26_Farther Beautification

Even though there were no big projects anymore, the works on the house never stop. We continued to put more details and to beautify, either inside or outside, the house. Here are the updates on what we had done to the house.

October 2017: New Plants and Accent Walls

As the weather getting more pleasant to be outside, we worked on our yards. Not only we groomed the yards with regular maintenance such as mowing, raking the falling leaves, and trimming the bushes and branches. We also plant new plants to make the yards more thick and colorful.

We took out a big stump and replace it with Osmanthus tea olive, plant more Boxwood shrubs to fill the gaps between the old boxwood, and add new plants such as Crape Myrtle, Camellia, Sky pencils, Yews, etc. I will upload the pictures in summer time as now, in wintertime, they don’t look colorful.

Stump that we took out and replaced with Osmanthus Tea Olive

The only ‘big’ project that we did this month was painting an accent wall in the study room. We chose bright color to light up the room.

Painting an accent wall in the study room.

December 2017: Additional Lightings, Painting Kitchen Cabinets and Island, and Installing Backsplash

Once we started living in the house, we realized that we need more lights in the open living-kitchen-family area. However, it was too risky for us to install them by ourselves, especially concerning making holes on the well-done ceiling. For this task, we decided to call a professional to do the job. We got his number from a local lighting store. He didn’t work at the store, he was just a freelancer that normally being called by the customers there. His name is Mike Autry.

In early December, we went out of town to give him a chance to install all the lightings. We put 12 recess lights, 2 over the island lights, 2 dinning table lights, and 1 porch light. When we returned home, suddenly our home is so much brighter.

Some of the recess lights.

Left: Dining table lights. Center: Over the island lights. Right: Porch light.

We used our Christmas holiday for painting the kitchen cabinets and island. Although we liked the natural wood color, we had to paint them to give more protection from stains. It is easier to clean stains on painted wood than on bare wood.

This task was pretty arduous because we had to clear the kitchen and unhinged the doors. We had to lay all of the doors to paint them, which meant they took a lot of space. Again, we transformed our open space as a construction area. Of course we made it dirty, as we had to sand everything before we painted them.

Preparation before painting.

So first, we sanded all the parts. For the kitchen cabinets, we paint a primer because we used regular paint. As for the island, we were interested with the chalky finish look; this type of paint doesn’t need any primer, so we applied the paint directly. We let them dry overnight and we sanded them again. We painted the kitchen cabinets after sanding, and painted second coat to the island. We let them dry overnight again. For the last time, we put second coat for the kitchen cabinets and put wax for the island to seal the paint. This task took us around 10 days to do it.

Sanding and putting protection tape before painting.

As for the color, my husband wanted the cabinets to have the same color as the trim, so we stayed on creamy white color. For the island, we wanted something that is contrast to the blue wall, so I suggested bright yellow. It was a bold decision for my husband, but he was willing to embrace brighter colors in his life J.

Painting the 'sunrise' island.

Installing the doors back including their new hardware.

As we had to take out everything out the cabinets, we decided to reorganize our kitchen stuff and put on cabinet hardware. Before, we just stack everything in the available spaces. Now we tried to organize them in baskets and racks. There are a lot of cabinet or drawer organizers in the markets; however, the measurements might be not suitable. We had custom cabinets so it was not easy for us in finding the right organizers. After went back and forth to 4 different places, we only bought 2 organizers: 1 for a trash bin and 1 for organizing pans and lids. But the limited options just made our creativity expanded. We decided to make our own organizers. We made our own rack for our backing dishes, lazy Susans, and basket drawers.

Our custom rack for baking dishes.

We finished painting and reorganizing kitchen cabinets and the island on the 26^th December. However, we didn’t have a lot of time to rest. On December 27^th we cleaned up because my brother in law with his family would come to visit us. He would help us in installing backsplash, as well as spending quality time with us.

For the backsplash, we opted for natural stone to give natural look around the kitchen cabinets. The backsplash area is only around 25 sqft.; so it didn’t take long to install it. However we took a lot of time in cutting the stone to fit with the available space. The stone/tile cutter needs water to lubricate the cutting wheel, and the cold weather kept making the water frozen. So we had to change the water every now and then. After we finished installing the backsplash, we had to let it dry for around 3 days before we could seal it.

My husband and his brother installed the backsplash.

The kitchen with natural stone backsplash.

Epilogue

Finally in the New Year, we had made the kitchen prettier than before. It is a nice way to enter a New Year. However, the works on the house would never stop. We would keep beautifying the house and of course doing some maintenance. Speaking of which, it seems we always found a new thing to fix as the season changing. I am talking about the shrinking wood on the floor and the trim. Entering the winter, we saw there were gaps on the trim and on the floor. While we couldn’t do anything with the floor, we kept caulking and touching up the trim to hide the gaps. I am sure we had to do different things to maintain them during the summertime. And I am also sure, that wouldn’t be the only project that we would do. So I will keep updating.