the coltons: May 2013

and ever and ever and ever....

i painted those doors for days!!! then i had to fill all four edges with putty, sand cured putty, and paint finished edges. shoot me.

i had designated 2 doors next to the sink to be framed over ribbed glass. when kent sent me with the doors to get the glass cut, he had sent me with the wrong doors. doors that were only wrong by about 1/4"... we didn't find this out until they were ready to be picked up. big boo.

i had to take 2 new doors to get measured and wait another couple of days. but the biggest bummer of this mixup? not the cost, not the hassle - the painting of 2 new doors!!! seriously? i wanted to cry.

in fact, in the middle of painting doors, at some point in that week, i did have a little breakdown. i cried and cried and felt like the whole thing was going to feel homemade and super ghetto. i was feeling like we should have just gone with our original plan, which was to buy stock cabinets and have kent install them. there was no going back. we were way too far and had already spent close to what we would have spent on said cabinets. i felt stuck and sad. this was before i had turned the corner on the doors... once i could see the light at the end of the tunnel on that project, i felt a whole lot differently. that combined with seeing a couple of doors hanging - that helped, too.

anyway....

we had a plumber come in and update some of our plumbing: the washer hookups and under the kitchen sink.

i can't tell you how exciting it was to have a sink after not having one for a couple of weeks! and it's just so pretty! i love the sink - it's huge and gorgeous and white and pristine and the new faucet is awesome, too :)

i sort of joked about the backsplash the whole time we've been talking about and planning for this kitchen. i always planned to have a subway tile backsplash and weston seemed more wishy washy on that or just leaving the beadboard. i had watched enough home improvement shows my whole life that i felt like i could tackle the backsplash. so the joke became that i would just do it on my own when weston was traveling and he'd come home and it would be done. the funny thing is that when it came time to do the backsplash, he was gone! so i did it solo and it was actually really fun.

the only problem i ran into was that i had to leave the job halfway through to go to a bridal shower and when i came back, the thinset i had left here and there was set up. yikes. all over again, thinset is not my friend ;) but i scraped it off and made it work.

i had a tile scorer that i used to cut and trim the tiles and by the end of the day, i had it all set. i grouted the next day and wiped it clean. i l.o.v.e. the results! love it!

remember those glass doors i mentioned before?

how much do i love this cabinet?!?! so pretty.

weston and i both wanted a magnetic knife strip. one afternoon, as i was perusing ikea, i came across their version. perfect! since i had already finished the backsplash and wasn't about to try screwing into the tile, i ended up gluing an anchor piece of mdf to the wall and then gluing the magnetic strip onto that. i had tried using the provided screws to anchor the strip to the mdf, but all that did was split and crumble the wood. after several attempts to make it work that way, i realized i could try just gluing the metal to the wood and hope for the best!

so far, so good ;)

the last thing we did to the kitchen was replace the light fixture over the sink. we wanted a pendant and found this simple globe to hang. but of course, nothing can just happen easily, right? the wiring and switch for this location basically refused to work, no matter what configuration was attempted. we had kent, my dad, and a construction-minded friend in the ward give it a go... no dice. however, scott (the friend) stuck at it for a few hours and called his dad (who really knows his stuff) and together, they figured it all out. thank goodness for awesome people!!

i love everything about this area of the kitchen - the sink/faucet, the natural light at the window and how it bounces off all the white, the little shelves, the styling... i just love it here :)

ready for the big reveal???
these photos were taken before we put handles on the doors, but most everything is in place and finished..

the pantry

the laundry storage

and, if you want to see the whole thing complete, here's a video i made for my brother so he could see the results.. just go ahead and turn your volume off or ignore my commentary for him ;)

i am beyond glad it's over!!!! i, of course, love it. i will say, however, that i'm still sort of emotionally drained and i think, because of that, i am sort of ambivalent in my reaction. like, people will ask, "do you love it?!?!" and i have like no energy to respond in kind. i just sort of sigh and say, "yes, of course. i do love it. i'm just so glad it's done." which, i'm sure, doesn't sound like i really do, in fact, "love it."

but i sure do!! ;)

the kids and i started memorial day weekend in monroe and ended it at home in orem with weston.

saturday morning, the girls and i met jessica and the rest of the kids at the monroe cemetery to pay a visit to ali. we couldn't go see her without releasing some balloons!

we went home to orem that afternoon and monday morning, my parents met us and we caravan'ed to trenton cemetery to visit my dad's family plots. luckily, we arrived there early enough that he was able to visit with relatives and cousins who were there doing the same thing.