It's quite late after a long day of playing with/reading to/chasing a three-year-old, but I have put off this post long enough. As I stuff my face with kettle corn, I'll do my best to sum up our progress on the kitchen.
The above photo is the 'before' photo. In it you can see the ripped 1970's formica counter tops. What you can't really see is how shallow the sink is (or how stained). Maybe I just want too much, but living on a farm and cooking for six people often calls for a larger sink. My temperament wants for one that is not stained. You can also see the electric stove. Not only do I find it difficult to cook with electricity, we lose our power too often for it. This particular stove is particularly difficult because there is no rhyme or reason to the levels of heat on the dials.
The worst part of the kitchen is the 'bar' you see to the left. It serves no purpose other than to the narrow the work place on the counters. My goal was to flatten that and have one even work space for both counter appliances and people to gather.
After assisting a friend during her labor and incredible home birth of her sixth child, I asked her husband if he would be willing to apply the same skills he used on their furniture to build counter-tops for us. He accepted the challenge and set to work following the directions I found here.
Taking out the old counter with (cast iron) sink attached was a heavy and awkward task. Whoever installed the old sink must have lacked confidence, because instead of the typical three or four screws under the sink, there were fifteen or so, and they were rusted.
It looks as though there are two types of wood going on here, but I assure you it's all the same. The way the light is absorbed and reflected from the cabinets makes it look much darker on one side. I'm okay with that. We're artists here, after all.
My next job was to sand the wood, fill in any gaps, and seal it with a tung oil. After 72 hours, it is now ready for use!
My favorite part of this countertop is the new open flat area for working. Besides being more visually appealing, it is a much more practical work and gathering space.
We're especially excited about the 'new' sink I found on Craigslist. It was listed for sixty or so dollars, I can't remember exactly, but also listed with 'obo' so I made an offer. It was accepted via email, but when I arrived to pick it up, the seller and I recognised each other from a home school group and she sold it to me for $35. Thankful to her and to G-d, I nearly cried. I now have a sink valued at the big box store at over $200. The stove is the same model stove I had in my old custom built house; I missed that stove! I found this at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $150 a few months ago, and have been saving it. I've ordered the orifices to convert the stove to liquid propane and will hopefully get that up and cooking by next week.
While Scott had the old counters out, I took advantage of that time to strip the paint from my cabinets. I have this problem with waiting. When I get an idea, I sometimes just move full steam ahead without considering how long it will take me to finish the job. It seemed prudent to use the stripping medium before my new counters were in place, even though I had no real plan on actually painting the cabinets yet....
Fortunately, a friend from church heard of my plight, has come to my rescue and is going to help me paint the cabinets this weekend!
We have been very blessed by friends with the re-model. My son's godfather installed the faucet for us, and my son-in-law connected the drain, so the afternoon of Christmas we actually had running water after almost a week without. With a little phone help from a friend who happens to be my auto-mechanic all 'round talented fix-it person I was able to install a dishwasher which I also found at the ReStore earlier last year!
You might be able to see the floor- or lack of floor- in the above photo. We've been on the tile back cement board for several months.
but that's another story....
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