Renovation week 32 | cabinet knob shopping

This week we are shopping for cabinet knobs and pulls. It sounds like a fun thing to do, but it can also be frustrating as well because there are so many options to choose. This is how I made my process quick and painless.

1. Decide on a finish to chose. We know that we wanted to get something dark, manly(so my husband would be ok) and vintage like Oil rubbed bronze to go with our craftsman house.

2. Pick a style. Since my cabinets are vintage, I need to go all the way vintage with the cup pulls and everything. My idea is to make everything look like it was built with the house from 1920s.

I found these Duluth pulls from Restoration Hardware to be quite handsome. I like the utilitarian straight lines, almost simplistic and not overly designed.

Asbury knob, not a typical choice to go with Duluth pulls. But I think it would work. 

3. Try to match everything. If you can do the whole house with the same finish and style, go for it. Think of all the built in cabinets as a backdrop. Don't try to switch around too much. I've seen some people that do cabinet pull bars and cup pulls together. They just look funky to me. I want them to be plain and simple. Keep in mind that you can add fun and colors in your decor later. I use Duluth pulls on all the drawers, and Asbury knobs on all the doors.

4. Plan really well on the placements. Try it on a paper first if you can. Where you mount the hardwares on the cabinets are very important. I seen a lot of kitchen design ruined by oddly placed cabinet pulls and knobs. They all need to aligned with each other, or with the cabinet frames. Try to see which way make a better design.

I did mine on a paper. Try to give this to cabinet installer. It would save you so much time. 

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The trickiest part of all is finding a pull for my built in refrigerator. It is important to get pulls that made specifically for appliance. Regular cabinet pulls use smaller screws and they are not strong enough to handle constant everyday pulling. (with refrigerator suction, you need to pull extra hard). Restoration Hardware doesn't make appliance pulls so I have to find refrigerator pulls to go with Duluth pulls I already have my heart set on. I ordered a few different ones to try out. Good thing I can return them.

Renovation week 31 | Master Bath update and what went wrong

The painting went really well in this master bath. If you recall when I picked the color for the cabinet, it turned out really handsome! Because of all the decisions I had to made, I already feel jaded at this point in time and didn't think that anything could excite me this much. The contrast makes this room look so fresh! I picked the color to match the darkest grey on my marble countertop. That was quite a quick decision for me because I thought it's just a bathroom, no one would see it. Now I really wanna show it off.

Color: Benjamin Moore, Overcoat

I chose to do lacquer paint because it's smoother and it's more durable, even though it's not low VOC. And any carpenter would tell you that it's the best kind of paint to show off woodworks and nice cabinetries. 

With lacquer paint you have to wear protective mask because it smell so bad. After I took this photo I had to run outside. If you consider doing this, pack your bags and leave for at least a week. 

The color dries pretty quickly and you have to repeat it about 4-5 times to get it thick enough. 

I used satin finish so when it dries it looks matte and nice like this. 

This deserves an artistic shot by itself. What a beauty. 

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Ok now some of you might be wondered why everything went so well all the sudden? It's because I haven't posted any mishap lately. And here's for some of you who miss the drama.

What went wrong with my Master Bathroom?
1. Marble tub surround
Awhile back when they installed marble countertop in my bathroom, I asked them to use the left over as tub surround. It didn't turn out well the first round.

My bathtub is an inexpensive acrylic, so I wanted to add marble around it to make it look less plastic. 

Round 1: they just slabbed the marble on the tub and left a huge 1/2" gap between the marble and the tile. It was ridiculous. I had to ask them to fix it. 

Round2: Then they just raise the marble up and leave huge grout line under the marble. That was so wrong! Who's in the right mind would think this looks ok? 

Not only they marble was cut poorly and thrown together, the pieces in the corners were not well aligned. And the seams were pretty obvious. 

Round 3: Finally the fabricator decided to come back after weeks of me bugging them constantly. Now we have a proper tub surround. 

They were nice enough to re do everything. They miter cut the edge of the marble to to make it look thicker and eventually fill that huge gap that used to be in-between the tiles and the marble. 

For those who doesn't know how miter edge works. Here is a picture. Typical stone countertops are 3/4" thick. Miter edge gives makes the stone appear thicker and stronger. 

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2. shower niche

I have posted earlier that I like shower niche that is well placed in the shower. But mine didn't start well either. 

Round1: I came in one day to find out that the cut out for the niche is very awkward. The top and the bottom rows of the tiles are cut off and that what I have told them in the beginning not to do. Because it looks like an afterthought. 

Then I took a tape and marked where I want the niche ends. I cut off the top and the bottom to where we don't have to cut off the tiles. 

Round2: They still did such a poor job. The shelf was crooked, so was the right side. I don't know if they tried to pass this as a decent job or not. I wasn't buying it. I had to ask them to re do this. 

Round3: Finally they did it right. They took everything apart and started over. They even mitered the edge. I didn't ask for that but it's sure looks nice! 

What I have learnt from this? 

Trust your guts. 

------------------If something doesn't look right, it's probably not done right.------------------

Happy thanksgiving!

Renovation week 30 | front of the house

I just notice that the whole time I haven't posted anything about the front part or the original part of my house. Here we are putting some love back to this long neglected part of the house.

We stripping the old paint off the windows. These are super old windows, the frames are bumpy and crooked. It needs a bit of work to straighten them out. 

When I just bought my house years ago, my friend Stacy said it's such a cute house but why burgundy windows? This is my chance to redeem my self with Stacy. I painted some color options on photoshop to see what color to chose. I'm leaning toward option3 just because I'm just so tired of making decision. Option3 keeping the same base color change the windows to grey. Is that better? Or that's too depressing? 

Renovation week 29 | kitchen update!

Never mind the mess, we got backsplash! My kitchen started to look like a real kitchen. I don't have to imagine anymore how it would turn out because it's awesome!

I love the look of subway tiles because it's classic and it goes with our vintage style. We picked inexpensive beveled subway tiles we found at Homedepot. It was about $4/sqft. 

We finish the edge with left over Caesarstone we used on our countertop. I think like it better than using bull nose tiles. I just think sharp edge goes better with my cabinet doors. 

We haven't grouted the tiles yet, but it already looks like it has dark color around the tiles. Which I like. We would probably go with dark grout just because it's good for hiding stains. Any thought? 

Renovation week 29 | still painting....

While the painting is still going on everywhere in my house. I went ahead and picked this color called Deep Space to paint my hallway/mudroom and love love love it! It transitions from grey walls in the kitchen to this dark walls. Super cool! My theory was right. You can never go wrong with dark color.

No change to the dog. End report. 

Renovation week 28 | painting continue...

They told me painting would take about 2 weeks to finish because there are a lot of prepping involve especially for lacquer paint on my cabinets. So this week progress is just some primer. I actually love the matte look of the primer!

In the kitchen
My open shelves have just been installed. Oh have I told you about the drama I had with these? OMG it's so annoying. Before I end up with the shelves I wanted. Flash back to what happened last week. My contractor misinterpret the design on the blue print and gave me something looking like a cabinet with no doors. I made them rip it out because it's so ugly. 

Exterior

They are still prepping mostly. They are now putting finishing details like wood frames around the windows and doors. I specifically asked them to match the detailing to the existing part of my house. It seems pretty straight forward and you think I wouldn't have a complain during this process. Oh no you are wrong! Here comes another problem....

The new window frames that go around my windows are much larger than the window sill that came with the windows. Now they have to add a little piece of wood to extend the sill. If you look up close on above photo, you'll see a little line there. I'm surprised not even the window guy thought of this. So for those of you out there, you need to order the window and make sure they also match the size of the sill to your existing. 

Almost there...

Renovation week 27 | picking the paint!

Here is what so called the fun part where we get to pick colors. I'm not so sure it's that fun for me. It's quite difficult to guess how the color would look in an actual space. Below is our inspiration for the bedroom walls. I don't want any strong color. I just want something light and classic. I'm trying to make my life less complicated here. We don't have any furniture yet so we don't want any color to dictate our furniture and bedding choice. My theory for picking colors for this house is that we use light colors in smaller/darker rooms, and use dark colors in traffic areas. 

In the mean time we try to make this process as painless as possible. The key is to go in to the store and pick out only a few colors you like and quickly leave. If you stick around you will get so overwhelmed. It's easy to get side track when there are too many options. That's me getting blinded by so many swatches. 

We picked out some swatches and tested on our master bedroom walls. They look like all white swatches but on the wall they turn out so much darker don't they? We are most likely to go with Cloud White here because it has less tint out of all the choices. 

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

Happening at the same time at our kitchen... We have our cabinets painted Simply White. This was an easy choice for us since we know we want all the cabinets bright white but still has a little warm tone to it. I think this color is perfect because it's not too yellow and not too white. We also picked Shore LIne for the wall color. I think this color is matching the color of our countertop really well.

Master bathroom cabinet, we are going with the darker one for a contrast. And hopefully it will hide the stains well since this would be our main bathroom from now.