Well, we've been living with this gorgeous space now for a few months. It's so easy to clean (even though I don't clean as much as I should). My favorite things so far? Breakfast bar (I'm sitting at it now) Dishwasher ( my boyfriend always does the dishes) Blue sink (it's perfect in every way) all the tile -- tile is so cool. Huge kitchen sink with no divider -- great idea. It's 10" deep and 36" wide. Stainless steel countertops -- so industrial, sleek, modern, and recyclable. The butcher block island with recycling center -- awesome. The clutter is down to nothing now. We have to separate our recycling here -- the recycling guys are absolute nazis about it. It's so fun cooking now, and I love being in my bathroom. I never want to move. I also love the fact that I picked everything out, and it's my taste. Usually, you live with some other yahoo's taste, and if you're lucky, you can change the wallpaper or the vinyl flooring.
Negatives? Hmmmm. Not crazy about the faucet in the kitchen. It keeps falling apart, and the water pressure isn't as awesome as I'd hoped. The cabinet paint is chipping where the screws from the pulls hit it. Shoulda picked different pulls. Still love the cabinets. And, this is impossible in my place, cause there is no space for it, but I wish I had a pantry. Right now all our dry goods are stored under on a lazy suzan, and all the stuff falls off when you're spinning it around. I should organize it better, I guess.
Things I did right: Hired a great contractor. I know this is a do-it-yourself site, but now in the future I'm confident I'll be able to do some of the stuff myself. Jake Nau sincerely cared about the project, and works with really talented people. They are all true artisans, which are really hard to find these days. Also, I'm so glad I went to the salvage place. Nowadays, we live in a throw-away society, and it's really hard for me to believe this is the right way to live. There is no way the Earth can sustain all the abuse we subject it to every second of every day. My parents save everything -- my mom's cat sleeps on my old baby blankets. We need to adopt the idea of reduce reuse recycle now. So instead of buying a tub and sink from home depot, manufactured in China, shipped across the world to replace my old tub and sink produced in China and shipped across the world, I found perfectly good used tub and sink, manufactured here like 100 years ago, that have a million times more character, for virtually free.
Things I should have thought about more: Even though I love how everything turned out, I wish I would have done more research about materials well in advance. There were these gorgeous recycled glass tiles I wanted so bad, but the lead time was 6 weeks, which would have delayed the project.
I don't know how to add links, but I'm going to add some copy and paste links that were instrumental in the completion of Sayer-ville.
First, my contractor:
http://www.openairconcepts.com/
The salvage place:
http://www.citysalvage.com/
The tile place:
http://www.katelotile.com/wall.html
The recycled glass tile place:
http://www.bedrockindustries.com/
Also, thanks to the last few people who e-mailed me and commented about the project; positivity is hard to find on the internet!
I'll be adding more pics, and now I'm decorating my bedroom (when I come up with the cash). So, I'll be talking more about decorating and what I've been learning in Interior Design school.
That is all.
Showing posts with label Minneapolis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minneapolis. Show all posts
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Hello, Goodbye . . .
Hi. I'm Erin, and I live in a 1917 Mission style brownstone condo in Minneapolis. I've had the place for 6 years, and decided it was time to update/restore the kitchen and bath as cool-ly and cost-effectively as possible. So got some quotes, hired a contractor (friend's husband who has been contracting for 15 years, and has several friends' renovations under his belt www.openairconcepts.com), which took months, and now my place is ripped apart.
First off, let me explain why I would put myself through all this -- 6 weeks of no water, running around picking up tile, making sure my cat is safe, living with my bathroom, kitchen, and dining room in my living room -- I figure I'll be living there for awhile, and think it's an investment that will aid in the eventual re-sale of the place.
PLUS I HATED my kitchen and bath. Let's go through all of the annoying quirks my place had . . .
Here's the kitchen. Notice the plastic floor boards, the missing window frame, the cabinet door that would not close without falling off, the beautiful blue countertop and vinyl floor.
Lovely cabinets. And there were only 2 . . .
The silver paint was my idea, the only thing I could do for the poor place.
On to my lovely bathroom . . .
In this picture, it doesn't really look that bad.
First off, the plastic floorboards. Annoying. The floor tile has tiny grooves that collect people scum and will not ever become clean. I put the mirror, lights and backsplash there. The backsplash is covering a huge hole where the oldest medicing cabinet ever to have existed once lived . . .
The tub is a 28", 4 1/2 ft mini tub that gets your ass wet and that's about it. I'm a girl, I like baths. The grout was wrought with mildew, and those gross centipedes had a colony somewhere near the drain.
The one redeeming quality is this built-in. The tile next to it used to be green with gold flecks. In all the sq footage is about 1.3 centimeters.
And last but not least, the buffet in the dining room. . .
Which looks fine at first glance, but ended up being a glorified junk drawer with 8 phone books, 30 headphone sets, 760 nails, 3 hammers, 500 wine glasses, 10 rolls of tape, etc . . .
If I lived in1917, I'm sure I would have china, and a maid to cook my food, so the kitchen and buffet were probably great. But now, in 2007, who needs china? And when all my friends come over, we crowd into the kitchen. So, as sad as I am to see it go, I said good bye to the buffet today. I traded it at City Salvage (www.citysalvage.com) for an awesome blue sink and clawfoot tub.
Now, there will be a center island with stools, and a butcher block top, so I can cook and converse, and my friends can help me chop things.
In the mean time, I've had to pick out colors for the cabinets (smooth painted tops, robin's egg blue) and back splash (glass tiles in 4 colors), the bathroom wall tile (white subway tile with sky blue and black checkerboard boarder, black bullnose), and the floor tile (white 2" octagons with black accents, gray grout).
I didn't know where to start. I kind of knew I wanted painted cabinets, and that I liked a certain vintage blue/turquoise. I went to an antique shop, and bought a vase that was the color I liked, then found a retro fabric store (Crafty Planet in NE -- www.craftyplanet.com) and picked out a bunch of patterns I liked. THEN I took them to the tile place and went from there.
Pictures in the next post . . .
First off, let me explain why I would put myself through all this -- 6 weeks of no water, running around picking up tile, making sure my cat is safe, living with my bathroom, kitchen, and dining room in my living room -- I figure I'll be living there for awhile, and think it's an investment that will aid in the eventual re-sale of the place.
PLUS I HATED my kitchen and bath. Let's go through all of the annoying quirks my place had . . .
Here's the kitchen. Notice the plastic floor boards, the missing window frame, the cabinet door that would not close without falling off, the beautiful blue countertop and vinyl floor.
Lovely cabinets. And there were only 2 . . .
The silver paint was my idea, the only thing I could do for the poor place.
On to my lovely bathroom . . .
In this picture, it doesn't really look that bad.
First off, the plastic floorboards. Annoying. The floor tile has tiny grooves that collect people scum and will not ever become clean. I put the mirror, lights and backsplash there. The backsplash is covering a huge hole where the oldest medicing cabinet ever to have existed once lived . . .
The tub is a 28", 4 1/2 ft mini tub that gets your ass wet and that's about it. I'm a girl, I like baths. The grout was wrought with mildew, and those gross centipedes had a colony somewhere near the drain.
The one redeeming quality is this built-in. The tile next to it used to be green with gold flecks. In all the sq footage is about 1.3 centimeters.
And last but not least, the buffet in the dining room. . .
Which looks fine at first glance, but ended up being a glorified junk drawer with 8 phone books, 30 headphone sets, 760 nails, 3 hammers, 500 wine glasses, 10 rolls of tape, etc . . .
If I lived in1917, I'm sure I would have china, and a maid to cook my food, so the kitchen and buffet were probably great. But now, in 2007, who needs china? And when all my friends come over, we crowd into the kitchen. So, as sad as I am to see it go, I said good bye to the buffet today. I traded it at City Salvage (www.citysalvage.com) for an awesome blue sink and clawfoot tub.
Now, there will be a center island with stools, and a butcher block top, so I can cook and converse, and my friends can help me chop things.
In the mean time, I've had to pick out colors for the cabinets (smooth painted tops, robin's egg blue) and back splash (glass tiles in 4 colors), the bathroom wall tile (white subway tile with sky blue and black checkerboard boarder, black bullnose), and the floor tile (white 2" octagons with black accents, gray grout).
I didn't know where to start. I kind of knew I wanted painted cabinets, and that I liked a certain vintage blue/turquoise. I went to an antique shop, and bought a vase that was the color I liked, then found a retro fabric store (Crafty Planet in NE -- www.craftyplanet.com) and picked out a bunch of patterns I liked. THEN I took them to the tile place and went from there.
Pictures in the next post . . .
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