Kristen S

Wood Paneled Peninsula

My least favourite part of the kitchen used to be the peninsula. It was short and stubby, too small to use as a prep space and looked awkward.

I had originally hoped to build the peninsula deeper to house a beverage fridge and get full counter depth cupboards & drawers. However it became apparent that to do that we would loose valuable dining room space, and be unable to have a 6 person dining table.

We were not willing to compromise on the dining table (we love to entertain!) so the peninsula needed to stay skinny. If we couldnt make it wider we could at least make it longer. We added only one more cabinet, which not only made the kitchen symetrical, but made so much more work space. Its amazing what a foot can do. Now you can stand comfortably at the peninsula and chop veggies or converse with someone in the diningroom.

Such a small change, but a world of difference. Now the peninsula is my favourite part of the kitchen. The concrete waterfall is the icing on the cake, but you may have noticed we added a bit of a special touch on the back of the peninsula as well.

The peninsula used to be backed in an Ikea cover panel that matched the Ikea Adel kitchen cabinets. It worked just fine, but after we added the extra cabinet, the old cover panel wasn’t big enough.

We could have went out and bought a larger one, but thought it might be a fun area to add something special, and make our kitchen look a bit more custom. Enter a trip to the hardware store.

We picked up three 6 foot long pieces of tongue and groove 1×6 unfinished pine flooring from Home Depot along with a 1×4 piece of kiln dried pine. Back in the garage we cut down our lumber to three feet long on the miter saw, and headed into the house armed with some wood glue and a brad nailer.

We started at the top of the peninsula with a board facing groove up. We brad nailed it into the cabinets making sure we nailed through the sides of the cabinet frames, not just the backer. When attaching the second board we added a bit of glue to the groove, slid it tightly against the other board, and continued nailing. You will notice that we didn’t run the wood all the way to the wall. The stove is tucked into that corner, and to give the stove a bit more breathing room, we opted to only panel to just past the oven door. It saves on wood, and I will worry less that I will light my house on fire when I run the self cleaning oven.

Once we reached the bottom, we went to the garage and cut the groove off the past piece with the table saw so we would end with a nice smooth board.

Cutting off the last tongue with the table saw

Last board installed (note the absolute chaos of the kitchen in the background!)

After the boards were installed we got out the wood filler and filled in the brad nail holes.

Nail holes (and the stupid little divot my brad nailer leaves) — Wood Filler

After letting the filler dry, we took the sander to the boards and gave it a quick finish sand.

Now we were ready to finish it. We pushed back the countertop (we hadn’t yet adhered it to the cabinets at this point) taped off the area, and added a coat of wood conditioner then two coats of stain (same color as our dining table & coffee bar shelves).

After staining we finished it up with 5 coats of Satin Poly. Five coats may have been a bit of overkill, but its beside the stove and oven, and will get its fair share of abuse.

Next up we needed to address the toe kick. For the rest of the kitchen we have plain white toe kicks, but it just seemed weird to carry on the white for the back of the peninsula, so we opted to use a piece of 1×4 pine stained & polyed to match.

We then moved the countertop back in place, making sure the wood was flush with the countertop edge, attached the countertop to the cabinet, and slid the stove back in place.

Making sure the countertop was flush with the paneling

Total Cost: About $15!

2014 DIY Goals

We didn’t fall on our asses completely with our 2013 DIY goals, but I’d like to do even better this year.

This year my goal is to not fall on my ass.

Likelihood of success: slim to none.

Well there you have it, list done, I’m going back to bed.

Oh… about those real 2014 DIY Goals. Okay okay, here they are.

Main Bathroom Makeover: You’ve never even SEEN this room! When we moved in we gave it a coat of Tiffany blue paint, hung a white shower curtain and that’s about it. After living with the bathroom for three years, we’ve noticed it’s a bit lacking in functionality. The vanity is too small for El Granto and I to get ready at the same time (which we do) and the storage is not as useful as it could be. (Aka too little and of the unorganized variety.)

Bathroom Vanity & Mirror (sorry about this terrible picture, I shot it months ago and apparently forgot how awful/out of focus it was)

The strange (useless) gap between the vanity and the wall (and hells yeah, we have a happy face nightlight)

Our goal is to build a larger vanity with drawers and his and hers doors and storage. We’d also like to build a new counter with built in trough sink and two faucets. A new mirror and lighting will have to follow as they will be off center and dorky looking after the new vanity.

When we moved into the Storefront there was a stacked washer/dryer in our main second floor bathroom. This dryer and it’s poorly constructed venting was the start of our water woes that resulted in Mike Holmes coming to fix our house. During the reno, Mike & the crew moved our laundry to a safer location in the basement. What was left is a large (empty) closet in our main bathroom which thus far just holds a laundry basket and some extra TP. We’d like to conquer the closet and custom build a linen closet with glass doors for pretty storage, and drawers for other not so pretty storage (I’m looking at you toilet paper). We’d also like to build in a hidden laundry basket door/drawer system. I really enjoyed making the media cabinet last year and am itching to do some more cabinet making in the bathroom.

To complete the bathroom will be a new shower curtain, towel hooks, art etc. I am also hoping for new tile (but that may be wishful thinking.) It’s a BIG project that we hope to start sometime in the spring.

Staircase/Hallway: The upstairs hallway was on my list last year and it never got done. I would like to finish it off, and continue down the staircase and knock that off the list as well. The staircase is the ONLY remaining beige wall inside. The reason it’s remaining as it’s hella tall, and going to be a pain in the ass to paint. While I’m at it, I’d like to do some trim work in the staircase, and beef up our newel posts to make them more appropriate to the period of the Storefront. Aka less 1990’s more 1910.

Do something with the backyard: The grading is sliding sideways and we’ve lost half the dirt/sand in the backyard in the last year. The pathway is sinking, creating a lake when it rains and the grass refuses to grow in the shifty sandy soil. I would also still like to put in a patio of some sort and build some patio furniture. This looks like an easy task but is HUGE. It may not get done this year.

Backyard Lake. — Backyard Lake created by the sinking pathway.

Garage Love: The garage needs a little TLC. We need to add some lumber storage, make a new workbench for our bench top tools, add some insulation and figure out some sort of sawdust control system. As El Granto got a new belt/disc sander for Christmas, I think this project will be starting sometime soon.

Paint the exterior of the Storefront: I would love love love to remove the siding on the front of the house, re-point the brick, clean it, and re-do all the flashing. Unless I somehow come into a lot of money, this is not going to happen in the next year. To live with the front of the house for now, I would like to prime & paint the siding to give it a new lease on life. While we’re at it, I’d like to de-beige the back of the house with some paint as well. I would also like to try a new paint color on the front door & mailbox. I’m thinking something fun, like green or blue.

What do you think? Is it a do-able list, or am I going to fail miserably?

2013 DIY Goal Recap

Way way back on January 1, 2013 I shared a little list of my 2013 DIY Goals. Did we complete them all, or did we fail miserably? Here’s a little recap of what was on my list, and how we did:

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Happy Holidays!

Wishing you and your family all the best this Holiday Season, and to a very happy 2014.

Continue reading “Happy Holidays!”

Chevron Cheese Board

As the Holidays are fast approaching, I am rapidly trying to knock a few items off the big old To-Do list, including making a few handmade gifts. This year has been a tough one to produce a lot of homemade gifts. Both El Granto and I have been working long hours at our day jobs, and by the time we get home we’d rather snuggle up on the sofa together than go back out to the garage and get to work.

This past weekend with nothing planned on the calendar, we decided to take a trip to the lumber yard, and start making some cutting boards for holiday host/hostess gifts.

After we had cut up all our wood, I noticed a few spare pieces too small to make into another cutting board, but rather than just toss them into the scrap ~~bin~~ pile, I opted to make a little side project.

Here’s what I did:

Set the miter saw to a 45. Took two scrap pieces of oak, stacked them on top of each other and cut a 45 through both of them at the same time. I then cut the same 45 at the other end of the pieces, again cutting through both boards at the same time.

Two pieces of wood cut into parallelograms

This made two pieces of wood about 9″ long that were EXACTLY the same. (the exactly the same is important.)

photo 3(2) — Two boards cut exactly the same, then one board flipped over

I then took those two boards, added glue, and clamped them together.

Once they were dry, I sanded, got the wood wet, let it dry, then sanded again. Why get the wood wet? It raises the grain, so you can sand it down again. If you don’t do this, then the first time the board is washed, the grain will raise and the wood will become rough again. It still may raise in the future, but at least you’ve sanded off the worst of it.

After everything is nice and sanded, I gave it a few coats of mineral oil, then followed up with some cutting board oil/wax.

Ta da: Hipster Chevron Cheese Board

El Granto had the brilliant idea that we should make a few of these, then we can slide them together at parties to make larger boards. I see another trip to the lumber yard, and more parallelograms in my future.

Nailed It!

TASK: DIY’ing a Himelli wreath inspired by HRUSKAA‘s amazing designs on Etsy.

DIY HOW: Using straws and string to create the geometric shape, then spray painting in a metallic finish.

Continue reading “Nailed It!”

Concrete Countertops – Finishing Touches

Thanks guys for all the kind comments on last weeks concrete countertops reveal! Also a big thanks to Apartment Therapy for sharing our project, and welcome to new readers from AP!

We’ve got a bit more housekeeping to do on the countertops before we’re done. After we brought them into the house, they needed to be installed, sealed & caulked.

This may sound like the boring parts, but they are the most important (seriously). If you don’t seal the countertops properly, they will stain and mark and you’ll be peeved. I think most people that give concrete countertops a bad rap, have skipped this important step, or didn’t use the right sealer.

Okay, lets get sealing! Now, you do not want to go out and buy a concrete patio sealer from the hardware store. A.) You won’t know how it will turn out, B.) it could wreck your protect and C.) It’s probably not foodsafe. So just buy actual concrete counter sealer, m’kay?

We used Buddy Rhodes Satin Sealer cause its super easy to apply and works well.

After our counters dried a few more days (leave it a week if you can). We applied about 7 or 8 coats of sealer with a soft (clean) microfiber cloth.

I made a video of myself applying said sealer, then viewed it, and realized I maybe should have, oh I dunno, washed my hair, or changed out of my work clothes so that I didn’t look like a complete mess. So instead I give you a much better video of Buddy himself applying the sealer.

How do you know when to stop applying the sealer? Essentially when the surface of the concrete looks uniformly coated. Then do a test to see if it repels water (if the water beads up). If the water soaks in, you need more sealer (just wait for it to dry out first).

Our counters were a bit too wet when we first sealed them (and the sealer couldn’t soak in as much as it could have), so we ended up putting a few more coats of sealer on a week or so after when we noticed the counters were starting to absorb water.

You can also finish with a beeswax to add even more protection (only after your counters are super sealed).

After they were sealed and we were happy as clams, we attached the counters to the cabinets using some latex caulking w/ silicone. We lifted the countertops, squirted in some caulking (we used about a tube for the whole kitchen) and put the countertops in place and let everything dry.

Attaching Countertops to cabinets (sorry for the blurry photo!)

Then we caulked the countertop edges where they met the wall and cabinets.

Do NOT put regular masking tape on your countertops while caulking. Regular masking tape can react with your sealer and cause huge problems (aka chemical weld). You NEED to use a concrete sealer safe tape. This one is well priced, works great and easy to find at your local big box hardware store:

DC Blue Concrete Masking Tape (safe for your sealer!)

Why is this so important:

Listen to the tape packaging, it knows its stuff

“Features a specially formulated adhesive to prevent chemical weld resulting in sealer failure”

So yeah, don’t mess up your concrete by being a cheap-o and using regular tape.

Tape off your countertop & cabinets/sink with the concrete tape, and tape off your walls with regular masking tape, and apply your caulking.

Concrete safe tape applied to countertop & cabinet. Note that I did not use the concrete tape on the walls. Use regular painters tape for the walls. — Concrete safe tape applied to countertop & cabinet.

Smooth the caulking out, remove excess caulk, and then remove the tape & let dry.

At this point in time I actually started letting people touch the countertops, and even look at them!

The concrete is not indestructible. You still need to take care of it, and try to prevent stains. Aka don’t go cutting lemons on the countertop, and clean up oil after it splatters or spills. Oils & acids are the nemesis of almost all natural stone, and concrete is not exempt from that. Clean up spills, and don’t leave things hanging about, and your countertops will do just fine.

I am an avid cook, and usually have olive oil & balsamic close at hand. I used a small ceramic tray to hold my oft used bottles, to prevent possible rings forming on the countertops over time. (I can never manage NOT to drip oil down the side of a bottle!).

IMG_2688WEB — Use a tray to hold oil or vinegar (oil & vinegar are the arch nemesis to stone counters)

This project is part of Project Concrete Countertops. Make sure you check out the rest of the series starting with Concrete Countertops – The Mix, The Templates, The Forms, The Pour, Fill & Sand & The Reveal.

*We were gifted some (awesome) Buddy Rhodes Concrete Products, but all opinions are our own!

Makin Frames

You may remember on my kitchen wish list a few months ago, I was crushing hard on the butcher series of prints from a local shop Smash Gallery.

Continue reading “Makin Frames”

Concrete Countertops – The Reveal

Thanks guys for sticking with us through five yes FIVE posts on concrete countertops. The thing is, this project was BIG. Even with five posts I have probably bored you all to death with my insistence on telling you exactly how we did everything. The thing is, I want you guys to make your own counters too! You CAN do it! Real concrete, solid surface, with professional looking results. So thanks for sticking with me, cause I think it was totally worth it. Wanna see what all our hard work actually looks like?

The counters were done in four pieces, including the single piece waterfall, which is by far my favorite piece! The color we used is “coal” but the color of the concrete can look very different at different times of the day. From a medium gray when the light is hitting it to a deep charcoal in the shadows. The color has so much texture and movement. I just love it! We paired the white cabinets with a pop of bright teal, and black and white accents.

For the back of the peninsula we opted to add a pop of wood. The kitchen already had a lot of white, so adding wood really ties it into the dining room with its wood table & bench. It also matches the floating shelves on the coffee bar.

The waterfall is just sexy! I love how seamless it is. I would never have dreamed that we could do it in one piece. It is simply a work of art.

Speaking of the color varying. Here is one of my favorite spots with a lot of texture. This was produced by adding a slightly lighter color slurry for the middle slurry coat. I heart.

The front of the peninsula has cupboards, and when you open them you can see more of the exposed waterfall.

Sorry, had to throw one of Odin in. I can’t have my camera out and not take a photo (or ten) of him.

Do you remember when we hid a 2013 Loonie? Here’s the Queen peeking out from under the coffee bar counter.

Now for a few of the other kitchen details. El Granto picked me up a couple vintage Bell jars one day at The Junction Flea. I love this one which holds my wooden spoons beside the stove. We also use a small ceramic tray to keep oil and vinegar off the counter (it would stain the tops).

I am still very happy with the wood shelves we added to the coffee bar. Now with the wood clad peninsula, it really pulls the coffee bar into the kitchen.

The inside counter was one piece I worried about a lot, but in the end its imperfectly perfect.

Okay, one more pic of the waterfall! We slightly rounded the counter edges. Littles and dogs wont poke their eyes out, and it makes me swear less when I bump into the counters.

So what do you think?! We’re super happy with them. They turned out better than we ever could have imagined!

I will be back later in the week with a few more kitchen items. Such as the source list, a few more project how to’s, as well as how we installed and sealed the counters. But for now, I am going to go and makeout with my counters. Wha? Uh. I mean stare at them lovingly, and maybe touch them a little. So smooth… and sexy…

*We were gifted some (awesome) Buddy Rhodes Concrete Products, but all opinions are our own!

P.S. We’re participating with Creating with the Stars this year! Make sure to check out East Coast Creative and vote for us!

Fill & Sand & Sand & Sand – Project Concrete Countertops

We’re getting so close in finishing our concrete countertop project! I am so very very excited to show you the reveal, (next week!) but before the reveal we still have some work to do! When we left off we had “poured” the concrete into our forms, and left it covered, moist and warm.

Now it’s time to unmold the forms and see what we’re working with! We removed the blankets and plastic to reveal a nice moist concrete.

We then got started pulling away the forms. Using gentle pressure, and ensuring we were not prying against the (still pretty soft) concrete, we removed the form sides.

El Granto removing coffee bar form sides

You will note a shiny gold object in the bottom of the coffee bar. We inserted a 2013 loonie into the form under one of the edges. I hope that if someone ever takes the coffee bar apart, or renos the kitchen in the future they will find the coin and know when we built it! It also never hurts to have the queen hanging out in your kitchen. She classes up the joint.

2013 Loonie (for all my Americans; this is our $1 coin)

Before we could flip everything over and see what we were workin’ with (remember we poured our counters upside down) we needed to do a bit of house keeping.

Our concrete mentor Jeremy made a very good point about how we interact with objects. When you go to touch and admire a countertop or a table, what so you do? You kind of grab the edge, placing your thumb on top and four fingers around the edge, touching the underside. If the underside of your table or counter is rough, everybody’s gonna know that you were a lazy sod who skimped on the finishing. Do you want to be the lazy sod? Exactly. So let’s sand the bottom edges of four counters so our friends don’t judge us.

Using buddy Rhodes hand sanding pads, we wet sanded the bottom edges and used a chisel to remove any errant blobs of concrete. A few minutes work, that we will certainly appreciate later!

El Granto wet sanding the undersides of the countertops

After an excruciating 20 minutes (I want to see my counters!) we were able to flip the countertops over.

El Granto seeing the waterfall counter for the first time

I really love that shot, as it is the first moment El Granto saw our waterfall countertop. I think this is the exact moment he realized how freaking awesome these counters were going to look!

Remember from our last post how we hand packed the concrete in, and purposefully left voids? This is what the result looked like:

Close up of the hand pressed technique right after unmolding

I think it looks amazing (and I will definitely have to do some sort of project soon that looks like that) but obviously for countertops, we need to make them smooth.

To do that, we mix up a slurry of bone paste (really fine concrete) and pigment and push it into the voids. It’s actually a lot like grouting tiles.

You can take this opportunity to add some colour, but in our case we wanted to stick with the same dark grey to keep with an industrial concrete look.

We mixed up a batch of slurry. (Two parts bone paste, one part acrylic additive & your color.)

Using a drywall mud knife & tray mix the slurry very well. Pressing out any clumps of pigment by pushing the knife against the tray. Now you will note that I’m not using a drywall mud tray. That’s because I forgot to buy one, and used some plastic bucket from the dollar store. Get a mud tray! We used a 5″ knife and it worked well.

Kristen mixing up the bone paste slurry — Mixing up the bone paste slurry

Once your slurry is mixed, start pushing it into the holes in your counter. Using a combination of your putty knife and a grout float. The grout float worked very well and shoving that slurry into the holes. You will need to do three coats of slurry, so don’t try to fill the voids entirely. They will get filled, don’t you worry. Thin coats are better, just give it a pass, scrape off any excess and let it dry.

The piece on the left has not yet been slurried, and the piece on the right has had one coat of slurry

After our first coat was dry, we mixed up a slightly lighter version of our color, and did a second (light) coat with that. Our third coat was back to our original darker color. This will result in a bit of a lighter highlight in our cracks and crevices, giving a lot of texture to the concrete.

Slurried Concrete (is slurried a word?! It is now. BAZINGA!)

After three coats of slurry were applied, we left it to dry overnight (and ate some shawarmas.) Hey, hard work deserves delicious shawarmas, and maybe a samosa or two for good measure.

The next day we set to wet sanding everything. We covered the garage in plastic, donned aprons (and in Jeremy’s case, a drop cloth toga, cause we forgot to get him an apron, oops) and got to work. Ideally you would have a wet sander/polisher for this step, but we didn’t, so we used inexpensive orbital sanders and wet sanded away with the Buddy Rhodes diamond orbital sanding pads. We used the hand pads for the edges and areas that were hard to get to with the orbital.

It was a messy mess day, and we didn’t take many photos. However we did make a super awesome time lapse video for you of all our slurring & sanding fun. Here’s two days hard work in two minutes of video.

I leave you with an American Gothic version of exhausted Kristen & El Granto. Covered in concrete splatter and soaking wet.

Next week check back for the reveal! SO EXCITED!

*We were gifted some (awesome) Buddy Rhodes Concrete Products, but all opinions are our own!