaps I’ll post more about my own repair work at a later date as this is already getting too long winded.

Pillows and Patchwork

I like making pillows. I have many small remnants and pieces of designer decorator fabric samples. Most are not large enough for one pillow on their own, therefore I have fun trying to find new ways of combining coordinating fabrics into one pillow. I also enjoy using up my yarn and fringe collections to make trims. Here are some examples.