The kitchen and utility room flooring has been removed.
After selecting a nice laminate wood and laying out several pieces to make sure we liked it...
Mi Miguel put down the muffler (keeps the tapping noise down when walking on the floor) and then quickly began cutting the doorway trim. He then tucked the planks under them and moved quickly after all the cuts were made.
Laying the rest of the floor was easy-peasy. You simply hold them at an angle and snap them into place.
Yes, it's that simple. No glue required and we're pretty pleased with the overall appearance.
Our options were limited since we had to flow with the living room and dining room. I like it. Once the cabinets are painted, I think it will look really nice.
The ceiling is Mi Miguel's next big project. I really like the coastal cozy cottage look.
When I showed this photo to Mi Miguel, He said, "We can do that." I'm amazed. I really like the look of it. Seriously, how hard can it be. Right?
About those doors. Hm. We both worked on removing 13 doors of the 44 doors and drawers. We then removed the hinges and all organizers and hooks.
First, I scrubbed them down with a degreaser.
Then I washed them, towel dried them and let them set for several hours to be sure they were completely dried.
I lightly sanded the doors on both sides and around the edges. I'm using an electric sander ever so gently, it makes the sanding process so much quicker.
This is a great time to fill any holes or flaws with wood putty. Let this dry and lightly sand the putty until it's even with the wood.
I gently wiped over them with dish soap water on a soft cloth...
and then rinsed them with a wet cloth and let them dry.
Finally, I got to put my first thin coat of primer on the doors. I put each door on a piece of wood to lift it up off of the table. That way I could paint around the edges of the door. I used a small sponge roller and kept the layer pretty thin. I waited several hours, flipped the doors over and put a thin coat of primer on the flip side.
After about 4 hours of waiting for the primer to dry, I went over the entire doors lightly with fine sandpaper.
I wiped them over really well with tack cloth.
After all dust and debris was removed from the doors (there wasn't much but you don't want any little bits and pieces of anything ruining your paint job,) you can then apply your second thin coat of primer and let it dry for 3 or 4 hours depending on the humidity.
Lightly sand the second coat of primer and...
gently wipe them down with a barely damp soft cloth. Let the water have a several minutes to dry and then...
go over them with tack cloth, again to remove any bits and pieces of whatever may be left behind from the sanding and such.
Here are the doors with the second coat of primer. I had to work inside due to the high humidity in Sunny Florida.
I'm now ready to put on my first thin coat of paint. Here goes...
Hopefully, my next blog post will be all about how I finished painted both coats of paint on the first 13 doors.
In the meantime, if you've been following my Facebook Page:https://www.facebook.com/groups/floridarestaurants/
You know that we finally completed the entire alphabet on Florida Restaurants A-Z journey. Because there so many restaurants here in Florida, I have something new and exciting planned for our next restaurant adventure.
My next blog entry will also include a fascinating person. Be ready.
This is a before photo of our kitchen. First we had to clear out the previous owners things and then remove the linoleum.
The flooring on top is our living room and dining room ceramic tile. We purchased the dark wood a few days ago for the kitchen.
After Mi Miguel and I get install the wood floor, we'll venture into trying to paint the kitchen cabinets. I like this one but not a big fan of the staggered cabinets with only 8 foot ceilings in our home. The cabinets are pressed wood with oak veneer. If we ruin them, it's okay. At least we tried to salvage them rather than dumping them in a landfill.
The cool green and almost pure white appeals to me. But, I'm not sure if it will flow well with the blue and green I already have in the living room and dining room.
I love the simplicity of this one. The upper cabinets need glass doors though. This one is probably my favorite because it looks so easy to do (except for the ceiling).
The time has come for us to choose a kitchen style and color. The floor should be done by Monday. We've already removed the ceiling fan. We hope to keep the skylight and maybe try to arch the ceiling with planks like the one in the above photo. It'll take real creativity to accomplish a cottage style ceiling. But, I mean seriously, how hard can it be?
Here's a close up of the cabinets. I can paint those, right?
This is what you'll see on any given day in our part of Florida. For as long as I live I'll always enjoy the beauty of nature. We started out our day of the art show event seeing this lonely crane tip toeing through the vines and grass.
As the day progressed we stumbled across a pond that had a wide array of birds. This is a Muscovy duck nestled in the grass. Can you see him?
Male and female Muscovy ducks waddling towards me.
An ibis and a wood stork. There's quite a difference in their size.
An ibis could easily walk underneath a wood stork.
There was such a variety of birds congregated at the pond. They didn't seem to mind each others company.
Even though the wood stork is so large, the ibises feel very comfortable foraging for food next to this large billed bird.
The Muscovy duck is fascinating to me because some would say they are ugly, I think they are beautiful. Each one is so different than the next.
"Do not feed the wildlife", but apparently people do, because they aren't intimidated by people.
Just look at that splash of black and white dappling of feathers.
As you can see he was more than happy to pose at all angles for me.
His lady friend decided to join our photo session once again.
Apparently, October is springtime here in sunny Florida. We saw little baby ducks everywhere.
Baby Muscovy ducks crossing the street to get to the pond.
It's difficult to see these little buggers. They are dark grey to black with an orange beak. They were a bit timid and shy and stayed close to the foliage.
Of course it wouldn't be fall or spring or whatever the month of October is called here in Florida if there wasn't a crow waiting for all the people and birds to leave so they can scavenge the area for leftovers.
When we came home there were several ibises on our front lawn. They diligently poked their way over to the neighbor's yard.
After a day of enjoying art and birds and sometimes both at the same time, we came home to relax and enjoy a quiet evening. google image
I've been pulling up the old linoleum for the past several months. You can still see a wee little bit there in the upper corner.
On a whim, Mi Miguel said, "Hey let's go look at kitchen flooring!" So rather than relax, we were off yet again.
The flooring store we go to has an abundance of choices. The thought of doing the kitchen has been overwhelming to us; we were determined to pick out something. We had sample planks all over the store.
After about two hours sorting through samples and laying them out on the floor with a few sample pieces of our living room tile, this is what we came up with. Once we get the cabinets painted a nice cream color, I think the wood planks and ceramic plank blend will give us the relaxed coastal cottage feel that we've been shooting for.
Sunday, we went back to the Gunn Highway flea market to the Leppert Lighting and Home Decor booths. We found our temporary lighting for the living room, foyer and dining room months ago there. This time we found the cutest exterior lights for each side of the entry door. These are definitely my forever lights for the front of the house. Aren't they cute in design? I need to paint them though.
We hurriedly came home from the flea market and met up with our friends that are like our family and went to our letter X and Y restaurant over the weekend. You can find the results of our visits at https://www.facebook.com/groups/floridarestaurants/?ref=bookmarks
