Switching Up the Chair Cushions

 Last year I built 2 chairs for the back room and they've never seemed quite right to me. I found them uncomfortable and too hard, you didn't sink into the cushions. Also the back cushion was almost 2 inches higher than the wood frame, making it look funny.

Finally I decided to try replacing the back cushion. I bought 2” foam (replacing 4”) with batting around it, but it looked even worse since it was so much thinner that the seat, and was not that much better in terms of comfort. In the end I stuffed each cover with 2 standard pillow forms wrapped in batting. This is much more comfortable and because it is less structure, they now line up with the top of the wood frame.

And know we know: try out 1 chair before buying both pieces of foam…I now have 2 extra 4” pieces and 2 extra 2” pieces of foam

The Kitchen: Before and Afters

Initially the plan for renovating the kitchen was to do it over 2 weeks when on vacation. Then we decided to go to Vermont in the middle, cutting 5 days out of the 16 days. My (ambitious) schedule had us completely finished with days to spare before we had to go back to work. Although we did not finish in the allotted time, we did have a fully functional kitchen by the end of our vacation, just without doors, drawers, completed paint job or baseboards. Not really the end of the world as we could still cook.

Looking back I wouldn't have done much differently. It was stressful, but we got through it with minimal fighting and are very happy with the end result. We dealt with the surprises, like the tar on the floor, and learned some new skills, like using the disc sander on the floor. At this point, neither of us can face another kitchen renovation in our lives, but maybe down the road in our next house we will try this again, we've definitely learned a lot about installing kitchens.

Here are the before and afters of the room

The sink corner:

 The stove corner:

And a few extra photos for fun:

And now we know: was it worth it? Given some distance from the reno, I think so, Tom might disagree though. Also I have awesome arm muscles and abs after 3 months of renovations and building the cabinets.

The Kitchen: Calling It Finished

This weekend I did some more touch ups. Where the peninsula meets the wall, I primed and painted the drywall mud, then caulked the joint. 

The cutlery drawer got its edging. All the others were done prior to the start of construction, but I ran out of edge banding before the last one and never came back to it. 

Although there are still some minor things to do in the kitchen, it’s reached about 95% completion now, so I am calling it finished.

And now we know:  the only things left in the kitchen are painting of the ceiling where I patched it and adding moulding to the front of the melamine shelves. At this point I am burnt out from kitchen reno’s, work stress and being sick all at the same time, so these small things will have to wait for the new year.

The Kitchen: Touch Ups

I hung the upper doors and touched up the wall paint.

Much to the bemusement of my husband, I removed the pantry doors, replaced all 8 of the 90 degree hinges with 120 degree ones and re-installed the doors. It was really bothering me that the doors only opened until they were parallel with the pantry sides.

And now we know: the trick to having your hinges open the degree they advertise is to ensure the holes you drill are close enough to the door edge. If I did it again I would splurge for all 120 degree hinges and am thinking of eventually going back and replacing them on some on the more frequently used upper cupboards. Also I would purchase a new bit at the start of the reno instead of using a crappy old one that I had to sharpen twice per hole and that got so hot the wood got burn marks.