Kitchen Makeover!

"Kitchens sell homes!" That's the motto anyways. But I think more than that, a kitchen is where we live, it's were come together at the end of a long day of work with a glass of wine or beer. Whit and I don't cook very often, yet we still find ourselves lounging and snacking in the kitchen (at least until the ice cream runs out). So we thought we would liven up the decor of the plain kitchen with glass tile back splash and some stainless steel appliances to make it more of an inviting space. Also, Pat contributed the wow factor for the kitchen with a custom bar, located perfectly for watching Whit cook ;)

The best story is when we thought we would go without a dishwasher. This lasted two days and one load of dishes before Whit set the cup down and we loaded into car bound for Fred's Appliances. It didn't takes us long to find one and we had it plumbed and installed the next day. You don't realize how much you miss something until it is gone.

As you will notice, the theme of the old kitchen is YELLOW! I think they had some left over from the exterior paint and decided "why not?" and then covered everything with it. The cabinets, floors, under cabinet lights and sink were included with the sale of the home...very excited about that.

So now that you saw the "before", here is the "after". We started by opening up the entrance to the kitchen to connect it to the other rooms and extend the open floorplan with hemlock trim around the opening. Then we continued by adding a glass tile/travertine back splash. Next we installed a dishwasher and added new appliances. Then we put in the two tiered bars with stools. Then we painted the yellow out of the kitchen with a smooth tan color. Lastly, we installed vinyl windows to finish off the space.

We weren't sure if it would be too much wood in the kitchen with the cabinets and the trim and the bar, but it works very well and it's functional. Luckily, we didn't have to gut the entire kitchen and start from the studs. So a few upgrades went a long ways.

If you are interested in the back splash, we were able to find it on sale at Home Depot and install it in less than a day with the "mud less" adhesive. It sticks to the walls and the tiles adhere to it. After it is applied, it is ready to grout. Another valuable lesson is to buy the grout sealant that evaporates from the tile so that you do not have to worry about it glazing the tile. (This tip can save you hours of work scrubbing tiles). The bar is made out of a glu-lam beam and for more details I will have to ask Pat. He is so talented. If you have any questions let me know. Hopefully I can give you some ideas and ultimately save you some time and money.

If you are interested in looking for a house this spring, let me know and I will start keeping an eye out for you.

Master Bedroom with a Custom Pallet Wall

When we first looked at this house, a major issue was that we could not fit our king size bed into any room. I know that is petty, but it is hard to go back to a full or queen size (those of you who have tried it know it is true). Solution: make two smaller rooms into one large master suite. This is easier said than done. Here is what the two smaller rooms looked like:

This is the opening between the two rooms with the yellow door leading to the kitchen.

This is the smaller room on the north side of the house with a small closet and door to the laundry room that we took out and replaced with a larger closet space.

This is the larger room with door on the left leading to the bathroom and the door on the right is my closet.

So it is kinda hard to tell where one room ends and the other begins, but this is two small rooms with many doors. There is a small closet in each with plenty of light. Normally I wouldn't advise taking a bedroom out of your house for resale value, but in our case we had to live in it at some point with our king size bed so there was no other option.

We ended up tearing down the wall in between the rooms to make it bigger. This was harder than it sounds because one room's floor was unlevel so we had to level the floor, reroute wiring, install a header to carry the weight, add recessed lights and tie the two rooms together. We all took out the closet in the smaller space and replaced it with an open custom closet that could accommodate more clothes (I don't think a single piece of my clothing is in that closet...).  We added a larger, new light fixture with dimmer controls to set the mood...I mean to provide better lighting for the larger space. Lastly, we added new carpet and new windows to tie the space together. Its not quite HGTV but it does fit a king bed. Simple pleasures.

So without further ado, here are the after pictures.

Now to discuss that odd wall with shelves. So everything was going great until we started painting and on one wall the paper started bubbling and pealing away leaving a rather distressed look. So devastated of course that we would have to do more work, Whitney suggested we use the opportunity to create an accent wall out of recycled pallets. Luckily, Pat has pallets at his store from the hot tubs varying in age from newer to aged so we used those to create a pallet wall/headboard with floating shelves. We randomly placed the pieces of pallet and used a finished nailer to attached the boards. It ended up tying the entire space together and was very inexpensive. You can get a custom look for less than $50. If you are interested, I have extra pallets and can let you know how I did it.

All in all, this room really came together and we were able to make major impact without spending a ton of money. I am excited to finally be able to go in there and sleep without noticing something else that needs to be done.

First Time Homebuyers

This is just a quick post for any first-time home buyers out there. There are favorable grant programs and lending policies for people looking for their first home. So below are three reasons for purchasing your first home:

1. You can get great rates and put as little as 3% down on a property. In this up and down economy, it is still nice to know that you can pay less on a mortgage than on rent. Or is the larger down payment what is keeping you from owning your first home? Well I'm hear to tell you that there are programs out there to help you with this very issue. In fact, SNAP has a program to help with up to $17,000 for down payment assistance to get you into your first home. For specifics, call Randy at 456-7106.

2. You can realize tax benefits such as depreciation on your home and you are able to write off mortgage interest paid for the entire year. This could be several hundred dollars a year depending on your payments.

3. Home prices are at an all-time low. I have seen houses selling for less than they sold for in 2001. You can get anywhere from a 5-25% discount just by shopping around. It never hurts to look so just let me know if you want me to set up a search for you.

If you are interested in the programs or want to hear more about this please feel free to contact me.