Girl and A Boy and Their New Kitchen...Part 10 Finally!

Only after two years since we started ripping out, wacking at, throwing out our old kitchen I can officially say our kitchen remodel is done.  We put in the molding last week.  Whoo Hoo, so now I can sit back and thank the good Lord that my kitchen no longer looks like this....

And more like this....

Now that spring has sprung,  I will enjoy my finished kitchen even if it is only for a few months.

Here's to projects that go much longer than planned!
 Oh, and did I mention that we did it all for about $3,000.00.  We got new cabinets, new floors, new counter top, changed plumbing, new 1/2 bath and updated full bath. Not bad for all those updates if you ask me.

GET JOY!

A Story About Girl & a Boy and Their New Kitchen! Part 9

Mudding is a job that comes from Satan himself. Here are his tools!
I could not believe the dust that this job created. I stapled up heavy plastic to protect the living room but that did not matter. Somehow, that drywall dust sneaked through it anyway. Here is a small portion of that evil dust.

Here is my face after sanding. I literally had to wipe off my goggles several times to continue this wretched job.

My hair...my poor hair.... it was so dry....so white... so sad....

As long as I live, I hope to never have to drywall, mud or sand ever again!

Somewhere in all this dust is a kitchen that will help me....

In 3 weeks my counter comes! Yeah!

A Story About Girl & a Boy and Their New Kitchen! Part 8

In my previous post I mentioned that the kitchen was kicking my butt...but thanks to Mr. Durham's strong muscles he was able help the kitchen floor go down without much problem. I think this can is funny so I had to take a picture of it. He is an "All around Champ"! Hilarious!

Last Sunday, John and I took out the carpet in the living room. We started around 9:30pm and finished at about 2am. The next morning Bob came at about 9am to put in the floor. He was pleased that the carpet was out. We worked on that floor until 7pm.

I love my new floor. It is so easy to keep clean and with three kids and a dog ...I am loving it!

Now on to the mudding....

A Story About Girl & a Boy and Their New Kitchen! Part 7

Okay, it is official this kitchen remodeling is kicking my butt! (can a pastor's wife say that???Yikes!) I am so tired that I am yawning every minute. Wow, I can't remember doing so much work in my life.
Last night, we took out some more wall and prep the wall for today's drywalling. Some wonderful people, Bob W. and his wife Diane, (a BIG Thanks to them too) came over and helped us put up the new drywall and told me how to do the mudding. Yes, I am doing the mudding....Yikes!

Notice the TV? Of course we had to have basketball games going during work. I personally thought I should be able to watch a chick flick; but March Madness only happens once a year right?????

Later tonight, I am gonna start packing up the living room so we can put in our new floor next week. My new floor came in today and is sitting in my living room, Yeah!

A Story About Girl & a Boy and Their New Kitchen! Part 6

Our middle child said...and I quote, "Our house looks like a dump truck!" Sadly, it is true.

We are neck deep in our renovations at our home....at times it is very overwhelming. It seems that around every corner there is a new problem. We are pressing on! Yesterday, it was time to take down a portion of our wall, very exciting. We also had to replace the floor board under our old sink because of very bad water damage. My mom and sister came to help with the baby. We waited until his nap to do the job and here is mom and sis watching us work. LOL

We kicked up a lot of dust. The dust went everywhere....I am not joking...EVERYwhere! Here is John trying out a new toy the Sawzall.


We were also able to finish up taking down the popcorn ceiling. Jen and I really got it done quickly. It was messy; but it is done. I have to wipe it down, prime and paint it, so I am far from having it all done. Here is a great picture of some of the mess on my dear sister.

We have a new saying that I have place on my refrigerator. It is in honor of a dear friend who lost his battle with cancer this week.

Some exciting news our plumbing is all done!

Here is all we have left to do...our goal is to be done by Easter with most of it!

My upcoming projects are....

Patch and prep walls for painting

Paint the ceiling and kitchen walls.

Paint all the molding and doors.

Paint the ceiling in my bathroom.

Paint my kitchen table.

My hubby's upcoming projects are....

Help Bob C. do the flooringWork

Help Bob W. drywall repairs.

Help me work on the molding.

Help Pastor Brad make my 2 custom cabinets.

A Story About Girl & a Boy and Their New Kitchen! Part 5

So there is a new saying at our household..."Nothing comes easy when you're talking about the Johnsons". It seems that there is some obstacle around every corner.

Today, we worked on our electrical. It was quite a hair raising experience to say the least. Here is John's tape measure after it got zapped by the 22o line and yes there was a big pop, fire and a nice burnt smell that lingered for some time afterwards.


Here is Bob C. and John figuring out some things. Bob was such a blessing to us today. Thank you, thank you thank you Bob! He kept teasing us that he was going to get us zapped. He was just kidding....but knowing us you may have figured that we would get zapped all on our own. LOL

I got to use the tools. I was very excited to use the fun tools. Tools are fun hehehehe.

Here are the electrical boxes I cut out all by myself and I even feed the wire up to the boxes too.

This was my kitchen all day....very frightening! There is my Diet Coke that John was so nice to pick up for me on one of his runs to ACE hardware.

My kitchen is all on the other side of the room now. All the plugs work, the stove works and the fridge works...all in all a very productive day! Hey, there is part of my new floor rolled up in this picture.

Oh, I did get zapped by one of the 110 plugs. My arm hurt for a little while and I was very timid for the rest of the day....it gave Bob a good laugh though. I'll laugh more about it tomorrow...I think!

A Story About Girl & a Boy and Their New Kitchen! Part 4

So I have a bunch of pictures for you.....



Yesterday, I spent most of the day sanding, sanding sanding and then painting, painting and more painting. I paid for it during the night, my carpel tunnels really flared up. Thankfully, my chiropractor squeezed me in this morning for an adjustment and a sit in his massage chair. My right shoulder is feeling much better.

Here are my pretty white cabinets all done. I can't wait to get the counter top ordered. It is gonna look great.

All you homeowners out there please do not ever put a popcorn ceiling in. It is a terrible headache to all of us future owners to remove. hahaha This project is very messy and time consuming. I can only do a little at a time; but it is looking better already!

Here is my ceiling in this bucket now. I am gonna fill this many times before I am finished...very sad, very sad.

We removed our cabinets after dinner and here is what we found behind all of them, many, many, many, strangely many holes. Either the builder didn't have a stud finder or was having a hard time measuring 16 inches. John and I are still baffled by the holes: we got a good laugh out of that find. Maybe, he wanted to play a game of connect the dots.

Here are the cabinets gone.... Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! What a glorious day!!!!! ..Ugh, more work to repair that wall; but I only have to do the wall on the left. The right wall is what we are taking out.

So we are taking some of a wall out and John said I could take a hammer to it if I wanted to...I did! I love demolition!

A new kitchen is in sight......I will.....

Tomorrow, Bob C. is coming to do the electrical...hopefully nobody gets zapped putting the 220 line in! LOL

A Story About Girl & a Boy and Their New Kitchen! Part 3

So, this endeavor seems to be getting a lot longer than I thought it would. I find that I have to do a little at a time, which is not in my nature to do. I like to do things fast, quick and get it done; however, that usually means I take short cuts and do a half-baked job. I want my kitchen to look good so I have to do it well and it is driving me crazy how tedious it is getting.




I almost finished our main bathroom. It was very interesting watching my cute hubby fight with the plumbing; but he did it mostly on his own. I am very proud of his ability to stick with something and get it to work! Good Job, John! I love my new cabinet and the new color in my bathroom. The picture does not do the color justice.







We are redoing our laundry room too in the process. We are turning it into a laundry room/half bath. My girls are very excited about this change...no more waiting for a certain person to get out of the bathroom. We won't mention any names so we do not embarrass that individual. hehehe I worked on that room ALLLLL day Tuesday. It was rough! The wall was pretty bad and needed much patching and sanding before any painting could happen.








Yesterday, I began the process of painting my cabinets white. I got wonderful cabinets for free from my most wonderful Aunt Diane. Thank you, thank you and a BIG THANK YOU to her! I had to sand, put on two coats of primer and two coats of paint on them. I was only able to do the frames of the cabinets and today I tackle the doors. I am pretty pleased how they turned out.

My upcoming projects are....
Paint the rest of my cabinets.
Finish removing the popcorn ceiling (I will post about that later UGH!)
Paint the ceiling and kitchen walls.
Paint all the molding and doors.
Paint the ceiling in my bathroom.
Paint my kitchen table.

My hubby's upcoming projects are....
Help Bob C. do the electrical.
Help Bob C. knock out part of our kitchen wall.
Help Bob F. do the plumbing
Help Bob C. do the flooring
Work on any drywall repairs.
Help me work on the molding.
Help Pastor Brad make my 2 custom cabinets.


Yikes the list seems crazy and we are going to be very busy. To be honest, I am very afraid of all the work to be done for some reason. I guess biting it off in little pieces will help not make it too daunting. What have I gotten myself into!!!!!!!!

But I will as always....

A Story About Girl & a Boy and Their New Kitchen! Part 2

Wait a minute this looks like a bathroom not a kitchen!

Hahaha so we TRIED to change our bathroom cabinet and sink yesterday, which is also part of the renovation plans. Actually, that is what started the whole renovation idea to begin with, that ugly bathroom sink. We didn't get very far because when we started to work on the plumbing we found that it isn't your standard stuff and we are going to have to cut the cabinet out....Yikes.

A big thanks to a guy from our church who came out to the house last night and told us what we need to do...Thanks Bob! And a big thanks to Pastor Brad for lending us his tool to cut it out! I have a feeling we are going to have to borrow a lot of tools. I tell you it is a sign of things to come....John and I just laughed. We are going to try again tonight. We will see how that goes...Ugh! Did I tell you we have no idea what we are doing? hahahaha

Oh, new white pretty cabinet...just a little longer until you are in your new home!

John didn't appreciate me taking pictures....I think it maybe wasn't a good time to capture him for my blog...He'll get over it. LOL hehehehe

A Story About Girl & a Boy and Their New Kitchen! Part 1

Well my hubby and I are about to embark on one of the craziest ideas we have yet, in my opinion. We are going to redo our kitchen. The crazy part is that we have no idea whatsoever on how to do it and we are trying to do it the cheapest way possible. But our kitchen is in need of some desperate repairs and if you start one repair it inevitably leads to apparently in our home redoing the whole thing.

And if you know me and my not-so-handy dandy hubby there are definitely going to be a lot of funny stories coming out of this project. So instead of keeping them to myself of course I am going to blog to the whole wide world our adventures or maybe I should say misadventures.

I told John the other day, if we can make it through this and not need serious counseling afterwards than we just might make it until death us do part...even if that death comes later rather than sooner LOL. John and I would like to call ourselves wonderful discussers (is that a word). We discuss things to death because we are both a little bit on the stubborn side believe it or not. So, we are going to use this remodel as a time of practicing patience, humility, love, respect and keeping our mouths shut when irritated. I let you know how well it goes. LOL

Here is the before pictures....

See the terrible phone on the wall ....I think I am going to sneak it into the garage sale box....shhhhhhh don't tell John. He got it in High School and seems to be attached to it for some reason. Funny side note, it is a bank at the bottom but we lost the key and there is money in it so I will have to brush up on my lock picking skills.
I have a portable dishwasher that I a thrilled to be announcing, "It is going to the garage to be sold". It has been a good dishwasher to me...many back breaking washes have been avoided due to its kind service. Good bye old friend....Good bye.
So believe it or not....can you guess what my cupboards are made of? Not oak...not maple... not formica....nope but the obvious choice for cupboards ....Plastic! It is true...I almost did not believe it myself. Anybody interested? They will be found for sale at my garage sale; however, I have a bad feeling I may have to put FREE on these bad boys. LOL

Now here is the reason for the repairs see what has happened to my floor! I would like to personally thank my dog, Eowyn, for this creation. She leaves it alone now but before her training these are some of the kind of things my demon possessed dog did (read about her here). Well, on the bright side...I am getting a new floor....so maybe thanks are in order?...nope.

Here is one of my drawings for my new kitchen. I have hired myself for the interior decorator. It doesn't pay much; but I think I will do a good job.

Now my new kitchen design is revolved around a collection of mine. I collect antique Jadeite. Jadeite is a green milk glass type. Here is a picture of one of my favorite plates.

We are going to do this a cheaply as possible remember?! So John and I are going to keep track of what we spend. I will upload pictures as we go and at the end I will let you know how much we spent at the end of the project. Fun! I am so excited and a little overwhelmed at the same time. Pray that this job doesn't kill me. hahahahaha