Kitchen nook - Before and after

I had plans for my husband to build me a new table. He's really a good woodworker, but when it's your hobby it doesn't get a high priority. I picked up this new table off of Craigslist. So happy to have an actual table there and not a piece of glass floating on the chairs. 

This is what it used to look like a few years ago. The chairs started to fall apart and the green walls were a bit too dark for my liking. It was a cute little set up but I don't think went with the style of the house. I smoothed out the walls and stuck up my wallpaper and it really brightened up the room.

Wallpaper and wall art

 

I've been busy in the kitchen! Ordered some of my Tiki Tok wallpaper from Spoonflower. This was exactly 2 rolls worth of paper. I'm so happy how it turned out!

I also put my husband to work and had him build me some walnut bow tie shapes. I have some extras and have listed them in Etsy shop.

More pictures on Instagram !

Yay I did it! Check out my Tiki Tok fabric in action!

Ok for someone who is horrible at sewing, I mean seriously bad at it I think I kicked some major butt! I purchased my Tiki Tok from Spoonflower, and somehow I magically turned 2 yards into a fab roman blind, an actual working roman blind! With strings and little plastic loops!!

I'm also going to wallpaper the opposite wall with Tiki Tok wallpaper. Sadly the wall was really badly plastered and it's far from smooth so I'm not sure what I'm going to be about that. hmm...
Hopefully I will think of something.

Kitchen I will complete you!

So I like scoring things on Craiglist, well at least I used to back in the day. I guess once your house is filled with so much stuff you kind of stop looking for more stuff, and also it seemed like I was finding less and less treasures since moving away from the city.

There are still good things to be found, I got those stools off there years ago, and just recently got a used piece of glass for my table. I was quoted $400 for a glass top with a 3/4 thickness, which was way over my budget, so I looked for used glass tops and coffee tables and scored one for $35! BUT now seeing it in the space it seems a bit too small, still going to look for something a bit wider. 

Ok so more info on that moving gif up there. I photoshopped in one of my wallpaper designs into my kitchen, so you can see what I'm about to attempt. I ordered two rolls of my Tiki Tok wallpaper pattern from Spoonflower, I have ordered wallpaper samples from them in the past and was actually really impressed with the quality. Now I just have to sit here patiently waiting for Spoonflower to print and mail them to me. So excited!!

Also be sure to check out my new Facebook Group!

Me, make curtains?

Ordered some new fabric samples from Spoonflower.  I'm thinking I might order more for myself and make a curtain for over the sink area and maybe matching placemats. I can sew, but I'm not that great at it. Hopefully I can pull this off, lol

They also do wallpaper. I think sticking some of this Tiki Tok pattern on the opposite wall could be awesome....

Kitchen Updates!

It took us forever but we finally finished puting up the Island Stone Palms tile, Wahoo! Also last night my husband cut the walnut molding for the window. It's looking pretty spiffy in here!

The last thing we need to do is get some lacquered white floating shelves (see last picture). It totally scares us to drill through these tiles and if something scares us it usually takes us a few months to get the courage to tackle something.  Hopefully since this is one of the very last things on our to do list we will get it done soon...ish.

Photoshopped floating shelves 

I got my grout on

Last week I was debating between white or black, so I just went somewhere in the middle. We grouted the glass Palms backsplash with grey grout, the gray is also picked up in the marble floors.

Ok so grouting is so much harder than it looks! We had under 20 mins to work this area. Yes, we were freaking out a bit, but somehow it got done.

Once it's completely dry we need to calk the edges and stick on the face plates. Then on to the other side of the wall. The really large scary wall…

Grout color?

Photoshopped tile and grout

Once the tile went up my decision to use black grout came into question. Just wasn't feeling the brown yarn I stuck in. Then I cut out some sticky strips of white felt and popped them in and white just looked too, well white. There is some gray swirls in the marble floor, I might just go gray… hmmm. Going to keep tiling and think about it. It always takes me a few days to get used to things.

Installing tile with adhesive sheets

In my last post I talked about using adhsive sheets to install my glass tiles. We ended up going with a different brand called Simplemat because it was the only one available at HomeDepot. Our Lowes used to carry Bondera, but i guess it's something you need to order now.

I shot a short video to show you how it works.
Using adhesive sheets to install tile backsplash from Jenn Ski on Vimeo.

Simplemat sheet

Kitchen updates

It's really awesome having a handyman husband at your disposal. We have completed little projects here and there, but the kitchen as a whole is far from finished. Above is the cutting board my husband made for the sink. I wish I had pictures of his process but he made this in secret out in the garage. From his description he glued pieces of walnut together with clamps, sanded it and rubbed on butcher block butter (mineral oil and bee's wax). It's got strips of wood underneath to keep it in place, I love it!

Palms Backsplash Color: Sand
So the kitchen is slow going but we did buy a tile saw and a glass cutting blade for the back splash. Since big projects scare us we were happy when we saw a product called Bondera, it's a tile adhesive that comes in a roll or sheets. The reviews are good IF you have a smooth walls. Not sure if our walls are that smooth, but I think we are gonna give this a try since it's so easy. Cheaper no, but soo much easier.

We did order about 10% more tiles than we needed incase we broke anything. I gotta say for our first time tiling this shape is a bit tricky. From the directions we got (which seemed a bit to simple for my liking), you can see you get a lot of waste pieces in order to get a flat edge on the bottom or top. Why is it waste? Because some pieces chip in that area. I think we will still manage to use the chipped sections right under the cabinets where it's hard to see. Hopefully by Monday I will have a section up and grouted. Wish me luck!

Laundry Done! Next, making a kitchen table

Finished!

So the laundry area is officially done and I can cross that off the list. The next thing is building a tall kitchen table. I bought these Bertoia stools from someone on craigslist ages ago, but never ended up using them.  So I pulled them out from storage and stuck them in my kitchen.

I've always loved the Teepee table by CB2, but sadly they don't make it anymore.  I told my husband what I wanted and he designed this tripod table with a 36" glass tabletop.

My husband will building it and he says we still need more wood, I guess that means another trip to the lumber yard this week.

I called around looking for quotes on glass and was surprised at how much it would cost. I think the cheapest for a 36" wide 3/4" thick piece will run me $380, and $238 for a 1/2" thickness.  Hmmm…

Laundry room progress - Make a list

I do love starting projects but it's so hard for me to finish them. They do get done, but over a 2 year period, lol. The bigger the project the harder it is to stay on track. The whole kitchen needs little fixes here and there and it's gotten so overwhelming.

The other day I made a long list of EVERYTHING needed to get my kitchen completely finished. The first area on the list is the laundry space. I had some left over cork from my office and left over floating shelves from my entry project. I'm so lucky these shelves fit and that I saved all the extra cork.

From the picture above it looks like things are glued and secure, but it's all an illusion. The cork still needs to be trimmed and glued and I still need to attach the white shelves. Hope to get this all done by next week.

Laundry area

cut cork

glue cork

Lowes spacers for outlets

wood bracket for white floating shelves over small sink

Chevron glass tile sample

Palms by Island Stone

Ok, so excited! Got a sample of the tile I want to use in the kitchen. Both me and my husband think that the color and shape is just perfect for our kitchen. You can see that behind me I stuck in a sample of wallpaper that I used in the hallway just for a visual until it arrived. Guess I have a thing for chevrons.

I haven't been much of a glass tile fan since it's gotten more popular but this isn't shinny, it reminds me more of sea glass that has a soft frosty look. The color "sand" picks up some of the light brown in the floor, we couldn't be more happier. The plan is to fill it with a dark chocolate grout. Thought it would be cool to pop out some of the tiles and stick in grout in the missing areas but I didn't realize that the tile sample would be so big, but it does look kinda awesome in the sketches below. The tile sample measures 9 1/4" x 11 3/4" wide.

The next step is to figure out how much we need. Do I fill up this whole wall or just a partial? Decisions decisions...

With floating white shelves.