ListWise

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Three-peat

Finally, the last of the 3 doors is up! I can now move on to the kitchen island. I think I have, or have chosen all the main ingredients for the island. Now it’s just a matter of adding water and stirring for a few minutes. Then pop it in a 350 degree oven and when the toothpick comes out clean the island will be ready!

Oh, if it were only that easy.

Here is a picture of the last door. It is the one in the center. These doors are just a bitch to strip the paint off of but the end results are worth it. There is a wet paint sign on it because I’m having some friends over tonight and the paint might be a bit tacky. In the picture, the door on the right is the 80s Porn Closet and the one on the left goes to the dining room. You can see the slant in the roof right there caused by the back stairs. I still need to put the hardware on but that is ready to go.


Not only does this mean I can start to work on the island but it also means I can heat this room pretty good now. And I can keep the dirt and dust out while I work else where in the house. A very big deal.

As for the island I have chosen to go with the first copper sink that I spoke about in a recent blog entry. The last two things I need to decide on are the faucets and the counter top. I need a good durable countertop. As much as I love the wood countertop on the cabinets I built, this island is going to be the work horse of the kitchen. I want to do marble and I will probably go that route. Cost is going to be an issue so at this point I think I will finish the top in plywood as a temporary surface until I can scrape together enough change to plunk down on the marble.

That’s the plan at this point….

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Greg - Here's my .02. Try pouring your own countertop out of bagged concrete. It will cost you about $10 in materials, and if you dont like it you can bust it up and buy marble instead. I poured some small counters for our wine cellar and they came out perfect - no need even to grind or polish them. (Although, for a kitchen I might have decided to).

Greg said...

That's not a bad idea. I consided the concrete for the cabinets I built but didn't do it mainly because I had never built cabinets before and I envisioned the whole thing crumbling under the weight seconds after I set the counter on it.

I think that idea has just moved in to first place. Gary will be so proud!

Anonymous said...

wow- the doors look great! If you do end up with plywood for awhile (like us right now), it may be worth going and buying some oilcloth from a fabric store. We just wrapped the counter with it and stapled it under the lip and we have a smooth, clean and wipe-able surface. I think you'd like the concrete though!

Greg said...

Yes, the all corners in the house are bull-nosed. I guess that was typical for the time. On that corner that you see in the picture the bull nose was missing and I had to replace it. It turned out to be 1.25-inch quarter round! Needless to say they don’t stock that at the home store. I had to take a piece of 1.25-inch square stock and grind off one corner with 60 grit and an RO sander.

They also did bull-nosed corners on the outside of the house! Where the corner boards come together at the coners of the outside of the house they did not lap the boards and instead left a gap that was filled with a piece of quarter round.

As for the countertop, after writing this I remembered that a friend gave me a piece of cabinet-grade plywood about 3 months ago. It has a very nice finish side…processing…processing…processing

Ms. P in Jackson said...

The doors look great. I can't wait to see the island.

Gary said...

Did someone whisper my name? You can bust up some broken marble tile and throw it into the mold for the concrete to add color or use marble as your aggregate. If you have any specific questions email me. I have BOTH books about concrete counters!

Anonymous said...

If you do decide to go concrete, you could also stain it to a color of your choice. Concrete stain is much better than it used to be only a couple of years ago, and comes in great colors.

Just a thought!

Becky said...

Wow, your kitchen kind of looks like our kitchen. The green walls, painted woodwork and beadboard wainscote. Now you just need to skip the silly island idea and get your self a nice kitchen table :)

Greg said...

Hey Meredith. Always good to hear from my favorite poll stripper. See you at the club tonight! ;-)

Becky, yes I’m dragging myself kicking and screaming in to the 21st Century. I tried to avoid the kitchen island but it just makes sense in this case. I have a beautiful old oak table in there now but it’s just not cutting it.