Tearin' Up My... Floor

One of our Christmas gifts from my mom is an oscillating tool to tear up the remaining linoleum in the Kitchen. It's a small electrical tool with different attachments for things such as cutting wood floors, tearing up vinyl/linoleum, and sanding. The one we were interested in is about 3" wide, and slightly curved. When turned on, it vibrates back and forth, pulling up the linoleum.

It works like magic! This is the floor that I spent two full days on over the summer. I was sweating like crazy, working as hard as I could, and after two days I got up about 6 square feet of the stuff... and that was only the top layer! The adhesive was still stuck to the plywood in most places! And since then, we've been living with a disgusting floor that is two different kinds of linoleum, plywood, and nasty white-ish adhesive.


I spent about 5 hours today using our new magical tool. I kept having to take breaks though because it is extremely loud (making my ears right) and vibrates a lot (my hands were shaking). But I got up all of the leftover adhesive in front of the fireplace, plus most of the linoleum and adhesive in front of the windows, hutch and stairs. I was so proud of myself! As tired as I am, I can't wait to get back at it tomorrow! Despite the horrible aches and pains I have from having to crouch on the floor for 5 hours..

Getting back to work..

Due to Christmas, we haven't been getting much work done in the house lately. Which is a little disappointing. But we're too busy, and family comes first.

Thanks to a beautiful blizzard (our first in the house) this weekend, and Christmas being over, we did get some work done, finally! Today I did some more unpacking in the Kitchen and Living Room, and Ryan installed the new knobs on our bedroom built in cabinetry. We also decided to re-use the existing cabinet "locks" (basically just a small piece of hardware that flips over to keep the cabinet doors shut). We were both a little concerned about the doors (especially the ones in front of the fireplace) opening. So we decided that we'd just spray paint them to match the new knobs. That was when we discovered this on the back:

February 27, 1843

While unpacking more Kitchen stuff (I seriously think I own every single Kitchen item ever made!), I also cleaned up a bit. Because we've been so busy, I never really cleaned the countertops up after R was working on the beadboard 2 weeks ago. So I cleaned up all of the dust and tools he left behind, and unpacked some of my countertop items (spice rack, knives, utensil holder, etc). It actually looks like a real Kitchen now! Who knew that all it took was a spice rack!

Kitchen Built-in Hutch

This week my goal was to finish this hutch. I realized that I have about 10 boxes of Kitchen stuff that I can unpack into this hutch. I also have a ton of Christmas stuff that I want to put up here. So starting on Sunday, I've spent every available second sanding, priming, and painting.

The hutch was originally stained, so I used a couple coats of Kilz 2 to cover it, then 2 coats of white paint. I hadn't realized before, but the cabinet goes up all the way to the ceiling... even though the trim is about 12" below the ceiling. It was pretty difficult to get up in that space. But I also realized that it would be the perfect spot for some lighting to illuminate the whole hutch. Someday..

I originally wanted to replace the wood paneling in the back of the cabinet with beadboard to match the backsplash, but now that it's painted, you don't notice it as much. It actually looks pretty nice. And luckily for me, the doors and shelves all came out very easily, so it made everything a little bit easier to paint.

We decided to keep the original hardware. It's very unique, and I think it fits better with the house than anything else we'd find. But when I went to put it back on the newly painted cabinet, I realized it needed some help. When a very thorough cleaning didn't make much improvement, I decided to spray paint them. I painted them black and they look brand new!

I love how it all came out! Now we just need to get the rest of the trim/casing and walls painted in the Kitchen... As beautiful as the hutch looks, it's a little out of place in the rest of the construction zone that is my Kitchen :)

Our House's "First" Christmas Tree

Ok ok... It's not the house's "First" tree... the house has most likely had more than a couple Christmas trees... but it's the house's first tree with us!


We have what we think is a large Living Room, but unfortunately, it's all filled up with furniture, windows and doors. So where would one put a Christmas tree? We had plenty of room for it in the Kitchen or Dining Room, but we wanted it to be somewhere where we'd get to really enjoy it. So that means we had to be able to see it from the Living Room. It was either move furniture around, or put it in front of the already blocked off fireplace. Fireplace it is.

Us with the tree, freshly cut

We have a very heavy duty tree stand (I've had way too many ornaments broken by falling trees in the past... this isn't something we do lightly!), so we weren't too concerned about the tree falling. It was gonna hold up the tree. Well, that in addition to the huge piece of plywood and half a bag of shims. The back of the hearth is raised up from the floor (which is at a huge angle at this part of the room) a couple inches. It looks hilarious... luckily my mom had our tree skirt pieced enough for us to use. The plywood was really tacky looking (you can see it in this picture a little bit)!

Kitchen Fireplace

Most design decisions for the house have come to me pretty easily. However, the Kitchen fireplace is driving me crazy. I love it so much... but can't decide if I want to paint it white, like the cabinets, doors, and trim/casing, or if I want to paint it a colonial, dusty blue. I would also paint the built in cabinet the same color as the fireplace.

From James Kroll Fine Woodworking website

From Covenant Kitchens

We work a lot with Covenant Kitchens for work... and there is a display cabinet similar to the one above in their showroom that I love. I think the color is very colonial, and would fit with the style/age of the house.

From Covenant Kitchens

I feel like adding a new color for these two elements would help break up the amount of white in the room, and help make the eating area more cozy. 

I did this quick rendering of the fireplace and cabinet in blue.. the walls will be yellow and the trim will be white. What do you think? Blue? White? I need to make a decision soon... it needs to be painted soon!!