Well, Two Posts In One Day, Tells You How Cold It Is Outside

Guilt has won out and we're back for our second post for the day.
You're probably getting tired of hearing about the kitchen but we've got more exciting news.

Yep, we laid the flooring and now we have the ceiling and the floor completed.  (Almost, except for the quarter round on the floor)

The flooring really makes a difference and we are enjoying the view.  We put a lot of insulation down under the flooring to make the kitchen a little more warmer in the winter.  It worked and we're warm and pretty in the kitchen now.  (Actually, the house is, not necessarily me and Jane.)

The flooring actually help improve the lighting in the kitchen.  (although this picture does not indicate it)

We were going to put ceramic tile down in the kitchen but to keep the flow from the dining room to the kitchen we switched to the flooring.

The combined effort for color and decor is getting there.  You can see the moulding, ceiling tile, display cabinet and wall colors are beginning to come together.

We are starting on building or locating the correct sized island/cabinet for the kitchen.  We think we will build it ourselves since we cannot find the design we're looking for.  So,  that is next and then the counter tops and some more cabinet or shelf work for the walls.

We have had a lot of help and supervision from the group.   Donald and Kay both had to be called for some help in the kitchen effort and we appreciate their assistance.

We also had some good help from the local "supervisors"  Pink, White, Bud and Mama

 Pink and White supervising

"Bud" and Mama, just hanging

More to follow, we're moving into the hall for flooring and the 2nd bedroom for ceiling, flooring and wall work and should finish up in the "Sun Room" for spring.  We are really looking forward to the Sun Room work and enjoying the view this summer.

Thanks again for following and thanks to Donald and Kay for the opportunity.

 

Man its been five weeks since our last post!!!!!! Too Much Time!!!!

We can't believe that its been five weeks since our last post.  Time is flying by and we're getting more and more done but still not fast enough for everybody's desires.

The winter is here and its been colder than,,,,,, well pretty cold and lots of snow and ice and more snow and more rain and ice.  Anyway,,,, here's what we've been doing.

We have concentrated on the kitchen and its been a fun but lots of labor and some frustration.  And, as usual we always start on the ceiling and work to the floor.  (We stabilized the floor underneath this summer so we don't have to worry about that now.)

We decided to try to make the ceiling appear to be tin but we didn't want to actually put tin on the ceiling.  So, we located a series of vinyl ceiling tile made by Armstrong that could be painted.  Jane painted each tile three times!  First with a sage green, then she blotted each tile with a red and finally she glazed each tile with a gold glaze.  (200 of them buggers)  

We think the tiles turned out perfect.  The walls of the kitchen are yellow so the green and red accent colors gave us the effect we were looking for.  The gold glaze provided a "glare" or tin look when the lights shine on the ceiling.  



While Jane was painting the tiles I was busy preparing the old ceiling.  The old ceiling wall board was so old and fragile that we didn't think the tile would adhere to the ceiling.  So, we put 1and 1/4" lattice boards on the ceiling to fit the placement of the tiles.  This was time consuming but boy are we glad we did it.





Next we had to make "square".  As y0u may know in older homes, especially ones that are 100 years old, nothing is square or plumb anymore.  So we spent about a half a day trying to get square for our first ceiling tile.   This turned out to be a waste of time as were several other instructions in the tile box.  Its best to start on a wall and work to the other wall in an older home.  You can always cut the last row of tiles to fit the last wall covered.  Believe me, this is the better way, I don't care what Armstrong or DYI says.[Image][Image] After a long two or three days, several marriage counselor meetings and some serious praying, we were able to start the application process.  Guess what the strips were in the wrong place and had to be moved along the way.   Go figure!


















 Finally,  we got to the final, little bitty, pain in the neck tile.  Jane had to claim victory and proclaim,,,,,,,,, well, never mind.   Notice the pole with the towel, well thats how we glued the last three small tiles in place since the wood strips would not fit there either.  It worked so there.

Not being satisfied with the previous work, we decided to do another thing or two to accent the kitchen.  We actually were running out of tiles and didn't want to buy another expensive box so we built a display cabinet to cover the area we were short of ceiling tiles for.  (don't worry about the grammar)

This little beauty only took two days to finish which was a snap compared to the ceiling tiles.

We will have "rope lights" on the inside and halogen lights in the bottom to provide lighting on the cook top so it turned out pretty good.  You'll see this again in another post with the moulding and more finished.  It gives a good transition from the ceiling to the wall and ties them together.


I'm tired just writing about this work so I think I'll take a little break and come back with another post later on today.  With the weather here, I'm afraid I'll loose the post if I don't post it now.  


Come back shortly, We'll have more to review.