Oops! The pics I forgot

I was just browsing through my blogs and realized I never ended up posting pics of the (mostly) finished kitchen and living room. My life is always a work in progress but, for now, this is what I've done.
This was my kitchen before:

And here is where I am to date in my kitchen projects:

I'm still enormously proud and pleased with my floor tile. We have had lots of visitors and each one has expressed total disbelief at my creativity and tiling prowess. None has yet to guess that the wood-look tile isn't wood until they bend down and tap it. My hubby shows these pics to people he works with and anyone else he encounters when he has the chance and they all ask the same thing: "Does she have a business card?" I have to laugh(and cry a little) because I'd love to do this for a living and I know I have the opportunity yet my body is unwilling to set aside the effects of time so that I can get on with living.
I am still not in like (much less love) with my cabinets but I have learned a valuable lesson with home projects. If money is scarce and ideas are too plentiful, it's always best to wait until the two converge before making a move. It's much harder and more expensive to undo your mistakes than to live with what you dislike.
My first order of business when I am back to work will be the purchase of tools. I have been eyeballing a nice table saw, a router and a miter saw. Hubby keeps telling me not to buy them because they will have limited use in the long run but how else can one complete projects of this magnitude? I borrowed a table saw for quite a while and I've decided that it's better to own it than to use someone else's. My love of building things will keep the saw dust on it for many years to come.
I think I never got around to posting the pics of my laminate floor too so here are a few. I do love the ease of care and the coolness underfoot of laminate.

I ended up changing out the base trim after I finished the floor to a style that I liked better than what was there before. During the install, I figured out why they used the corner caps instead of mitering the corners. The corners of the walls aren't square, they're rounded. That was something interesting that I hadn't noticed in any of the houses we'd rented and never saw in Maine. The only square corners are the inside ones. I installed the trim with miter cuts anyway and filled the gap with white caulk which I smoothed up to the wall in a gentle slope. It actually looks a lot better than those odd little quarter round pieces that were there.
I feel pretty confident that I have finally covered all my bases but I'm sure there will be something I missed. There always is.

Polish like a pro

As with every perfect finish, what really matters are the quality of the tools and techniques you use to get there. I've decided to depart briefly from my normal home project blogs and teach you the right way to polish your toe nails. Is there a right way and a wrong way? Well, yes and no. Yes if you want them to look professionally done and for the color to last without chipping. No if you could care less how you waste your time as long as there's color on those toe nails. So it's totally up to individual choice. I've spend more than 20 years of my life as a cosmetologist and nail technician. Who better to learn the tricks of the trade from?! So here is what you will need:

From left to right is top quality base and top coat, reusable medium grit nail file, stainless steel combo cuticle pusher/scraper, pure acetone, full jaw nippers, orange wood stick, soft foam acrylic nail buffer and, optionally, a speed dry product. Now to explain these items. I've used Seche Vite base and top coat for the entire 23 years I've been in the industry. Why? It performs. You will want sturdy tools that will last, are sharp and do the job they are supposed to do without a battle. Pure acetone is very inexpensive, has multiple uses and just works quicker and better than regular polish remover. If you are going to put a solvent on your body anywhere, why not have it work faster so it's on there for a shorter amount of time? I love Orly Spritz Dry because it really does speed drying, it moisturizes your skin and smells so good. As far as polish goes, it's pretty much your choice. Whatever you love works unless it's a really really cheap stuff. My three top brands are OPI, China Glaze and Orly, in that order, but I have other brands in my stash (bucket lol). The one brand I don't ever use or buy is Essie. It's because of the shape of the bottle and the length of the brush and no other reason. It's impossible to use even half the bottle before it's useless. The same goes for Nicole by OPI. On to the process.
The first thing I usually do before polishing is a pedicure because I have the worlds worst callouses and they need constant attention. At this point, I will also take a moment to apologize for my ugly old feet. They are just that: ugly and old. I have abused them for nearly half a century and they are not taking it well. Most feet don't. I don't buy commercial soaks because I've been down that road and just couldn't get the same benefits as with home made soaks. Being in a for profit business and self-employed, it mattered what I spent on supplies and whether they worked well or just meh. This is my simple soak recipe: In a large pan I reserve only for feet, I add 1/2 cup of borax, 1/2 cup finely ground oatmeal (coffee grinder works great!) and a quick squirt of Castille liquid soap in lavender to rather hot water. I usually soak for 15 to 20 minutes then go to work grating and filing off the icky stuff. I won't bore you with the details other than to say, once I'm finished, I slather on an inexpensive cuticle remover I get at +Sally Beauty Supply  and let it set for a few minutes. I use my ss pusher to gently slide back the cuticle and the scraper side for stubborn dead skin that sticks to the nail plate. After I finish all 9 toes (yep, missing one), I use my nippers to carefully cut away any dead skin that is left. Never nip any life tissue! I'm sure I don't need to tell you that as you will figure it out if you do. Messy. I dry off my feet and apply a good lotion like +Gold Bond. After wiping the excess lotion off my toe nails, I use the same buffer I have for smoothing my acrylic nails to lightly smooth the nails. Don't go crazy with this because you don't want to shine them, you just want to remove the high ridges and take down the natural shine a little. Your nails should be pretty dry now so it's safe to clip and file them. It doesn't work well on soggy nails. Remember to file square and only smooth sharp corners. It makes for a stronger nail and prevents ingrown toenails. Now you can dampen a cotton pad with pure acetone and wipe each nail to remove any dust and oily residue because you are ready for the main event. Polish!
Start with a single, smooth coat of +seche vite clear base. Even though it's clear, you still want to keep it off the skin the same as you would with color and your top coat. The logic holds true that, not only does it get dry, white and crispy when it's left on the skin but it prevents a good seal between your nail, base, color and top coat. This is where the orange wood cuticle stick comes in handy. Pour a little acetone in the bottle's cap, dip the stick in and just wipe away any polish from the skin. It works like a wick to give you a clean application. Once you've base coated all 10 nails (9 in my case), apply your color in a smooth, fairly thin coat. Here's a trick: don't dip your brush wand back into the bottle all the way. You want a ball of polish on the end. The idea is to get a smooth finish while getting complete nail coverage. Your first coat should achieve this. You can wiggle the brush up to the cuticle nice and close, don't forget those corners (if you have them). Don't fret over the first coat much, that's what the second one is for. Start applying your second coat on the first nail you polished without waiting in between for setting up. You want this coat to be thicker and you want enough polish on the brush so that the brush doesn't come in contact with the previous coat. That's what causes brush marks, pulls and uneven finishes. Go straight to your top coat and apply a thick coat on each nail. You don't want it flooding the cuticle but you do want it close enough to seal the color in. Run the top coat across the free edge of the nail first, then place a healthy dab in the center of the nail, gliding it toward the edge. With your big toe, one dip isn't going to do it so place the center line, redip for each side working quickly before it sets up. After the last nail is top coated, spritz with speed dry and relax. This is your excuse to do nothing for an hour. Well, not nothing. There's always Pinterest and Facebook to catch up on. Your polish will last until you are ready for a new color. Not cracks, chips or wear.

Completed cabinet

I finally got around to finishing the new kitchen cabinet that I was working on in the last blog. I'm not gonna lie to you. The doors were a bugger. I'm pretty happy with the outcome and I am leaning more toward all white cabinets now that I've seen it on a bigger scale in someplace other than my mind and on +Pinterest . Take a look and see what you think

I didn't decide to go with classic black pulls until I saw them at +Lowe's Home Improvement while I was picking up hinges and a hole boring bit. It occurred to me at that time that this would be a nice touch and I'm pleased with the look. This little change added almost 4 cubic feet of eye level food storage and tons of charm to my kitchen. I am really excited to build the two additional glass enclosed cabinets on the other side of the kitchen.

This pic is pre-move in but it's the best angle to see what's going on with the right side of the kitchen. My plan is to add a 4 foot tall glass front and side cabinet in each corner of this 9 foot section of base cabinets. It's a really big area and it looks a little blah with nothing there. Not sure exactly when I will get started on that but it may be early next week.
I'm about to do something totally out of character for me: I'm doing two blog entries in one day! Haha, only because I want to cover the promised subject and it's totally unrelated to this.

The reality of Minwax GelStain Pt. 2

I'm not sure if I ever got around to stating what the reality of Minwax GelStain is in my last blog but here it is: First of all, it's not really a stain unless you think in terms of tinted lip gloss. The word stain denotes that the product should be a stain but, even on bare wood, the product doesn't sink in and stain anything. It's more of a sheer paint in wood finish colors. Secondly, the Minwax company is horrible at labeling their products with precise directions for use of the product that's actually in the can. The third and final reality check for this product is that it's just mean to work with. I actually finished the cabinet I was experimenting on and, I must warn you, it looks dreadful. The only nice part is the drawer front which ended up getting a light single coat and I didn't go back and add another yet. It's one saving grace is that, if it darkens well and goes on evenly, I still may do the whole kitchen with it. I'm not committed to the shade. If I don't, it will be several coats of antique walnut Polyshades, also by Minwax. Have a look and see what you think:

The pic doesn't give a good view of how uneven and motley the door came out but, trust me, it's uneven. Enough so that my OCD might become a problem. The on thing I do like is the depth of color and the low sheen achieved when top coating with a satin finish. The drawer front hasn't gotten one yet but the richness in the color is really sweet (at least where it's even).
I've used Polyshades many times over already stained and finished cabinets with great results. The only problem with it is that the two dark shades it's available in are extremely dark. I saw that there are a couple new shades that are more modern that I may take a gander at. One is called espresso and that calls to mind a rich, dark coffee color. I may have to pick up a pint to see if I like it while I still have a bare cabinet to play with.
I finished the cabinet on the end of the kitchen today. Okay, let me rephrase that. I rebuilt the upper cabinet so that it goes all the way down to the counter and finished painting it today. I love how it looks without doors and it's making me think of an open cabinet for dishes. Maybe.

The top photo is the before and the bottom is the current. I am still working on the doors but should have to painted and mounted in another day or two. Hubby is off for the next two days so that is a random thought more than a commitment. I really struggled with what to use for door material. I didn't want to spend an enormous amount of money but I wanted them to feel solid like the existing. I knew there was no hope of finding the right size in a match so I removed the uppers as well and made doors for them as well. I stood in the lumber isle of +Lowe's Home Improvement  and later +The Home Depot  for quite some time, racking my brain for an idea. I went home and slept on it, and as is customary for me, I had my light bulb moment. I went back to +The Home Depot and bought the 5/8 tongue and groove. I revised my entire idea in the process. Since the doors were going to be different, the whole cabinet had to have a distinctly separate look. That's when the idea for white came into play. I had the idea to build two tall cabinets on the other side of the kitchen with glass doors and sides and they would be white. Here is the inspiration:

I love this look and have the perfect place for two of these. So anyway, I went with white on the new one for that reason. My hubby and I both expressed concern over going with all white cabinets or all dark for fear that the kitchen would become either too dark or two antiseptic looking. We both love a very tidy, clean kitchen and all white might be a disaster for us. I think it's going to look excellent with the mix of both light and dark. If it doesn't, I'm just going to live with it until I get the time to redo it again. It's all changeable.
I forgot about having made the dividers for the drawers while I was wandering the house looking for small, quick projects. We love the organization and will def be adding many more like this.

I have so many pins that have inspired me on organization and, eventually, I will get most of them done. While I'm playing catch up, here's a better pic of the toe kick drawers that I love so much.

These are literally the best thing since sliced bread. It's time for me to go do real life again so I will leave you with an idea for my next blog (while I buy time to finish my cabinet doors lol). I was a licensed cosmetologist for well over 20 years and it's bugs the crap out of me to read pins about "the proper way to apply polish" so I'm going to teach you the industry secret for polish that will stay on your toenails until it grows off!

The reality of Minwax GelStain

This has been a week of intense consideration and indecisiveness. I am fully and totally in love with the kitchen from the movie Practical Magic. I obviously can't fit that exact kitchen into my home but I love the tall white cabinets, the glass uppers and transom lights. I love the rustic island, the little nook that serves as a dining room. I especially love the way it makes me feel when I look at pictures and imagine capturing that same feeling in my own kitchen. I am scared to death of painting my wood cabinets. As much as I hate the builder golden oak and the crappy, dated feel, I am still subject to mini seizures when I think about layering on white glossy paint. Again, no fear of paint or color here just a long held notion that my ultimate desire was dark hickory with wood grain showing through.
So, fortunately, I have a few of the same cabinets in the garage that I can experiment on without committing to the whole ball of wax. I took out an 18" upper and lower cabinet in order to fit the stove and fridge that I wanted into the space that I had, along with two of those useless 15"x 30" mini wall cabinets. Mind you, I replaced them with two more useless mini cabinets in 12" height for no reason other than I needed a place to hang my range hood microwave and to fill that space above the fridge. Come on, admit it. We all do things without thinking then stand there wondering what we were thinking a month later. I will insert my generic excuse here: I was completely exhausted and strung out at the time with laying flooring and all the other lovely things that go along with moving into a new home before it's actually ready. So anyway, I have pieces to experiment on. I am, however, minus one because I got my panties in a bunch and decided to ditch all the useless stuff in the garage before it had a chance to take over our lives. I remember the nightmare that was packing and sorting when we were preparing to move from Maine to St. George, UT. Both will stay with me forever and cause me to exhibit impulsively bad and unrealistic behavior.
So I singled out the easiest cabinet to make into my first victim. It was a no-brainer because it was sitting in the middle of the floor between the two cars where we keep the trash cans. I removed the door, hinges and drawer, gave them all a good scrub down with TSP (super prepaint cleaner) and dragged the door and drawer out to the back patio. I took a 150 grit sanding sponge and rubbed them down until it looked like all the urethane sealer was gone. I then carefully removed all the residue with a old dry paint brush and vacuum cleaner and wiped down all surfaces with a liquid deglosser.
Before I go much further, I should probably tell you what my mission was and where my inspiration came from. My initial intent was to prep, prime and paint that cabinet with glossy white paint. After all the work that went into it, I realized that I had just completed all the steps I read on Pinterest to refinish your kitchen cabinets with gel stain. I took the rest of the day off from my mission and finished the shelf I made for the wall beside the hot tub. I needed to be sure of what I was about to do.
After much discussion with hubby on the subject, I decided to seek out some gel stain and give that a try. This is all that I could find locally...

My exact thoughts were as follows: Gel stains are all the same so what does it matter the brand. I am officially dumber than a bag of rocks. Well, I take that back. The manufacturer is participating in a mindless game of make-the-consumer-feel-like-an-idiot while they relabel all their products with different, trendy names and add a little of this and a little that to make the consistency slightly different. The above pictured product is the epitome of why people feel incompetent when it comes to DIY projects. If you spin this little bad boy around and read the instructions, you will find that all their products have exactly the same irrelevant steps and this one in particular made me quite angry that they couldn't at least make it seem like the instructions matched the product. Let me clarify. It specifically says to apply "liberally" with a brush or clean cloth. It then tells you to wait 3 minutes and wipe off excess with another clean cloth. Wait a minute. That sounds hauntingly familiar. I went to the garage and grabbed a can of regular oil stain and, sure enough, same directions. Gel stain is thick like pudding and goes on thick like pudding yet it states not to thin. Okay. So I did it and, no surprise, 3 minutes later this stuff was like half dry paste. My rag just stuck to it without budging anything. So I remove what I put on with mineral spirits and grab a brush to apply a less liberal coat. You can't not apply this liberally in it's natural state. Remember, it's thick like pudding. I guess I should have taken a pic of the first mess but I didn't. So now I am at the experimenting stage.
Experiment numero uno: I washed down both pieces with mineral spirits, dampened the brush as well and blotted it well on one of my now not so clean rags. I dipped the brush into the gel stain and brushed it over the surface. Lo and behold, it went on just like a sheer paint. Well, almost. I had to work it with many brush strokes to get a good looking finish but, so far, it looks pretty good. It's a lot of work. These are the pieces after prep...

And here is what they look like at this very moment. It's been roughly two hours since I applied the stain.

 The top is the back of the door and the bottom one is the drawer front. The larger surface was a bit more difficult to cover well. I will see how they dry overnight and what they look like and get back to you on that. Just an FYI, this girl is not sold on the idea of that much extra work to make a product behave. She's also not sold on stain as opposed to paint either. That's what this experiment is all about. The next cabinet will get a coat of primer and glossy white paint.
Oh, before I forget, I tried out the glass cutting by fire shown in the pin below.

http://www.zellaguide.com/2009/02/diy-glass-bottle-cutting/

It works! I tried it out on a wine bottle and there are a few things to know before attempting this. The most important is that you need to soak your string for more than a couple minutes. It needs to be thoroughly saturated with acetone. Second is a bowl of water with ice allows the bottle to just pop apart. I didn't get a clean cut for whatever reason but I can sand it smooth and use it for a candle cover. I'm going to save my big Liberty Creek wine bottles and cut them at different heights so make an arrangement of hurricane-style candle covers for the back patio. It's windy here most of the time and that would be ideal for ambiance. This is my bottle cut.

So that was a fun little time filler. I will get back to my cabinets now :)

Searching for projects

So I have come to the end of the cash string on the new house for now. I will be returning to work soon and I'm desperately looking for small projects I can complete for little of no money. I did find a few but I'm still walking through the house constantly looking for more. I am not the kind of person who can be idle. I have to be moving all the time, sort of like a shark. As long as I'm doing something, anything, I'm not getting into trouble. Well, that's not always true but close enough.
I've been resisting suggestions from hubby and other family to paint simply because I hate painting and I don't know what colors to choose. I'm far from color shy but, at the moment, I am not mentally ready to commit to color. My kitchen is a long way from done and I haven't settled on cabinet color or counter top color/material so, if I paint now, I have to repaint later.
I did finally get sick of looking at the dated bright brass ceiling fans I took down from the living room and made a project out of them. We had one working fan left on the patio and both were in serious need of a disappearance. The ones from the living room were high quality and the only thing I hated about them was the color. Well, and the light fixtures.  Other than that, they were prime candidates for repurposing.
This is what I started with...

And this is what I ended with...

Not remarkable by any means but it's a satisfying project to save something from a landfill ending. When something is good quality and still works well but is just ugly, a can of spray paint can go a long way. I love Rustoleum's new Universal series as it's paint and primer in one plus it can go any any surface, even shiny metal. This is oil rubbed bronze from the metallic finish line. I haven't decided what to do about the lights yet but I'm still digging through boxes and totes, you never know what I might find to repurpose.
I finally settled on using some of my leftover tile pieces to make a counter top for the lonely little cabinet between the stove and fridge. I knew that eventually I'd be doing totally new counter tops so I just needed something for now that wouldn't cost much. I didn't end up spending any money on this.

It's the 6 inch cut offs from the wood-look tile along with a couple full width end pieces from the 18 inch field tiles and some glass tile from the thresholds to had a dash of interest. Hubby thinks it's cute. I think it will do.
I am anxious to get back to work and start making money so I can spend it all on the house lol. I'm sure hubby would beg to differ but oh well.
I saw this pin for the first time today and it sparked an idea for my laundry room.

I already have a useless cabinet beside the washer and dryer that is serving only as junk storage at the moment. I think a tip out laundry bin would be much nicer than the sea grass basket that's currently sitting on top of the dryer. I've been trolling Pinterest specifically for ideas for that laundry room. This would be just one great use of space. I'm sure there are others.
Until next time...Love life and pin your little hearts out!