Kitchen Remodel

We have a wonderful kitchen - it's large; it has an island; it has wood floors and granite tile countertops. We've left it alone for the first 10 years of living here because it's been serviceable, and in the grand scheme of things, actually very nice. But I never did love the color of our cabinets - with the wood floor, I just felt like it was too much brown/yellow/tan. And while the countertops were awesome because I could set hot things down on the granite tiles, the tile aspect had some drawbacks. It's difficult to clean the grout, and the vertical tiles starting coming loose, falling off and breaking!

Here you can see one missing tile and one repaired tile that had fallen and broken:

Very nice - nothing to complain about - but a lot of brownish yellow going on:

The sink was a pretty standard double sink. I thought about getting one big sink (kinda like a farm sink, but without the apron on the front because that wouldn't work in this corner), but I leave dishes "soaking" (okay, just piled up for no good reason) on one side of the sink too often to go for a single sink basin. I need to have one side to pile things and one side available for washing my hands, vegetables, etc. I ended up getting a sink that is bigger on one side, and I love it. (picture later with the "after" shots)

Another odd thing about the kitchen was that the island had an overhang on the left side, like you should put stools there and use it as a breakfast bar, but it would have been too crowded with the fridge over there. So we never did, and it was just wasted space for 10 years.

To eliminate that wasted space but still keep the island as wide as it was, I decided to build a set of shelves under the overhang. It would be a good spot for cookbooks and spices.

Lucy and Greta "helped":

After I got the shelving unit constructed, I added beadboard to each end of the island. I bought the version that was already primed because I knew I was going to paint all the cabinets white eventually.

We hired people to tear out the old countertops and tile backsplash and to install the new countertops:

Julie helped:

The new countertops are granite, with a leathered finish instead of the traditional polished finish. It has a little bit of texture to it and a more natural stone look.

My new sink, with my very biggest pan fitting all the way flat in the bigger side!!:

Tobie and Lucy supervised the work. Lucy is sitting on an area that used to have a small bar made of 12" wide tile. We did not have this replaced with granite because I wanted to find some different material to go here (perhaps wood), and I wanted it to be wider than it was before. Wide enough to use as a breakfast bar, since there's actually enough room for people to sit over here without being in the way.

Another already-present feature of my kitchen that I've always loved is these slide out shelves. So I kept all of my existing cabinetry and just started painting everything white. I won't include many pictures of the painting process because it took forever. I sanded everything, then applied primer, then applied 2 - 3 coats of paint. With all the drying and clean-up time in between coats, the process was extremely time consuming. Sure, I could have hired someone to do this, but I saved several thousand dollars doing it myself, and I ensured that it was done the way I wanted it done. :)

My dad has done quite a bit of DIY tiling, so I grabbed his help with the backsplash when he was in town. I thought about doing a gray backsplash, but those tiles were backordered and not available until after my dad would be back in Texas, so I went with white subway tiles instead.

There were some tricky corner cuts. I'm glad we invested in a tile saw for this and future projects.

New tile illuminated by some LED under-cabinet lights:

And the last major part of the project was the new breakfast bar. I found a place in town that had slabs of live edge butternut in their kiln. I believe butternut is related to maple; this particular tree was from Wisconsin. I bought an 8' long piece and had them plane it and round off one edge for me. The pieces on the left are cherry; butternut is on the right:

Here is the piece I bought, after I sanded off some of the bark from the edge:

My next step was to make a template and take it to a local welding shop to have these metal supports made:

Then I hired a friend of mine who is in the construction business to use a router to carve out spots for the metal braces and install the bar top. This is shot from the underside:

I did not stain the wood - just used Enduro-Var varnish to bring out the beautiful natural color of the wood. (The finished half is on the left):

Isn't this wood beautiful? (Please ignore the fact that there are dirty dishes in EVERY picture.)

Another part of the project was to clean out my pantry. Our shelves are two feet deep, and I found things that had been shoved to the back years ago. It looks fairly organized in the picture on the left, but in the picture on the right, you can see some of the mess that was lurking behind, out of reach and out of sight:

So I installed these pull-out shelves and have been very happy with them so far:

And...drumroll please...the final product:

And a couple of before/after comparisons...

Before from the family room looking into the kitchen:

After:

Before:

After:

Backpacking (Intentionally, this time!)

Two weeks after my "grand adventure" (getting lost), John and I went backpacking in the national park. My knee was still aggravated from all the extreme downhill bushwhacking I had done, so we chose a site only 1.7 miles in from the trailhead. Just in case my knee was still killing me, at least I wouldn't have to walk too far with that heavy pack. The yellow thing you can see peeking out near the top of my pack is a bear canister. With our food in it, it weighed about 5 pounds, I think. Not a ton, but every pound matters when you're carrying it all with you. Thankfully, my pack mule (I mean, my husband) carried in our tent and sleeping pads, so I only had my clothes and sleeping bag and pillow (and daypack and 2 liters of water and a few other items) to carry in besides the bear canister. Some areas allow bear bags (which must be strung up from a tree), but the RMNP requires these canisters, which are to be set on the ground 200 yards away from your campsite.

We hiked in from the Fern Lake Trailhead. Here's a fern and a cool Dr. Seuss-ish plant:

Our campsite was near The Pool, a very popular day hike. This ground squirrel would not leave me alone when I was sitting by The Pool, trying to read. I get the feeling he's been fed by humans before.

This is The Pool, where the Big Thompson River and the Fern Creek meet:

With The Pool being such a popular destination, I was afraid our campsite would feel like we were car camping, but thankfully, no. It was a true wilderness site. We couldn't hear or see anyone from the site, and it was surprisingly large. I think the limit is 4 people, but there was easily enough room for 10.

After setting up camp and relaxing for a bit, we hiked over to Cub Lake. It was only 1.2 miles away. The last time we hiked to Cub Lake, we had been from a different trailhead, so it was fun to try a new approach.

A wildfire had been through here since last time we were here, but it was long enough ago that there was lots of new growth. Totally different look from last time we saw it. The wildflowers were amazing (as they have been everywhere we've hiked this summer).

 I slept amazingly well for being in a tent. Probably thanks to the sleeping pads John hauled up there for us! I love this picture John took of me drinking coffee just after sunrise. It captures the peace and quiet of that morning:

 And here's the two of us, drinking coffee and eating Dinosaur Eggs oatmeal (for nostalgia's sake - our kids loved that stuff when they were little!):

A highlight of the morning was seeing this deer circle around our site a couple of times:

Video:

My parents hiked up to our campsite at 7:30 to join us for a day hike to Fern Lake and Odessa Lake. My dad had a knee injury worse than mine (his from mountain biking), but he was a trooper - he just wrapped it, took some vitamin I, and kept on hiking.

 Fern Falls:

Fern Lake:

After Fern Falls, we continued up to Odessa Lake. That was the only part of this hike I had never done before, and WOW, I am so glad we did. The approach to Odessa Lake is perhaps the prettiest in the entire national park. The pictures don't do it justice, but here they are:

It was a great trip, all-around. Next year we're going to make reservations in advance in a different area of the park and probably camp a couple of nights.