Tree Transformation

I'll just get this out of the way: Yes, it's been a long time since I last posted.  We have actually moved into our house and the process of getting settled has been all-consuming.  Projects are still being completed, boxes are still being unpacked, and we are slowly getting things put together.  So I have a TON to share here but I will have to do it a bit at a time. 

Today I want to share a project that has been in the works for many, many months.  Nine months to be exact. 

And NO, I am NOT pregnant.

Prior to building our master suite addition there was a sun porch at the back of the house.  And beside the sun porch was a set of concrete steps and a huge black walnut tree covered in ivy.  All of that had to be removed in order to build the addition.

In the photo above, the sun porch had already been removed.  You can see the concrete wall that supported one side of it and a pile of wood debris on the driveway.  But we are going to focus on the tree.  That big tree you see in the middle of the photo is the star today. 

As you can see, it was big, had lots of dead looking branches, and was completely covered in ivy.  We couldn't see the actual trunk of the tree because of all of that ivy.

We felt a little bit bad about cutting this tree down, but it was necessary in order to build our bedroom.  And while the tree was very much alive, it was also not in the best shape thanks to the thick ivy that was slowly strangling it.

During this entire project, Cory and I tried to either reuse things, give them away, or sell them to be used again.  We filled countless dumpsters with plaster and crap from demo phase, but we really wanted to save anything that still had value.  This tree definitely had value.

So the first thing that had to be done was obviously cutting down the tree.

We didn't tackle this project ourselves since it's a big tree at the top of a hill.  We are not that brave.

But the guys who did it were able to cut the tree so it fell along the side of the driveway.  Perfect.  And after a short time all the ivy leaves died and fell off so we could really see the tree underneath.

It's amazing how ivy can take over a tree!  It is thick and stuck so tightly to the tree that there is no chance of prying it off.

But underneath all that ivy was a gorgeous black walnut tree.  Simply gorgeous.

Eventually, the tree was moved to our front yard where it laid in the grass for a long time.  It was cut down in April and I don't think it left our property for at least two months.  Then my awesome brother-in-law Jason came with his farm truck and a cattle trailer and hauled it away.

This could be where the story of the tree ends.  It gets hauled away to rot in the woods or gets chopped up for firewood . . . thus ending the life of the tree.

But Cory and I had another plan.  A plan to reuse the tree and make it something really cool and useful.

So we asked Jason to take it to a cabinet maker who has a huge kiln for drying big pieces of wood.  This man, Luke, cut the tree into planks and put it in his kiln where it spent about five months drying.  When it was dry we had three twelve foot long planks of wood. 

Our vision for this tree was to turn it into a solid dining room table.  The table we had been using since getting married fifteen years ago was my great-grandparents' table and it was in sad shape.  It needed to be replaced, and what better way to replace it than with a table made from a tree right on our property?

Cory and I each visited Luke's workshop to discuss the plan for the table and what we wanted it to look like.  While a twelve foot table sounds awesome, it would have been far too big for our dining room.  So we had it cut down to eight feet.  The remaining pieces of wood will be made into a sideboard.

After going over all the details with Luke, he finished the table top and then had an iron worker create the legs and skirt of the table.  And it all came out perfectly.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you our family dining room table, made from a Chambersburg native black walnut tree:

The top is two inches thick.  Luke is a master and filled in all the cracks, grooves, and seams with a clear resin so it looks like a solid piece of wood.  We opted not to stain it and instead had a clear poly put on to bring out the natural richness of the wood.

The legs and skirt are a dark metal.  The combination of the wood and metal makes for a very heavy table indeed.

Cory and I couldn't be happier with how this project turned out.  We are so happy that the tree that had to be cut down was given new life in our home.  This table isn't just a piece of furniture we bought at a store. It has a story, a history, a life.  It is the perfect modern-industrial look we love, too. 

Our hope is that we share countless meals together on this table and make memories with our children.  And one day, we hope our kids fight over who inherits this piece.  We think it will serve our family well for a very, very long time.

Counter Tops: An Endless Search For "The One"

Aside from finding the perfect light for each area of the house, the search for the perfect counter top for the kitchen was the most difficult design task Cory and I tackled.  Our house is surrounded by tall trees so despite all the big windows it is still rather shady inside.  So our goal is to keep the interior as light and bright as possible.

We opted for pure white cabinets to reflect as much light as we could into the kitchen. That was an easy decision.  The pop of turquoise in the two open upper cabinets and the island are a fun addition of color.  I don't personally know anyone else who has turquoise cabinets, but if you have the chance to add some color to your kitchen in this way, DO IT!  We love the turquoise.

Anyway, I really want white counter tops as well.  There are already so many colors and textures in the kitchen (hammered copper sinks, stainless appliances, chrome lighting, oil rubbed bronze hardware, gray floors) that I didn't want the counter tops to add more "busyness" to the room.  Plus, the light counters would also reflect light and keep the space bright.

Have you ever shopped for white granite?  No?  Let me clue you in on something: IT'S FLIPPIN' IMPOSSIBLE to find a true white granite!

I started looking at a local granite place.  This particular dealer doesn't have a granite yard with slabs to look through which was a bit disappointing, so I just brought home some samples that looked like they had potential.  The saleslady convinced me to try some black and gray samples as well even though I knew I wanted white.

As you can see, there wasn't much white to choose from.  The white sample on the right is a
pure white quartz.  While I liked how well it matched the white of the cabinetry, it was just too boring.

The gray quartz next to the white was actually very pretty.  Cory liked it immediately and I have to admit that it did look really good against the white.  But . . . it wasn't white.  I had to stay true to my vision.  And the black granite samples were an immediate "no".

See how pretty the gray looks?  If I wanted gray counter tops, this would definitely have been my choice.

Since I didn't find anything I liked at the local granite joint, I decided to drive south and check out the place I've heard about for a long time: The Granite Guys.  They have a huge granite yard with stacks upon stacks of granite slabs.  The photo above shows just one section.

I told the sales gal what I was looking for: something as pure white as possible with movement.  Think cararra marble.  Just not marble.  I have no desire to fret over my counters and worry about stains.

So we checked out the options.

This was a definite no.  I liked the white, but there is far too much black and the stone is too patterned.  The all-over speckled look is not what I was going for at all.

What lovely movement this stone has!  I really love the lines of this stone.  However, the contrast between the white and black / gray is just a bit too intense.  This stone was on my top three list for a while.

Another stone that was on my top three list.  I like that it is mostly white and it has small areas of movement.  But those areas are quite small and some of the veins are orange in hue.  Not really the color I want on my counters.  But a strong contender as an overall stone for sure.

This was also a top choice.  Again, the white parts are great and it has some nice movement.  It's just a bit sporadic and there are too many black spots.

I came home from the granite yard with lots of photos and another handful of quartz samples.

I thought that this quartz was going to be "it" when I saw it in the showroom.  It looked pure white and it had subtle movement that wasn't black.  Cory saw it and liked it too.

Then I put it next to the white cabinets and saw that it would definitely not work.  Next to the pure white cabinets, the quartz looked yellow.  Bummer.

By this point I was feeling quite frustrated.  The Granite Guys schooled me on granite and I learned that pure white granite simply doesn't exist.  Since it's a natural stone, it's always going to have some veins and marks and usually they will be dark.  I certainly didn't want just a plain white granite, but I did want the white to have a blue base (not yellow) so it didn't look yellow or dingy next to the cabinets.  And finding such a granite was proving to be very, very difficult.

Out of desperation, Cory and I hit up a third granite / quartz supplier: Lowe's.  Yep, the good 'ol big box store.  They had one white quartz that had potential so we brought a sample home to see how it looked next to the cabinets.  I won't even bother posting what that looked like. (Not good.)

What's a girl to do?  Time was ticking by and we had to choose a counter soon.  I either had to be less picky or by some miracle find something somewhere else.  So I hit the internet and did some research.  I soon discovered that there are two stones that designers go to when they want a true white look.  I called The Granite Guys and asked if they had either of them, and they did.  Unfortunately, one of them doesn't come in slabs large enough for what we need for our island, so it was out.  But I arranged to pick up a sample of the other one the next day.

Cory was kind enough to make the trip down to Hagerstown to grab the sample (it's about a 40 minute drive) and when he brought it to the house I was big time bummed.  It was the exact same stone as another sample I already had under a different name.  WHY???

So we stared at our pile of samples, scoured the internet for photos of counters we liked, and tried to figure out what on earth we were going to do.  We tossed around the idea of a wood counter for the island and quartz for the rest of the kitchen.  We looked into concrete only to learn it was more expensive than quartz.  And ultimately I decided to make one more trip to The Granite Guys.  I left determined to come home with a decision. There just HAD to be something there that would speak to me.

And then,

I met Ambrosia, otherwise known as River White. Why, hello there, pretty lady!  Where have you been all summer?  After walking around the granite yard yet again, looking at all my original selections and a few others and rating them 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice, I happened to glance to my left and see this beautiful white / gray stone.

It isn't pure white, but it has a white base and a soft gray that would complement the kitchen nicely.  And that veining and movement?  DROOL.  I found my stone.

I had to wait a day or two for the sales rep to send me photos of bigger slabs since the one I saw had already been cut.  The new slabs they got didn't look exactly like the first one but they were still gorgeous.

One of the two co-owners of the business, Tom, came to the house to make templates for the granite.  This is when it started feeling real. We were actually going to have counter tops!  Hooray!

Since I hadn't seen the two slabs that would become my counters, I made yet another drive down to the granite yard to check them out in person and give the final word of approval.  There is movement, areas of surprising purpley / burgundy tones, and even flecks that sparkle.  Most importantly, it is very light in overall color and isn't speckled.  Win!

Tom had drawn the template shapes on the stones so I could see exactly which parts of the stones would end up in my kitchen and how they would look.  You can see the white lines if you look closely.

While waiting for the counters to be fabricated, I met another granite distributor who told me that the granite I chose is from India.  Apparently, the granite quarries in India were shut down for a period of time because the owners were burying boxes of slabs to avoid paying taxes on them.  The government discovered what they were doing and shut down the quarries.  So River White was very hard to find for a long time.  The quarries are open again, thankfully, but the tax evasion and government shut-down caused a supply and demand issue and subsequently granite from India rose in price.  Thanks, Indian quarry owners.  Interesting tidbits about granite though!

About two weeks later, which was this past Monday, the finished counters arrived.  I can't even tell you how excited I was to see that van pull up outside the house!  It was like being a kid on Christmas morning. The anticipation was huge and I was chomping at the bit to see gorgeous stone installed.

The guys started with the small pieces.  These cabinets will surround the range.

And these cabinets are on either side of the fridge / freezer.

Pretty!  I'm pleasantly surprised that I truly love the light gray / white against the pure white cabinets.  It's just enough contrast without looking too dark.

Then it was time to install the long counter at the front of the kitchen.

This is the only area that has to have a seam and fortunately, the seam is just a couple inches at the back of the sink where the facet will be.  It will be almost completely hidden.  

These two guys were awesome.  They really know what they are doing and took great care to install the stone perfectly.

Once we were all happy with how the stone was situated, the guys did their thing and secured it to the cabinets.  The apron sink is undermounted so they made sure it was sealed tightly to the granite.

Then the "stuff" used to fill in the seam was mixed and applied.  The guys used a razor blade to make sure the seam was totally smooth and didn't stop making adjustments until the blade didn't catch on anything at all.  Impressive.

While these two fellas were working on the smaller pieces, Tom showed up to help install the big island slab.  This sucker is BIG.  And big means heavy.  So before the slab could be laid they had to install metal support brackets for the overhang on two sides of the island.  This will ensure that the stone remains well-supported even at the 12 inch overhang areas where we will have seating.

And then . . . the unthinkable happened.

One of the guys measured the area for the prep sink to make sure he had it positioned correctly, went out to the van where the island slab awaited, and walked back inside with a grimace on his face.  I immediately knew something was wrong.  He measured again, looked at me, and said, "It's cut wrong."  Then he walked back out to measure the stone again.  Tom, remember, he's the owner AND he's the one who made the templates, was not a happy camper to say the least.  They went back and forth from island to stone, measuring and re-measuring, but there was no denying it.  He didn't account for the overhand when he drew in the cut for the sink so the hole for the sink wasn't in the right place.

I could have cried.

After much discussion, Tom said he would get another slab and make a new counter.  He called his partner right there on the spot to get the process started.  He definitely was upset with himself as it was clearly his mistake and I felt bad for him.  But I also felt bad for, well, ME!  I didn't want to wait any longer for the main piece!  

The counter was made priority and believe it or not, the van pulled up TODAY at lunchtime.  

It took five men and a special dolly to get the stone on the island.  Granite weighs approximately 20-25 pounds per square foot, so we estimated that this piece weighs between 750-900 pounds.  Woah.

Of course, right after I took the above photo my phone died and I had left my camera at home.  So I had to wait until I picked the kids up this afternoon to snap photos of the finished product.  

Isn't it pretty?  Three of the corners are rounded (the corners that overhang for seating) so we don't break our hips if we bump into them.  All the counters have a 1/4 radius edge so it has a modern finish that is still comfortable to lean your arms against.

I love the movement and the subtle grays and pops of color.

The hammered copper looks really nice with the stone too.

I really couldn't be happier with this stone.  It was well-worth the stress and many trips to Hagerstown and elsewhere to find it.  The kitchen is coming together!  

We're Floored

One thing was certain when Cory and I purchased our new home: all of the floors needed to be replaced.  Not only were the original floors worn, stained, and a bit stinky from animal pee, they also didn't flow from room to room.

The wood floor in the family room was nice, but this wood was only in the family room and butler's pantry.

Wide-plank wood was in lots of areas of the house.  However, it was stained in some areas, was only around the perimeter of many rooms, and simply isn't the style we are into.

Do you recall the thick slate tiles in the foyer?  It's hard to believe how much concrete was under there.

And let's not even talk about the unfortunate carpets that graced the floors of the existing bedrooms.

Since we totally changed the floor plan upstairs, made lots of tweaks downstairs, and added an addition onto the house, it only made sense to overhaul the floors and choose something new that we could carry throughout the house.

Cory and I looked at lots of different options but we were fairly certain we knew what we wanted.  We definitely wanted wood - real wood - and we were rather confident that we wanted something in the grey family.

After looking at a couple local flooring stores and discovering that none of them had anything that we loved, I started scouring the internet.  I quickly came across a company called Cali Bamboo and I absolutely loved what I saw on their website.

Our original plan was to convert the old baseboard heaters to radiant floor heating.  Most flooring companies do not allow their products to be used over radiant heat, but Cali Bamboo does.  That was a huge selling point for us.  It turns out that we didn't go with radiant heat for a few reasons, but if we ever decide to bite the money bullet in the future, these floors will hold up just fine.

I ordered three samples from Cali Bamboo in the three shades of grey they carry.  When they arrived we couldn't get over how thick and gorgeous they were.  Our contractor was also impressed, especially after he dug his car key into the finish to see if the wood would scratch and it didn't leave even the slightest mark.

We chose our favorite shade of grey and I did some sweet talking with the Cali Bamboo representative.  When you have to order enough bamboo to cover the amount of flooring we have, well, you need to get a good deal.  The representative was incredibly easy to work with and he gave us a bit of a discount in return for submitting photos of the finished job and providing a testimonial for their website.  Score!

While we were vacationing at the beach, our contractor sent Cory a photo of the flooring delivery.

Over 13,000 pounds of bamboo arrived, and of course it was unloaded onto the driveway.  We felt just a wee bit guilty that one guy had to carry all that flooring inside and stack it in various rooms.  This photo doesn't even show all the boxes plus the rolls of padding that he had to move.  Poor guy.  I hope he iced his muscles that night.

Anyway, the flooring remained in the boxes for more than a month while we waited for some other things, like painting, to be completed.  Then we had to unpack the wood and stack it to acclimate for at least three days before laying it.

My sister Becky and I unpacked a bunch of these boxes one evening and discovered the joys of countless splinters in our hands.  It was great fun.

And we stacked it like Cali Bamboo recommends so it can acclimate.

A few weeks later Cory and I tackled a huge stack of boxes that was in the large living room.  I unpacked the boxes and Cory carried all the wood upstairs.  487 trips up the stairs later and we had this nice stack in Tessa's bedroom to use in the kids' study.

When we finally were ready to lay the bamboo we decided to start in our master closet.  Our contractor recommended we start here because if we made a mistake as we learned how to lay the wood, we would be the only ones to see it.  That made sense to us.  So after clearing the room and using the shop vac to suck up all the dust and bits of debris, we began by laying the padding.  This green stuff is really durable . . . and really tough to cut with the junky scissors I brought from home.  Our hands cramped every time we had to cut this stuff.

The room was prepped and we were ready to roll.  The first piece of bamboo went down and it looked so preeeeeeetty!  

Cory got a tad bit frustrated at first because the boards didn't want to stay together.  Then our contractor came in, saw our struggle, and gave us some wood shims to put along the wall so Cory had something to push the wood against.  Because this wood needs to float, we had to leave a 1/4 inch gap around the edges.  Without the shims, Cory had nothing to hold the boards in place.  Once this problem was solved he was able to move quickly and make lots of progress.

Both of us truly enjoyed using the big saw to cut the boards.  That tool is so. much. fun.  I think I want one.

Cory used the table saw to cut some of the last boards down to size.  I think he wants one of these saws as well.

A couple hours later, we were down to the last little piece of wood for the closet!  

In it went, and the closet was done.  

We LOVE how it turned out!  I don't think either of us realized how capable we are to do projects like this, so it's pretty cool to see our handiwork.  And this bamboo looks awesome.  The color is perfect, the wide planks are are exactly what we wanted, and it gives the house the modern look and feel we love.

This was just the first room of many, but it definitely gave us the confidence we needed to move forward with the rest of the house.  More pics of the rest of the rooms are forthcoming! 

Kitchen Overhaul

Like most people, Cory and I have often dreamed about our ideal kitchen.  It would have shiny, high-end appliances, gorgeous cabinetry, tons of storage, solid surface counter tops, and all the bells and whistles you can image.  It would be spacious, open, and airy.  It would be the space where the family and guests naturally convene to spend time together.  It would be perfect.

If we had been able to build our forever home we likely would have been able to create the space of our dreams.  But since we never did find the perfect place to build, the kitchen we ended up with in our house left a lot to be desired.  

A lot.  LOT.

Photos don't do this kitchen justice.  The cabinets lacked proper shelving on the inside and were dirty and awkwardly shaped.  The island was bizarre to say the least.  There were outdoor sconces on either side of the Snow White windows.  Everything just felt . . . eh.

A major overhaul was definitely in order.

This space presented many challenges for us to overcome.  I fought SUPER hard to save one very cool feature in the kitchen that I only briefly shared here a few months ago.

I was totally smitten by the idea of a gorgeous set of back stairs leading down to the kitchen.  I could imagine the kids traipsing sleepily down the stairs in their jammies in the morning and plopping down at an island to eat breakfast.  I could envision them sitting quietly on the stairs on Christmas Eve, listening for the sound of Santa leaving presents under the tree.  

I really wanted these stairs.

But then reality slapped me across the face as I fully absorbed just how steep and narrow these stairs were.  And my visions of cute kids creeping down the stairs quickly became nightmares of kids with broken noses and ankles as they fell down the stairs instead.

And from a design standpoint, the stairs took up valuable kitchen space that would be much better suited for things like, oh, appliances.

My beloved kitchen stairs had to go.

During the winter months, Cory and I spent nights and weekends completely demolishing the kitchen.  Not only did the stairs end up in the dumpster, so did the cabinets, counters, and flooring.

Piece by piece, Cory and I and his dad took apart the kitchen.  Take note of the lovely construction of the cabinets.

This mini-fridge that had to be at least 20 years old was tucked inside a cabinet under the window.  Beside it were wooden boards sitting upon metal racks: shelves for those who have never seen such magnificent construction.

The island was tricky to take apart because of the plumbing.  Cory used one of his new favorite tools, a Saws All, to cut the boards around the pipes.  Unfortunately, he nicked one of them and we had a nifty fountain in the kitchen until he turned the water off.

Such fun memories.

With most of the cabinets removed the kitchen became an empty space full of dirty debris.  And we could clearly see the footprint we had to work with when designing our new kitchen.

We could also see that it wasn't much space.  One wall had three doors: a door to the garage, a door to a closet, and a door to the back stairs.  The front wall had an exterior door and a bank of windows.  It didn't allow for much wall space at all.

Plus, there was a narrow wall between the kitchen and family room that was simply in the way.

We had a good idea of what we wanted to do, but there was still tons of clean-up to tackle before setting about making this our dream kitchen.  The floors were beyond gross.  Several layers of linoleum sat upon "asbestos suspicious" green tiles.  Cory and his dad did their best to get it all out of there, but that green stuff was stuck fast to some areas and wasn't budging.  It will have to remain that way.

So our grand plan for the kitchen was a bit involved.  We really needed more square footage in order to fit everything in there comfortably.  So we decided to completely remove the front wall (the one with the windows) and bump out the kitchen four feet.  There was a porch there before, so essentially the porch became part of the kitchen.

Removing this wall was quite a process.  We had to remove all the plaster and old insulation, which was just gray dirt after 55 years of sitting in the walls.  Then I (yes, I) had to shovel all that mess into buckets, carry the buckets of filth outside to the dumpster, and dump it all in.  That doesn't sound like a big deal, but that stuff is heavy and dirty and after an hour or so of shoveling and dumping my muscles were shot.

Then the professional crew had to build the new outside wall.  Fortunately, the existing porch footings and concrete were sufficient for the base of the addition.  It took some time, but eventually the new walls were built and we could take down the old wall.

Those three windows?  Yeah, they are all ONE window.  And they weigh approximately 7,372 pounds.  And Cory and I had to remove them and move them to the garage ourselves.  I may have burst a vein in my forehead.

We basically had to remove ALL the plaster in the kitchen.  Every wall had to be stripped down to the studs.  The narrow wall between the kitchen and family room needed to go, too.  In order to make this one big, open space, a beam had to be set between the two rooms.

This was serious work man.  Serious.  Work.

And it seemed to take forever.

But hey, look!  A beam!  The crew built some new supports at the sides of the kitchen and before long we had and open kitchen / family room.

My goodness!  Look at that!  Through the magic of not blogging very often, the once gross, debris-filled, empty space has transformed into an almost-kitchen!  In reality, it took almost six months to get to this point.  The front of the kitchen is now four feet deeper.  We had to put a second beam overhead where the old wall was because it turned out to be a structural wall.  And this beam has caused a bit of a headache for us.

There is now a little nook in the right corner where cabinets just don't fit correctly due to the support wall for the beam.

If we put a cabinet with a drawer here as planned, we could only open the drawer about six inches.  Fail.  So instead we are going to put some open shelving there and use it for a coffee / pet food nook.  Fingers crossed it works.

The wall that once had three doors and the back stairs is now home to cabinetry and a spot for a fridge and freezer.  The area to the right where the back stairs once were is now a door to the garage.

Another change to the structure of the room is the doorway to the dining room.  We had to move it to the left to accommodate the bump-out of the front wall and the placement of the new cabinets on the right side wall. 

Our cabinets are a modern, shaker style in pure white.  There are so many trees around the house that make the inside shady, so my goal is to make the space as light and bright as possible.  However, the large island that has yet to arrive will be a gorgeous turquoise green.  I'm giddy thinking about it.  *smile*

So, to say the kitchen has undergone a major transformation is well, accurate.  It barely resembles the space it used to be.

And that makes me very, very happy.