We finally finished our galley kitchen remodel! In the last post about it, it was being demoed. I was hoping to have project-by-project posts, but instead here’s one giant before-and-after post.

We’ll start with the “After”, then the “Before” from the dining room.

From the living room (after):

And before:

Guys…this one tiny room completely transformed our house. It went from a 6′ wide closet of a kitchen to a place where everyone wanted to (and could!) be.

We were finally able to enjoy cooking together again.

There were still some things we didn’t get to, like the backsplash we had planned, which would have really warmed the room up, and replacing the main light fixture, but we’re still pretty pleased with how far we did get!

The layout changes

The biggest change was obviously ripping out the wall. A galley kitchen just wasn’t going to work for us. We built an island where the wall used to start. Not only was it way more open, but we could also now access the kitchen from more than one spot.

We also swapped fridge and stove positions to further open things up.

The cabinets

The cabinets were a huge score. One day we randomly went into a Restore (by Habitat For Humanity) second-hand store hoping to find some art for the dining room and ended up with “new” kitchen cabinets.

They had been the showpieces at a nice cabinet store…which meant they were never actually used, but it also meant that they had all the upgrades like olive wood drawers, amazing slide out cubbies and baskets, built-in spice racks, tiny bonus cupboards on the ends for small items, and more.

They came in a really nice gray, but while I intended to paint them black (and already had the paint), we ran out of time.

So the cabinets were very affordable, and as we love, we opted for open shelving on top.

The island was super fun to do. Since space was really limited, but we needed more storage, we used some of the upper cabinets for the island as they are only 15 inches deep. The Hubs built a base fastened to the floor to attach the cabinets to. Here’s a video of how to build a sub frame if you’re using wall cabinets for bases, so you can get a visual of it.

Then we used a regular depth countertop which overhung perfectly for counter-height stools.

We put veneer over the sides and backs of the cabinets and then painted them with a custom color to match the rest of the cabinets.

The cabinets were the perfect depth for pots and pans and all those random kitchen items.

The floor

We pulled up three layers of flooring down to the original hardwood, but sadly it was way beyond repair (looks-wise!). We weighed our options, and decided to go with the very affordable, very fast peel-and-stick vinyl.

If it wasn’t that, it was going to be real tile, and we didn’t have the time or the budget for that at the moment.

We put down new subflooring on top of the hardwood for a clean surface to stick to. Then it’s just a project you can work on for a couple hours a day until it’s done! At least that’s how I do it.

A big thing I love about peel and stick is that because there isn’t nearly the time and financial investment, I’m not afraid to go bold.

We used Achim Geometric pattern tiles. I loved them.

The appliances

The big splurges were the fridge and stove, though we did wait until they were on sale. We went with black stainless steel (since the lower cabinets were supposed to be black).

We started buying counter-depth refrigerators years ago, and just can’t go back to standard depth. Less food gets lost in the back, AND it just looks so much better and saves that much more room in the kitchen.

The range hood was from Amazon. It was more affordable there, but it was a little frustrating to install with the way the sleeve was designed.

The sink and counters

The sink was special to me. Since we were going to go black on the cabinets, I also wanted a black sink to sit on the marble-look counters. We found this single bowl sink from Kohler and paired it with this gorgeous (and affordable) gold faucet.

The counters were our old favorites from Ikea. We got shock and disbelieving comments from both a pair of designer friends and from realtors that were visiting when we told them they were IKEA. Highly recommend!

The pantry

The pantry was a huge change too. I can’t currently find an image of what it was originally but…

The door to the right inside the kitchen was a little hallway with a door to the back yard at the end.

When we bought the house, that hallway had three closets in it for pantry-type storage. It was clever, but a lot of the spaces were awkward and because of the doors, things would pile up and get messy in there really fast.

So we gutted it.

We didn’t want to take out the walls as well, but they were plastered within an inch of their life and it was just not pretty.

So we took it all down and started with fresh drywall.

I always wanted a butler’s pantry, so we built one. And it was so much more functional! It was also a great place to store dry goods, which is always the one thing missing when you go with open shelves for uppers in the kitchen.

We also removed the door so it would flow better.

The pictures aren’t that great because it’s such a tiny space (and we left in such a hurry), but there were two full lower cabinets and one extra large upper hanging above them. Then we had more open shelves, and an open section underneath for a trash can and rain boots.

We didn’t keep detailed records, but including the splurge on higher-end appliances, we estimate the whole remodel at $15,000. The biggest costs were the appliances and then the building materials (the wall we ripped out was load-bearing, so we needed to put in a lot of quality materials and care there).

So worth it to go from the very cramped galley kitchen to a big open one for a couple who loves to cook and entertain.

So there it is! Our years-in-the-making galley kitchen remodel!

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The post Finished 1940s galley kitchen remodel appeared first on Little Victorian.

Last week I posted about remodeling the kitchen. Here’s the story on why this all started.

Back in November (yes, it’s MAY), we were going to host Thanksgiving. Days before, the main sewer pipe in our house rotted through.

I was downstairs doing laundry when water came down from upstairs and rocketed out the back side of the pipe and onto the wall of the basement. Not good.

Our current house has only one bathroom, and it’s on the other side of the kitchen, so the main pipe runs down the wall between the two rooms.

The bathroom is still vintage tile wall that we don’t have any interest in ripping out. The kitchen however, we wanted to gut. (At some point…later down the road…many months or even a year from this point…) But one of the walls had to go.

Kitchen it was. Days before Thanksgiving for 10.

We patched the pipe up enough to give us a few days to demolish cabinets so we could get to the wall.

The dresser posing as cabinets came out first, then the breakfast bar.

After that, we removed 5 layers of drywall and paneling (!) to get down to the studs so we would have a lot more room to move around in there.

And the wall was going to go anyway.

Then the stove came out along with the cabinet that was up against the back wall and we finally got to the offending pipe so it could be replaced.

The uppers are also down now, the fake brick and the drywall are also gone, and that’s where we are right now!

Next is removing the studs and putting a header in (the wall is load-bearing), then putting drywall back up on the back wall.

After that, we’ll put in the new cabinets (still have to wait until we can actually purchase some), countertops, new sink, and appliances.

The post Kitchen demo appeared first on Little Victorian.

We got the dividing wall up in the bathroom, and our house officially went from a 1.1 bath to a 1.5 bath.  It’s week two of the One Room Challenge!

The shower had pretty cute mother of pearl plastic tiles on the two walls.  But the bottoms of the walls were rotten underneath, so they and all the very hard glue they left behind (the brown stuff in the photo) had to be chiseled off so we could save the drywall on the top halves. (Wow that part took a long time.)

The tub is rounded on both sides, so we couldn’t just make a wall that butted up to the tub, we had to overlap the tub a little with the studs.  

We framed it out, and put up water resistant drywall.  

We were of course hoping that this would be a one-day project so we wouldn’t be without a shower, but of course things didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped.  We purchased cement board to use for the walls, but it was SO difficult to work with that it was taking about 5 times as long as usual. 

There wasn’t time to go back to the store that first day, so we had to go without a shower.  Thankfully, the Hubs is awesome, and when we first moved in, he set me up a dog bathing station in the basement.  Complete with a nice hand-held showerhead, and easy hot and cold adjustments.  We have concrete floors, and he placed the station right between two floor drains.  

So we showered in the basement.  

Because the Hubs had to be back in the office all week, there was hardly any time to work on it, and it took all week.  But it’s done!  And it’s solid, quality work.  And it’s good to be showering in a shower again.  

Finishing the tub area is up next!

The post We have a wall! And a 1.5 bath house. appeared first on Little Victorian.

I’ve mentioned our…unique bathroom a few times here and there.  But you haven’t gotten to see it yet.  Because it’s been awful.  

The reactions–including ours the first time we saw the house–are always a blank stare in utter confusion, and then laughing.  

Here’s the listing photo from when the house was listed for sale:

Yeah, that’s not a mirror behind the tub, that’s another toilet and sink.

When the house was appraised before we purchased it, the appraiser put down that it was a 1.1 bath house. ?

The toilet and sink on the other side of the tub make up the “Powder Room” that we made over last month for the $100 Room Challenge.  Obviously, it looks a little bit different now.  

There was no way we wanted to have overnight guests over with that room (and we like to have guests often), so we put up a temporary wall between the tub and the second toilet shortly after moving in and we’ve been living with it that way since.  

It was all temporary though, because the other 2 walls around the tub were in bad shape and needed to be replaced, and we wanted to do something better than the plastic 1960s tiles that were in there.

The bathroom also has a cabinet built in.  The cabinet actually goes all the way through the wall, with doors in the hallway behind it too.  It is nice, but it is so awkward-looking as it is.

So, it’s perfect timing for the fall One Room Challenge!  This makeover challenge doesn’t have a dollar limit, just a time limit of 6 weeks (5 to do the work in).  In all honesty, we did get some things started already.  Nothing is even close to finished though.  Next week, we’ll show you the temporary wall, and the demolition of it, and the putting up of the new wall.  After that…here’s the plan:

• New vanity
• New sink
• Replace medicine cabinet with mirror and light fixture
• New flooring
• Repaint ceiling and walls
• Something to make the cabinet wall look less awkward

The post The World’s Weirdest Bathroom appeared first on Little Victorian.

This post contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase something after clicking a link, Amazon will give me a percentage for recommending them, at no cost to you.

Another week in the $100 Room Challenge is done!  Plans changed slightly because of what was and wasn’t available in my budget/time frame.

Accomplished this week:

• Removing glue on walls from backsplash
• Covering countertop with contact paper
• Sanded vanity and filled holes from previous knobs
• Mudding and patching holes in walls
• Painted walls
• Pulled up flooring
• Discovered (and repaired) a rotten subfloor under the toilet

The vanity countertop was TRICKY.  The hardest part was getting vinyl that had been curved for 57 years to lay flat so I could have a smooth surface for the contact paper.  It didn’t totally happen.  Once the backsplash was off, I heated small sections with our heat gun, then used a brad nailer to fasten it down while it was still soft.

In a couple places, the paper backing had cracked, so I have some pretty good lumps, but I’m just going to pretend they’re not there!

Once it was as good as it was going to get, I covered it in the marble contact paper.  This was SO easy.  Last time I did that project, I used a granite look, so the seams were nearly impossible to find.  Because this was marble, I was a little worried about the seams being obvious, but it wasn’t a big deal at all.  The application was a piece of cake too and took less than 30 minutes.  I splurged on the high quality contact paper rather than the stuff from the dollar store, and I’m so glad I did.  It’s much thicker and easier to remove and reapply if you don’t place it correctly the first time.  (And the cheap stuff only has 2 patterns to choose from, and I didn’t want either one.)

The room was repainted too!  I was planning on going with a white-ish color, but when I was at the DIY store, there was a quart of Oops paint in a warm dark gray for $1(!).  So that’s what I did.  It turned out being very dark and charcoal-y, which I loved, but it was a little too dark for this room, especially since it would have been the same color as the floors.

So I lightened it up with white paint I had on hand, and here we are:

Then finally, we ripped up the old vinyl floor so we could put down new vinyl floor tiles, but in the process, found that the subfloor under the toilet was rotten and spongy.  Boo.  Hubs had to go back to the DIY store for the 137th time this week.  (And FYI: I am NOT counting the cost of new subfloor panels towards my $100 budget–I’m considering that home maintenance and not decorating.)  

We did get the floor repaired in just a couple hours, but it delayed the new floors going down, obviously.  

Still to do:

• Finish laying new floor tiles
• Clean up caulk lines on countertop
• Refinish vanity
• Install new drawer knobs
• Hang new mirror
• Hang new light fixture

Easy peasy.  ?

Go check out what the other ladies participating in the $100 Room Challenge are doing too!

The post Updated vanity and walls in the powder room appeared first on Little Victorian.

Not really demolition…I just removed the counter’s muffin top and backsplash, took down the light and mirror, the floor’s backsplash and mudded the walls to get ready for painting.

It’s week two of the $100 room makeover challenge!  On day one of the challenge last week, I spent over half my $100 budget.  On Sunday, I spent another $29.  So I currently have $15 left and I really hope nothing unexpected comes up.  The good news is that I don’t have a plan for that extra $15 at the moment, so I might get to splurge on some cute accessories or something!  ?

After shopping (of course), the first project was the vanity.  I’m not excited about keeping it, but I have hope of making it look decent

The wood will be sanded down and refinished, but that had to wait until after the painting.  So the countertop is up first.

Things I didn’t like about it:

• How far the lip hung over the edge
• The curved backsplash (to match the flooring throughout the house)
• The old and stained laminate
• The sink (can’t change that on the budget)

So here’s what happened:

I cut the laminate off at the curve, then found that the muffin top was an additional piece of wood nailed in place.  That made my job much easier, because I was planning on just running a saw down the length of the counter and hoping I kept it straight!

I did the same on the front, and then scored the backsplash and started peeling it off the wall.  The corner support pieces for the curve had to be pulled out as well, which was tricky and kinda tore up the laminate.  

I am hoping to keep the laminate so I have a smooth surface to adhere the contact paper to.  We’ll see how well that goes.

Better so far!  I also removed the light fixture and the giant mirror.

The mudding of all the holes isn’t pictured (there are half-a-dozen in the wall behind the door.  

Next will be painting, then sanding down and refinishing the vanity, putting on new knobs, and tearing out the floor.  

So far so good!  Here is what the rest of the ladies participating in the $100 room challenge are up to:

The post Powder Room Demolition appeared first on Little Victorian.

So generally in our house, it goes like this: I come up with a crazy renovation idea.  The Hubs sighs and/or thinks it’s awesome.  Then he, being an engineer, gets straight to the logic and maths and facts and all the other things that take up too much time and could be skipped that will make the ideas actually functional.

So, we sit down and brainstorm and sketch together, and then we get to work.  He leads in building the structures and foundations (like framing, drywalling, demo, electrical, plumbing, etc.) and I assist.  Then when he’s at work the next day (or over following months), I plan and carry out the finishes like trim, moulding, painting, etc.

This latest project was no different.

Behold, our DIY sliding-door butler’s pantry:

Yes, you’re right, it’s not a butler’s pantry at all, it just sound fancy, so that’s what I call it.  It’s just a closet/pantry/built-in china cabinet in the dining room.

So, if you remember, from once upon a time when I blogged: our dining room is huge in scale compared to the rest of the house.  In the 1890s when the house was built, it was the combo kitchen and dining room.

We didn’t need that much room and it was pretty out-of-balance for this small house.

One thing I love about the new pantry is that we made it level with the weird fridge box that’s in the middle of the kitchen.  So now the fridge box doesn’t look as strange!

If you remember, there was just a wall there before where we put our china cabinet and buffet:

So for the technicalities:

• We framed it out, just like you would do any wall. 
• The Hubs procured kits for installing sliding closet doors, along with 8 foot pieces of high-quality plywood to trim down to size for each door. 
• We hung a shelving system similar to this (affiliate link) and employed our old trick of using stair treads as shelves because they’re more substantial, and just prettier.

He cut the doors to fit, and then I trimmed them with cedar planks we had leftover from another project. I used wood glue and a brad nailer. Then caulked all the seams and primed and painted. 

The side panel was drywalled and mudded. Then everything was painted the same blue as the walls. 

And inside:

I’ve been taking updated photos of the house as we’re finishing up ALL of our unfinished projects.  (Literally, our list of work left for the house is officially down to 33 small items.)  So expect more updates in the coming weeks.

Save to home board on Pinterest!

Just hover over the image and click “Pin”

The post Building a built-in sliding-door pantry appeared first on Little Victorian.

We actually have a couple projects to share.  In the last couple months, we replaced the kitchen flooring and built a bench over the radiator.  Here is where we started over a year ago:

The lovely original hardwoods throughout the first floor had been covered in layer after layer of plywood and linoleum.  The orange “wood” laminate was the top layer.  When we pulled up all the layers in the dining room, the kitchen floor looked even uglier.  It was real, beautiful, cool-colored, old hardwood next to shiny orange fake stuff.

So we pulled up the kitchen floor too.  We couldn’t go all the way down to the original wood for several reasons, but we took it down to the lowest practical layer and then laid the new flooring.  Because of time and budget constraints, along with the fact that we’re not planning on staying in this home for much longer, we went with peel-and-stick tiles.  And we’re actually very happy with our decision.

The big tall radiator cover that was there was silly, since the radiator itself was only a matter of inches tall.  So I asked Hubs if we could build a bench over it and make better use of the space.  I drew my general idea, he did the hard part of designing it, and we built it.

And here it is today:

He did amazing work.  It’s really strong, it doesn’t block any of the heat, and I think it looks great.

We are also adding large baseboards, caps, and quarter-round to match what was in the house originally.

Still to do:

* Touch up the paint
* Add baseboard behind bench
* Install quarter-round and baseboard cap
* Paint baseboards
* Make cushions for the bench
* Bring the table back in
* Have a finished kitchen? Maybe?

The post Building a bench over a baseboard radiator appeared first on Little Victorian.

Some of the few original details our Victorian still has are the doors and door hardware.  But the door knob plates (I’m sure there’s some proper term for them) in the mud room/hallway/weird spot looked pretty bad.  The doors had been painted several times and the painters didn’t bother trying to keep it off the plates.

When you’re renovating an old house, it’s super handy to have a dad who is a decorative painter and furniture restorer.  I texted him and asked how to get paint off of antique hardware.  I had tried the cook-it-in-a-crockpot method on other hardware, and that did not work.  At all.  Dad said soak it in vinegar overnight.  (Actually he said to test it first, because there are times when you shouldn’t–mine tested fine.)

After they soaked, the paint flaked right off.  It seemed to be spray paint too, which makes it even more impressive.

I was pretty excited about restoring them down to the original brass, even if it did look worn (I love that look).  But unfortunately, once the paint was off, it wasn’t so pretty.

I texted Dad that picture and he said “Eww.  Looks like all or most of the brass is gone, it’s down to the copperplate.  Replate or replace.”

They all 4 looked the same.  Replating, or even replacing isn’t in the budget right now, so since those were the only decent options, I didn’t feel bad spray painting them.  I actually liked the black look anyway–not as much as I would have liked the original brass–but the black looks good with the white porcelain knobs.

For some context of the area this is, the picture was taken from the kitchen.  The pantry is the door on the left and the powder room is on the right.

Next for this room is painting the walls.  Once I do that, I’ll share some tips (thanks again to Dad) on how to properly paint over a semi-gloss finish.

The post Removing paint from vintage hardware appeared first on Little Victorian.

We seriously needed to update the bathroom vanity. It had been bothering me for quite a while…the bathroom was the first room we started remodeling when we moved in, and we went with a sink set from IKEA. 

They don’t sell it anymore, but it was everything you needed: sink base, sinks, faucets, and a great big mirror/shelf unit, and it was really inexpensive.  So that’s what we got.

I changed out the handles a while back, and while it helped, I still was dissatisfied with the look of the cabinet as a whole.  So I did this:

Just adding simple trim to the front was a serious update for the vanity.

This is how it was before:

The trim was made with 1/4″ x 2″ poplar trim pieces from the home improvement store.  The pieces were measured, and each end was cut at a 45-degree angle for a more professional look.  The cuts were made with a small miter box.

If you have a miter saw (highly recommend this one if you’re doing small projects), that is the best and fastest way to cut the pieces. If not, a miter box makes it quicker and easier.

Make the cuts one at a time to be sure they all fit snugly.  To make sure I had the proper lengths, I held each piece in its place on the vanity with double-sided tape after I cut them. 

Once they were all good, I removed them one-by-one and put them back up with super-strength glue.

After applying the glue, just press hard down the board to make sure the glue is spread out and it will be a tight fit. Hold for about 30 seconds.

After gluing the trim on, caulk all the seams and corners, and then fill any holes left from previous handles or knobs. 

Since this vanity is laminate, it got 2 coats of primer.  Then paint.  Then the handles.  And now we like it much better.

The handles got moved up to fit on top of the new trim.

The trim pieces only cost $12, and the quart of paint cost $10, so it was a really inexpensive vanity update too. (The handles were purchased previously, for just a few dollars from IKEA.)

Print

Add shaker trim to cheap bathroom vanity

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 4 hours hours

Dry time 1 day day

Total Time 1 day day 4 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Cost $22

Equipment

• 1/4" x 2" poplar trim pieces Measure for the lengths you need
• Miter box If not using a miter saw
• Construction glue
• Paintable caulk
• Wood filler

Instructions

• Remove handles/pulls/knobs from your vanity.
• Measure your trim boards. The easiest way is to line up each piece where it will go on the cabinet, starting in one corner, then make a pencil mark on the back where it overhangs so you know where to cut it off. Do that for each piece now.
• Using the miter box (or a miter saw if you have one), cut the corners of each piece at a 45 degree angle.
• Use construction glue to glue each piece of trim to the face of the drawers or doors, following the instructions for your glue.
• Use wood filler to fill in any holes from the previous hardware (if applicablle).
• Using paintable caulk, put a thin bead of caulk everywhere the new trim pieces meet the door/drawer. (So, along each edge.) Dip your finger in water and smooth out the bead of caulk. Let it dry according to the package instructions.
• Prime and paint your cabinet as needed. If it's laminate, I recommend 2 coats of primer.
• Add new pulls/knobs/handles.

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