Kitchen Update | One Room Challenge Week 3

It’s week three of the One Room Challenge hosted by Calling it Home, and that means the challenge is officially half way over. The kitchen is coming along, but we still have so much to do!

At the end of last week, I set the goals of finishing painting the cabinets and tiling the back splash (PS – if you missed weeks one and two, see them here and here). We didn’t quite make it, but we’re getting closer. The cabinets are ALMOST finished. I have only five doors left out of 27, and I give that a hallelujah!

The tile project is still ongoing, but I have a good feeling about it getting done this week.

One small but important project we did tackle this week was re-casing the kitchen window and installing a new over-sink light. This turned out to be one of those seemingly simply tasks that ends up taking way longer than you imagined.

Here’s what we had to contend with when we took down the old tube light.

The casing had been cut into to fit the light, so it had to be replaced so that we could install this Ikea light.

A word to anyone who might consider this light (which I would recommend, because for $15 it’s pretty darn cute)–there is no room inside the mount to house the wiring, even though it looks like there would be. The design hinges on you having an electrical box inside the ceiling, so Justin had to drill into the cabinet above and install one. He also suffered a flesh wound cutting the window casing.

I’m a total weenie when it comes to splinters, so I was freaking out over this, but Justin very calmly removed it AFTER finishing installing the window. When we first met, Justin wowed me by showing me a trick where he put a pencil in his ear and pulled it out his nose–almost 8 years later, he still knows how to impress. 🙂

We still have a few touch ups to go, but the window is looking great!

I also (finally) managed to settle on a floor color this week. Last week I set out a few options for paint colors, but naturally I didn’t end up going with any of them. Instead I got the idea that I needed the color that had been in our bedroom at our last house (Valspar Frasier Fir). It turns out Lowe’s no longer carries the swatches for Valspar Signature and has new Sherwin Williams displays instead. So I grabbed Sherwin Williams Green Kale, and I think it’s going to be perfect. Here it is next to last week’s color front runner, which turned out to be too bright, and too blue.

You can get an even better sense of how it will look here.

The darker color works better, don’t you think?

I’m looking forward to leaving the cabinets behind and moving onto other projects this week. Here’s what we have left from the original plan:

• Put glass or plexiglass inserts into to the upper cabinet doors around the windows.
• Finish installing a subway tile backsplash.
• Paint the floors
• Scrape the ceilings
• Replace the sunroom ceiling fan with recessed lighting.

I’m also excited to see what the other linking participants are up to this week. Don’t forget to check out lots of other projects here!