Butcher block in the kitchen

Hello all, hope your weekend was great!! Oh my goodness – we had a blast at the mud run. It was SO intense though – it had rained five days up to it so the course was 95 percent mud up to your mid-calf. It was insane. Many of the ladies lost shoes and socks and it took us almost two hours to get through the three mile course…but we did it. :)

So Sunday I was pretty much toast. I laid on the couch most of the day but did get a small DIY project done. We’ve had our butcher block counter on the island for nearly four years now and it’s held up GREAT. I don’t know if I’ve shared this process before, but it never hurts to show it again since I know there are a lot of questions about butcher in the kitchen.

First up, I have to say I LOVE having the wood on the island. It did worry me a bit at first – the first few weeks I was extra careful with it. Now? I put anything on it. I’m finding I love it more with the little cuts and dings. It’s incredibly easy to keep up. I rarely have any stains or issues – I think there’s only two times that I’ve had a mark on it and both times were from paint cans:

I left a small can on there for a few days and it left that mark. But I’ve had juice, wine…anything else you can think of on there and it wipes right off. I’ll share why in a minute, but first my process for dealing with any marks.

This only takes me a few minutes because it’s just the island and the wood is not stained. I used a 220 grit sandpaper:

And my favorite sander:

I love this sander for two reasons – it keeps most of the dust in the little container (last time I did this with another sander the kitchen was covered in a layer of dust). And it doesn’t leave the little swirl sanding marks that others I’ve tried did. If I don’t sand properly it still does it occasionally, but nothing like I’ve had in the past! If I take my time and do it right I never get them. :)

Again, this just took me a few minutes -- I wiped it down after with a wet towel after sanding and then let it dry well.

I use Formby’s Tung Oil to seal up the wood (on recommendation from my Dad):

It has worked incredibly well! I usually reoil about once a year – if that. And I don’t always sand it down first (I only did this time because of that paint can mark). Usually I just clean the top and then apply one or two more coats.

It takes a couple minutes to apply – just use a clean white rag (with gloves on) and wipe it in:

  

It needs to dry 12 hours and they say to buff with fine steel wool and then do another coat. I kind of cheat – I don’t sand it down again, I just put another coat on. :)

I did the first yesterday evening before we left for a movie, I’ll do another coat tonight before bed:

I wasn’t sure I’d like the more natural finish all those years ago, but now I LOVE it. It helps to lighten things up with our dark cabinets.

Butcher block for a kitchen island can get really pricey! I got mine from IKEA for less than $200 but I’ve heard they don’t sell this size anymore? That would be a major bummer because I’m always thrilled with their butcher and this is a fantastic option.

I had a local woodworking place router the pretty edge on there for an added detail:

I have zero complaints when it comes to this countertop – there is a little bit of maintenance but it’s maybe once a year that you need to oil it up again. It’s probably been longer than that since I last did it.

If you have them stained then the care will be different. I’ve seen Waterlox used a lot on stained counters but Tung oil may be fine over stain as well. I used a poly over my stained butcher block in the dining room and mud room but those get very little wear and tear. If you like the natural look this oil is great option to seal up counters from stains and liquids and it’s incredibly easy to apply.

Do you love the look of butcher block counters? Could you have them throughout your whole kitchen? I’m considering it!

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Our dream project

Hey hey! Well, it’s dream time. Dream being the key word, as we look into this further. ;) But it’s fun to think about and I love reading stuff like this so I wanted to share. 

Our house is a great size. Not massive, but plenty big for us. I mentioned in this post about building our house that we often wish we had more space in the areas we use most. Those areas being the family room and kitchen – everywhere else we are golden.

I’ve had this idea in my head for years now. Probably five at least – at first it was just daydreaming (back in the days when we were drowning in $125K in debt). Over the past couple of years I’ve considered it even more – but we’ve never acted on it. Of course over time I had to kind of introduce the idea to my husband – sly-like so he wouldn’t freak out. ;)

But he was actually quite into the idea and goodness, that gets me in trouble. When he’s on board I’m full steam ahead.

So years ago I shared a floor plan of our kitchen and family room – I don’t share many other floor plans of the house for security reasons. It kind of weirds me out you know? But this space has always been one we’ve struggled with, so back when we were buying our sectional I shared this:

The family room isn’t a bad size at all, especially since we moved the TV to the wall on the bottom. Makes a HUGE difference:

But the windows and that corner (curses!!) fireplace make it so that this is genuinely the only way to set up the room and have it function. Over the years I’ve found myself thinking if we only had a few more feet…it would make a huge difference.

The table area in the kitchen is tight. It’s a little better since I changed out the tables from a round to a rectangle, but if the chairs are pulled out you can’t walk around the table or get out the back door. It’s just tight. I am SO thankful we had the bay window put in!

We love to entertain but the longer we’ve lived here the less we’ve done of it because the space is just not conducive to having a lot of people comfortably. (We do use the patio a lot!) But it’s not really even about that – we just wanting a little more space to live. My boy is getting bigger and as our family grows (grandson and six siblings getting married and having kids) we’d love to be the hub for family events.

So. A plan was created in my head. One night I finally went out with a measuring tape and starting figuring it all out:

Sigh. It looks so simple here – if only that was the case. :)

That area in the white is all deck. We want to bump out the kitchen area about six feet. My dream project within this dream project? This:

(source)

It would go perfectly in that spot and would look just. like. this. :)

The middle part would be an extension of the family room with lots of windows. I originally planned to maybe move the fireplace to the end of that space like this:

It was actually this photo that I found a few months back that made the hubby say “Let’s do it.”:

Those are magical words.

But since then, after talking with a few people and considering the flow outside, I’ve changed my mind on that. The fireplace would stay on the wall it’s currently on and would direct vent out the roof. But no. more. corner. fireplace. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of a huge long wall with nothing on it – it needs something to ground it and we would need an easy way to get to the patio.

I do want the pitched roof though. Perhaps with faux wood beams down the line or beadboard:

(source)

And lots and lots of windows like my friend Julia has in her sunroom:

(source)

Hers are extra big – I love them. We would stick with the standard windows we have in the house but I’d want a lot of them.

It looks amazing right? It’s all planned out in my head. What I didn’t have planned was the cost – I had a number in my head and so far it’s been blown out of the water. Like, torpedoed. :)

A friend added on a large sunroom/family room a few years back (actually more square feet than this would be) and it was totally reasonable as far as cost. Same pitched roof, lots of windows. But so far the numbers we’re getting (very rough) are triple that. Whut?

The large numbers are coming from rough estimates over the phone though – we’ve had two contractors come out who are putting together actual hard numbers. I have NO idea what they’ll come back with – seriously no clue. I thought I had an idea of what it would cost and so far that’s not panning out.

We would pay cash for this project so who knows if it will happen. At this point it’s looking like no. And the whole thought of my house being a total and complete disaster for weeks on end is starting to hit me too – I don’t know if I have it in me. :) For real.

Have you (or anyone you know) ever done a project like this? I’d love any advice. Was it astronomical? Was it worth it? Did you go rocking in a corner during the process?

If any local (Indy area) folks know of a reasonable contractor I’d love their name. Feel free to leave it in the comments or email me. I’m not going to get a ton of quotes but if someone has a great resource I’d love to check into it. And I’ll keep you updated on this and let you know what we decide of course! Right now it’s looking like it probably won’t happen but I refuse to give up just yet. :)

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DIY pet food tray

Hello everyone! Hope you had a lovely weekend! Your comments on Friday’s post were SO interesting to read – I had chills and tears in my eyes often. I loved what Kristy said, “I do not believe those are coincidences. Those are called ‘God promptings.’ God is speaking to your soul and prompting you to act. I think God is calling you to special prayer at those times for those people that he is calling to your mind.”

That really stuck with me and I think it is so true. Lovely.

I’ve been meaning to get this little project done for a few weeks now. I shared some of my favorite feeding station ideas for animals a couple months ago. Although I don’t have anything that cool, we did need something to corral the dog and cat food bowls.

We used to keep their food in the mud room but when I built the bench we ran out of room. I moved it to the kitchen and for some reason when I did that our middle cat started messing with the water bowl. Maybe she was mad? I don’t know but she still does it occasionally – we’ll fill it up and a few minutes later we’ll hear her thwap thwapping in the water and she gets it EVERYWHERE. So we’ve kept the water bowl on the rug by the back door to keep the spilled water from sitting on the floors. Fun times!

Anyway, long story short, I’ve been wanting to put together a tray for all of their stuff, hoping it would contain the water a bit. I started with my favorite…scrap wood:

The black wood is actually mdf that was a shelf in our laundry room now mud room. Normally mdf isn’t great with water but if you paint it well the paint will prevent most issues. Our backsplash is mdf beadboard and it’s held up great for years with a coat of semi gloss paint.

So it’s incredibly easy to make a tray like this – I measured the bowls to see what size I needed and I ended up with 30 inches by 12 for the base. Remember when you’re cutting your pieces for the trim that you want to make sure they are measured from the inside cuts, not the outside:

So if you’re trim is supposed to be 30 inches long, that 30 inches should be from the inside cut to the inside cut, not the longer edges. Does that make sense?

I used some wood glue and my nail gun to attach the pieces along the sides:

And then because I wanted this to be somewhat water tight I caulked the gaps:

I gave it two coats of the same color I used on the kitchen island (Jubilee by Sherwin Williams):

And then broke out the FrogTape® to add a little bit of fun:

I didn’t measure anything out or make sure the lines were crazy perfect – I mean, the animals are the ones looking closely at this and I really don’t think they care. :) I did use a piece of the tape to space them out evenly, as you can see above.

I used the yellow delicate Frogtape since the tray had just been painted. (Don’t put it on too fast, make sure it’s good and dry.):

I did the stripes after it was put together on purpose – I knew I’d be caulking everything so I wanted to paint the stripes after that was all done. If I was doing a basic tray I would most likely paint the stripes before I put the whole thing together.

I used a green paint I had in my paint pile for the stripes and they came out great! I added a coat of polyurethane when everything was dry – this will keep it even more water tight and make it easier to clean.  

I think it’s pretty darn cute! It’s extra nice to not step over the water bowl when we take the dog out back. :) So far the trouble kitty has left the water alone on the tray…we’ll see how long that lasts:

At least if she does it will be somewhat contained. If she does it again I’ll be changing out that outlet for a GFCI by the way.

Someday I’d love to have a fancy pet feeding station (because I know we’ll always have a bunch of animals), but for now, this is cute and it works!:

And I love seeing the transformation of a scrap pile of wood:

To something useful!:

This one was free for me but to make one this size (or even longer) would be about $10-$15 for the cost of materials.

I’ve made a few trays in my day, including this one that we now use in the basement, and this Lego play tray. You could add some handles, use a stencil on the base, whatever you want – the possibilities are endless! :)

 

I received compensation to complete this project for using FrogTape® products but use them anyway. :) All opinions, projects and ideas are based on my own experience.

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The cabinet no one opens

Dun dun duuuuun.

We have one. The cabinet we rarely open. Or when we do we open it real quick-like, throwing the item inside and shutting the door fast so the rest of the stuff doesn’t fall out. I didn’t always have a cabinet like this – it started in the past six months or so and it just got worse with each month.

Well, it was time to address it. This is when I find blogging to be so funny -- showing the insides of my cabinets for the world to see:

The really messy insides. But sometimes seeing someone else take care of a mess spurs me on to take care of mine, so that’s why I share.

The first thing I needed to do was address the top of the cabinet – it had become our dumping ground for the past couple of weeks. I address piles by making them into smaller piles instead of putting individual items away one at a time.

I ended up with an upstairs pile, a garage pile, a holiday pile (??) and a I-have-no-idea-what-to-do-with-you pile:

That one goes to live on the island where other random stuff goes, till I decide to address that whole area. One thing at a time people.

I tackled the actual cabinet last night while I listened to The Bachelor finale (he’s a gem). I moved the alcohol down to the basement and was left with this:

Well, and a few things that I had already put back in. The items in the boxes are going back to the store. Except maybe the herb keeper – does it work? I’m waffling on that one.

I took the extra crock pot down to the basement because we only use it for parties. A couple of the items went to other cabinets – you know…where they belong. :)

The long stuff like the platters are too wide to fit into our dining room/library built ins so I keep them in here. When I stacked them up it felt like it was such a waste of space. They barely took up any vertical space:

So. I had an idea to create a shelf that I could stack them on that would take up less surface space.

I took measurements and went out the garage and cut some scrap wood down:

The wood is 20 by 16 inches and then I cut some “legs” to four inches tall.

I just screwed the legs on:

Be sure to use a drill bit first before drilling the screws so you don’t split the wood!

I slid it in to the cabinet and it was a perfect fit! The longer platters fit great underneath and it’s sturdy enough to hold the others on top without a problem:

I was quite pleased with my quick little DIY shelf, especially considering you can buy wire and wood products for just this purpose:

My scrap wood stash pays off again!

Here’s the cabinet, blissfully purged and organized:

It took me a few minutes to purge and less than ten to cut the wood down and make the little space saving shelf. Now I’m looking at the other cabinets to see where I can use more. :)

Do you have a cabinet that you open real fast? Or even better – that you can’t close all the way? Uh huh.

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My favorite appliance

Hello friends, it’s almost the weekend! Thursdays rock.

I was SO hoping to have the mud room (well, the part I’ve been working on) done to show you today but for all that is good, it is taking FOREVER. It seemed like a couple coats of paint were going to finish it up but it’s all kinds of little things. I really hope to have it done to share tomorrow.

Today I’m talking about something I’ve wanted to share for a while – my very favorite appliance. I like sharing what works well in our home (and what doesn’t) and this is one that I couldn’t live without. Well…I would survive – but it would be tough. :)

It’s not the fridge – although I do love it. It’s not the oven (boring), or even my beloved microwave, but instead the appliance that you may have seen in our kitchen island:

(Yes the snow wall is still up. But I’m about over the snow outside so it’s coming down soon.)

So yes, it’s not the prettiest thing, and when my hubby and I built this house this was one of the things I fought against. The money was adding up and I was starting to freak out and I was all, who needs a trash compactor? Hello…it’s just an expensive trash can.

It is pretty spendy for a trash can but let me tell you – it ROCKS. Ours is ten years old and when we picked out appliances I did a mix of stainless and black, which I wish I could take back (and go all stainless). So it’s not something that’s easy to blend into the island, but it’s worth it:

My husband had had one in an old house and loved it. I was skeptical. When we moved in and I looked at the inside and saw how small it was (I’m sparing you pictures of our trash, but it’s small), I was questioning this purchase even more.

And then we started using it and as I mentioned in the title of this post, it is now my most favorite appliance, hands down. Speaking of hands, you don’t use them to open it:

You push on the lever with a foot and it opens up, hands free.

Our trash compactor and the lever on our powder room toilet make for fun times when we have company over. No one knows how to use the trash can or the toilet. We’re great hosts. ;)

When the trash bag starts to get full you just turn the dial and it smashes the trash down. We only use one small compactor bag a week, if that. (That doesn’t include trash in the rest of the house, but the majority of it is in here.)

The only drawback to a trash can like this is finding the bags. You have to use special compactor bags:

They’re hard to find – we get ours at Sears and it’s the only place we find them locally. Thankfully we don’t need to buy them that often since we only use one a week.

So there’s more info about my favorite appliance. :) The built in compactor also solves the question of where to put the trash can – there’s not a great spot for one anywhere else in our kitchen.

And I just have to throw in a before of the kitchen island for kicks because it’s come SO far:

Do you have a trash compactor? We don’t know anyone else with one. They are very old school, right? Did you have one growing up?

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New black (back) door

Welcome to Monday and the WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS!! Ahhh, everybody freak out!! I have purchased maybe three presents. THREE. I’m usually late on that anyway but the arrival of our grandbaby has slowed down my process even more. (Thanks for the love on that by the way.)

So here’s two big confessions about the way I blog/DIY – one, I usually don’t know what I’m going to write each day till usually the day before. I don’t plan it out. If you haven’t noticed I’m a procrastinator (see above) and I do better when I fly by the seat of my pants. As of yesterday I had no idea what I would write about today, this is nothing new.

The other thing is that most of what gets done around here gets finished so I can blog about it. Otherwise we would live in a constant state of undone projects. We do anyway, but it would be way worse. So yesterday I decided to finish up a project that had been kind of started for a couple weeks…so I could blog about it. :)

It started with the back door:

Innocent enough, right? Well if you read this post, you’d know it’s not innocent. Not at all:

It makes for a good story – I can tell it without twitching now.

Well for years now we’ve had issues with water and that back door. I mentioned a while back we had to cut out the floor back there, down to the basement, to try to fix it. It helped for a while but water kept leaking down to the basement behind a wall. It would wick up on the baseboards – that’s the only reason we knew anything was going on.

The handyman told us years ago the whole back door would need to be replaced, so a few weeks ago when we had water leaking again we finally scheduled it. Let me tell you – this is not a cheap job. Yowza. So I finished up a lot of the detail work myself.

But when they installed it they couldn’t find another atrium door with the plastic grids we had before. So we planned on using the old ones on the new door, but when they put it up without I was kind of in love. It was so bright and open, but so different than what we were used to. I went to Instagram to ask opinions:

And I think pretty much every person said no grid and I agreed. I couldn’t believe how much more open it made that kitchen nook feel. It was crazy!

So we left them off and I seriously love it. As I said, I decided I would finish it up to save some money. All I really had to do was paint the door and the new trim – easy right? Painting a door and trim is actually about 15 steps though, so it took a while.

I primed it with gray primer a couple weeks ago:

And it sat like that till yesterday. :)

Then I puttied the holes on the new trim:

Then did one coat of black on the door:

See that new trim? I’m on a mission to change it out in the whole house! You can see how I do it here – it’s way easier than I thought it would be. Buh bye skimpy trim. Don’t let the back door hit you…

Then it was time to caulk every single corner and joint:

I shared the tool I use when I caulk here – it helps a ton!

Then finally, three more coats of paint – one more coat of black on the door, one coat of white primer and one coat white paint on the trim. It still needs one more of the white but for now I’m good:

Love that beefy trim!

I can’t finish up the black on the door till it warms up a bit. I didn’t do the side of the door at all because it. was. freezing:

This shot makes me want to rip out those itty bitty baseboards even more! Have to get the door trim done on each door first. I still have to touch up the hinges too – I spray painted them but didn’t spray them both open and closed so I didn’t get all of it. Duh.

It’s so different (to me) but I love it. Before there were LOTS of grids – on the door, on the windows and on the pantry door. This is much calmer and as I said, it makes the space feel bigger:

Although I still walk in the kitchen and for a millisecond of think the door isn’t there. That door debacle may have scarred me after all. ;)

Another project (mostly) done – and fingers crossed no more leaking! It was just in the nick of time too, we’ve had snow covering the deck since it was installed.

I loathe water issues, have I mentioned this? They seem to love us though. Do you have one of these atrium doors? With or without the grids?

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