Kitchen Planning

Exciting news this week, unrelated to our house projectsq. I accepted a new position within my company! I "started" two weeks ago, but am still technically working my old role as well, so my mental capacity at the end of the day has been pretty close to zero. Hence why no blog update last week and an abbreviated update this week.

Last weekend we were prepping for the potential tropical storm Fred, which ended up just being rain, thankfully. That rain brought a dreary weekend and some extra couch/Netflix time for Scott and me while we comforted Toby and Clover.

Before the rain hit Scott had to repair a seal on the boat that caused us to lose all of our steering fluid when his dad was visiting. He took apart the hydraulic steering cylinder and replaced the seal and then we filled the fluid back up.

He also put the cover on his new truck's bed.

I don't have a picture of it rolled out, but it's the vinyl cover that keeps things inside the bed dry. We haven't needed it just yet, but we used the one on the old truck a lot.

We worked on the closet door a bit more: two coats of primer with sanding in-between, then a coat of white paint.

We hit a snag with this door, the hinges we bought were too small, but we didn't realize it until we hung the door, so two trips to the hardware store later and we had the right hinges and hung the door.

We need to get one more coat of paint (all the work on the hinges scuffed the paint in several places), and add the knob (it matches all the other doors) and then it's done. It's always *one more* step!

Now that we have grass and have planted some flowers and plants, we have a decent amount of yard work every week, so we always spend time working on that upkeep. Scott handles the mowing and weedeating and I attempt to keep the weeds in the flowerbeds at bay and the plants in good shape.

We have two beautiful Allamanda plants our front that were here when we moved in (but in terrible shape). I thought I was crazy and unable to prune them nicely until I discovered that we don't have a shrub variety of Allamandas, we have a vining variety, so they just sprawl out, looking for something to grasp.

They were planted in odd places to have trellises, so we dug them up and moved them on either side of the big picture window. They weren't happy about being moved, they dropped their leaves and flowers after a few days, but I'm confident they'll come back and look much nicer. If not, we'll plant something else.

Part of this confidence is coming from the transformation of my guava tree. Several weeks ago we bought a guava tree and it's been happily growing in a pot on the lanai, until one day it dropped all of its leaves. I was distraught. It was just a "Y" shaped stick, devoid of any sign of life. But, I got some fertilizer, and continued to water it, and now every place that lost a leaf is growing multiples!

Apparently this just happens with guava. So, my Allamandas will either survive or we'll replant something else. All will be well!

This weekend Scott went out on the boat with a friend and mom and I did some shopping for a couch (for her) and kitchen counters (for me).

Scott caught his first black tip shark, he said its mouth was much bigger than the bonnetheads he's been catching, and a bit more aggressive, luckily it was just a baby.

The shark was releases unharmed, but 9 mangrove snappers made their way home in the cooler. A successful day of fishing!

Scott said the boat handled "like a dream" with the new steering fluid.

Mom was successful in picking out a couch (the first one we found ended up being the right one)! I didn't buy counters (we are SO not there yet), but my eyes were opened a bit to the world of countertops. I have looked so much online that everything started to look the same and I had read so many conflicting things about what's better: granite, quartz, marble, quartzite, cement, Corian, etc. There were a few things I knew I really wanted: the cold feel of stone (any stone), and a good reseale value, which narrowed it down to the first four options.

I went in thinking I wanted white quartz with reflective stones inside so it sparkles in the light. I still think that's pretty, but I'm leaning towards marble after seeing it in person. We went to a place that has the slabs outside (in the 105 degree hear, but who's counting), and seeing the options in person really helped. I fell in love with this marble, but it's a "level 10" according to the salesperson, which I translated into "too expensive for you" 🤣

With labor day coming up, the salesperson said to check back for sales so I'm hoping Scott and I can choose countertops in the near future so we can start on the bottom half of the kitchen.

If you've ever redone a kitchen you might be thinking what I was at the beginning of the day yesterday: "oh no, you don't want marble; it scratches, has to be sealed, and etches. It's so much upkeep!". I promise I was thinking all of that. I truly thought I'd go see counters and still get the white quartz I looked at online. It turns out, marble has come a long way, it's now all sealed before ever reaching a home, and it comes in a "honed" finish (not glass-smooth, but it looks a bit more "weathered" and hides scratches and etching much better). Again, we aren't set on counters, but marble is now a very viable option that I had once crossed off our list, and quartz has moved down a smidge, just from seeing it in person.

Before we can buy countertops we need to finalize out kitchen plans. I've spent countless hours on the internet planning and re-planning the kitchen, but the tools I'm using (ikea kitchen planner and RTA kitchen designer) don't allow for custom sized cabinets, you're stuck with what they offer, making it difficult to *really* know what will work the best. I know I want some specialty cabinets on either side of the stove that are narrow and pull forward to store cooking utensils and oils, like this:

Pull out utensil cabinet

The design tools I've been using don't allow for these narrow cabinets, so I've been estimating what will fit. Scott helped me sit down and draw out what we can fit so we can start creating our cut lists and give the countertop places decently accurate measurements.

This is just the stove/pantry wall, we haven't mapped out the sink side yet as that involves planning for plumbing and a larger sink than we currently have. All measurements are just the "box" sizes (the outside measurement of width), we'll have to break it down to see a cut list and drawer widths.

During our hardware store trips this weekend we checked out the cabinets and all the great organizer tools that are out there (there are SO MANY cool things now!), had a brief moment of questioning why we are building when so much stuff is in stock that's similar to our style, then got sticker-shock and zapped back to reality. We are building cabinets so they can function how we want and fit our space, not just placing cabinets where they fit. There are great custom kitchen companies out there that could do this for us, but then we'd have no blog and entirely too much TV time. And where's the fun in that?! Kidding, of course, it all comes down to $$. It always does!

Our kitchen planning will continue next week along with finishing the closet door, and so many other remainder items around the house. Hang tight the next few weeks as we try to keep a hold on our sanity amongst the craziness that is life, and work, and all of our daily obligations on top of these reno projects. We'll get to the finish line, we are just taking it one day at a time. Thanks for following along :)