New Kitchen Bar Stools

I was organizing some of my photos from December today and realized I never shared our bar stools for our new kitchen with you. We hunted far and wide for the perfect bar stools last fall and then literally found them right under our noses.

We loved the looks of the industrial style metal bar stools we've been seeing everywhere lately, but they just weren't very comfortable to us.

And we thought we wanted backs on our bar stools, too, until we realized those were hard to turn around in if they didn't swivel just right.

 

So we sat on a lot of bar stools in a lot of stores and were starting to feel a bit like Goldilocks. Nothing we sat on felt just right.

We hadn't considered this style at all until we happened to sit on them at a shop counter while looking at tables in the shop's furniture catalog. All of a sudden we realized they were cushier and comfier than any other bar stools we'd tried.

They were just right!

We asked if they were for sale, and it turned out they are the store's best selling item. The factory that manufactures them in California was in the process of moving, so we had to wait a while, but they came just in time for Christmas. We really love them. They're solidly built out of hardwood, nice and heavy, with top grain leather seats.


 

You'll probably laugh, but I was thinking about painting the wood legs with white chalk paint and antiquing the nail heads with rub n buff. When I mentioned it at dinner the night the bar stools arrived my family shouted, "NO!" in unison! I'm glad they did because now I like them just the way they are.

Scared 'em, though! 

 

Note: I have received a few requests about where our bar stools were purchased. We ordered them from a locally owned shop called Renditions here in Boise. Their website can be found here. I have also seen very similar ones in the Grandin Road catalog and at their website here. Happy shopping!



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Our New Kitchen!

 Our kitchen remodel is finished, and it's time for the big reveal!

 We removed the wall between our dining room and kitchen.

 And added an eating bar.

 Our new leather bar stools are on back order until who-knows-when, so I parked my little craft studio stool here to give you the idea. Our contractor, Trent, and master finish carpenter, Luke, did amazing work designing and duplicating the old dining room wainscot and trim on the new bar. 

 The top of the bar wraps around the dining room wall to seat three and gives me a niche to decorate. I love niches!

 The hutch that was on the dining room wall we removed is now in the kitchen. The entire kitchen remodel was centered on moving this hutch to this wall. To give you an idea of the scale of this cabinet, we need a ladder to reach the upper shelves. Not a step ladder, a real ladder. It's enormous!

 The doors were stripped, repainted and rehung with the original hardware. This cabinet is our favorite part of the new kitchen, and we're so glad we can still see it from the front rooms of the house. We feel like we've preserved a big part of the history of our home. 

I don't really have a decorating style. I like a little bit French, a little bit farmhouse, and a little bit vintage. If I like something, I just try and make it work.

 Our bar is forty-two inches tall to hide kitchen clutter from the dining room.  We've never had a kitchen bar before, and we love it.

 First and foremost, our kitchen is a working kitchen. It's all about cooking big family dinners and easy cleanup afterwards. The criteria for every surface we chose was whether it would stand up to hard kitchen use, was it super easy to maintain, was it waterproof, and did it look like something you might see in a cottage one hundred years ago.

 We chose Mannington Serengeti Slate for a floor that will last another one hundred years. Franklin Building Supply did a great installation over our uneven wonky old sub-floors.   

The cottage two doors down from ours still has the original kitchen with a wood back splash and wood counters, so along with a slate floor we knew this look would be authentic to our old kitchen. 

 Our cast iron sink is the Wheatland from Kohler.

 Our faucet is the Waterhill from Moen.

 Our counters are new green certified Old Mill Oak HD laminate from Wilsonart. Surprised? I was!

 Our new curtains were sewn from one 84-inch curtain panel purchased at Target.

Our coffee station fits perfectly behind this little dining room wall with coffee cups in the new small wall cabinet above.  

 Three people can now work comfortably in our little kitchen at the same time; two on either side of the sink, and another over here by the stove.

 We switched out our old office-style whiteboard for my big homemade chalkboard for writing shopping lists and notes next to the pantry. 

 A new custom drawer cabinet replaced the upper cabinet space when the wall between the dining room and kitchen was removed. Our kitchen is tiny, but we have lots of storage. We spray painted all the old hardware oil rubbed bronze, and it's wearing just fine.

We love our kitchen's new bigger work spaces, the bar, the new cabinets, and all the updated surfaces.

  But the main purpose of our remodel was to open the kitchen up to the dining and living rooms so we can spend more time together as a family. 

 My brother was here from California for Thanksgiving and sat at the new bar and visited with me while I cooked dinner during the day. Later, we lit the candles and dimmed all the lights to a soft glow and had our traditional formal dinner in the dining room. It was perfect.

We brought in a few front porch chairs to help us get a feel for the scale of the new furniture we'd like to buy. My new favorite place to sit and read is over in this corner by the front window where I can see the whole house now. My domain!

Our vision was for having a modern day open kitchen and living arrangement that works with our contemporary style of living, while still maintaining the historic integrity of our one hundred year-old cottage.

It's been a big success, and we're so happy we took the huge scary plunge to remove our dining room wall.

I love my kitchen!

If you'd like to see the kitchen and dining room "before" and inspiration pictures, just click here, and if you'd like to see and read about our entire remodel saga, just click here.

{We can't thank Harrison Renovation Company enough for sharing our remodel vision. Owner Trent Howie's expert knowledge of historic craftsman style homes along with painstaking attention to detail and superb craftsmanship helped make the vision we had for our kitchen come true.}

   
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Kitchen Remodel Update #5

The past week saw a lot of work done on the bones of our new kitchen and dining room. 

 All those holes in the plaster that traumatized me last week are nice and smooth again. The bar was built and the new sheet rock was installed. We decided to leave that bit of wall on the right side to save having to move a vent stack located there. We're so glad because we really like the more finished look it maintains in the dining room. 

Another decision we're happy about was wrapping the bar around the dining room wall because it makes room for three people to sit there. These decisions seem like no-brainers after they're made, but each one takes a lot of consideration and discussion with our contractor. He's been a huge help in the decision-making process as we go along and is very patient.

 

Layer after layer of old linoleum had to be removed from the floor to prepare for the new cement board subfloor. It took three days to remove one hundred years worth of accumulated flooring materials.

 

 All the cabinets were built-up higher to get the proper overhang on the counter tops, and new counters were installed. The old counter on this side of my kitchen was only 21 inches deep, so we rarely used it for food prep work. With the wall gone the new one is 25 inches, and the extra 4 inches makes a big difference. The new 18 inch-deep bar top was also installed, and the electrical outlets and switches were roughed-in. 

 

 This new custom 24 inch-wide base cabinet was installed. We actually ordered a three drawer unit to match our others, not this door unit. The supplier has said it will be re-fitted onsite today when the other two cabinets are delivered, so luckily their mistake didn't delay the other work. 

 The cabinet over the stove was raised for more clearance of our new microwave oven. Although it will make this cabinet harder to reach, we like the way it looks a lot. 

We can't say enough good things about our contractor and carpenter at this point. Other than our cramped living arrangements without a kitchen, our remodel has been a good experience so far. After a lifetime of doing it ourselves, we feel so pampered and lucky to have a wonderful professional contractor.

 

 My contributions to the remodel are done for now. I put the last coats of oil based paint on our treasured hutch cabinet doors that I previously stripped. The old wavy glass is still intact after all of my scraping, sanding, and hauling them around the house, shed, and yard. They'll be stored safely in my craft room now until installation at the very end. 

I also soaked the butterfly hinges and latches in boiling water, painstakingly scraped off the old paint, and then oiled them.

I spray painted all our Home Depot satin nickle hardware oil rubbed bronze because it was just too new to replace. If the painted finish doesn't hold up well, then we will replace it.

We also agonized over picked out and purchased a new sink, faucet, and light fixture for above the sink, all ready and waiting to be installed. 

This week the finish work starts with the new counter tops, 2 more cabinets, back splash, trim and painting, and finally, the floor is scheduled to go in early next week. I won't be updating anymore until the whole kitchen is finished because I think it's more fun to see everything all at once, don't you?

Thanks for stopping by today for my last kitchen remodel update! I hope you come back to see my new kitchen all finished soon. 

    

Kitchen Remodel Update #4

It's time for another kitchen remodel update! 

The first day of demolition I stayed behind the plastic barrier on our side of the house and didn't go to look at the kitchen and dining room again until the carpenters were gone for the evening. 

 before

 after

 before

 after

 I thought I was prepared for the demolition stage but, honestly, I almost started crying when I saw my house looking like this. I started questioning whether my vision for our remodel had been a huge mistake!

 before

 after

After looking into the holes in the walls where the stubborn back splash tile had torn off the plaster clear down to the lathe, I just took a very deep breath, reminded myself that the darkest hour is always just before the dawn, and closed the door behind me.

 before

 after

  And sure enough, the following evening when I entered the construction zone after another day of demolition, I was greeted with the open airy light-filled spaces I'd been seeing in my imagination.

 after

after

And I love it!

 

I'm sharing these gorgeous photos at 

The Shabby Nest