Bringing the Heat

As promised.... our vent-less gas fireplace!

We've had fireplaces on the brain ever since last winter's polar vortex and we almost froze thanks to our heat pump.  In fact, for having the word "heat" in it's name, a heat pump doesn't really produce heat at all...at least, not enough to keep up with these mountain winters.  Heat pumps are great for the spring, summer and fall, but we found it difficult to sustain our house's temperature at much higher than about 63 degrees in January and February.  In our house's defense, we do have baseboard heat, but none of them are working!  So we then had to ask ourselves the question, "Do we have the baseboard heat fixed or do we investigate alternative forms of heat production?"  

Enter gas fireplace.

After seriously considering a wood-burning stove, we settled on a vent-less gas fireplace because installation would be relatively simple and because it would conserve space in an area of our home where we desperately needed space.  To make room for the fireplace, we're borrowing from the guest bedroom closet.  Here's how it went down:

Remember this wall?  The one the TV is on?

Here's where we started Saturday afternoon.

In this picture Eric is actually in the closet of our guest bedroom.

This morning a friend from church came over and helped Eric install the fireplace, which included framing around it.

And that's how we got here!  I imagine you're thinking, "But why did you proceed to remove ALL of the drywall?"  The plan is to create built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace.  On the right it will be as simple as removing the door and molding and opening the closet up all the way to the ceiling, and on the left we will actually be sealing our hallway closet to the hallway and opening it up to the living room.  Not as simple as the closet on the right...in fact, we're still figuring out the details.  But when it's finished, we hope that it will look something like this:

Not to mention we're also putting tile around the fireplace and building a mantel to seal the deal.  Here's the tile we're planning to use:

You might recognize it from the blog Young House Love

At this point, the next step is to have the gas company come out and hook the fireplace up to a propane tank.  In the meantime, we'll be planning out the specifics of the hallway closet's makeover so that hopefully by Saturday we'll hit the ground running!  Until then!

Sal

Kitchen Buffering...Complete!

It has been 3 1/2 months since we started painting our kitchen cabinets, and while I can't say that we are completely done, we have enough done that I feel like going ahead and sharing "after" pictures.  When I last left you, we were painting the last of the lower cabinets:

Still on the list was framing, painting, and mounting the cabinet doors.  It seemed like a daunting task, but it turns out Eric is a whiz on the chop saw!

                                         

For the framing, we just bought a sheet of plywood and Eric cut it into 2 inch strips on a table saw.  The plywood was less than $10 for the amount we got, so it was a super cheap project! 

And now for the before and after...

Before

After

                                                   

You may notice we still don't have doors on our upper-most cabinets.  Originally we wanted to make those glass, but now we've decided just to frame them like the others.  Not only did the framing make the cabinets look ah-mazing, but it was so stinkin' easy and fast, we just couldn't say no to taking the easy way out and putting a fork in this project.

We got a great deal on the cabinet pulls from Overstock.com.

Even though the cabinet pulls are stainless steel, we spray painted the hardware with brushed nickel since it was closest we could get to the actual color and look.  They don't match exactly, but who's looking that close anyway?

I love these cabinets.  This DIY project of our's turned out so much better than I ever imagined, and that's not typical for us!  Not only do I love the way they look, but I love how much money we saved by salvaging them!  I'm not sure how much it would have cost to install brand new cabinets in our kitchen, but I think a low estimate could start at $3,000 not including installation (which I would definitely have done, or else I never would have never slept again thanks to visions of my upper cabinets crashing to the ground).  So add installation to that, and I'm thinking it would have cost at least $5,000 for cabinets that aren't even solid wood (our's are).  The only materials we required for this project were 2 cans of primer and 2 cans of paint at a whopping $30 per can, something like $75 on the cabinet pulls, a can of spray paint, and a sheet of plywood, all of which comes in around $200.  By far one of the cheaper projects we've done, while making the biggest difference in the look of our home.

We're still far from done in here (wood floors, counter tops, back splash, demolishing a wall), and with the cabinets looking so fantastic, I'm really excited to do the rest.  Sometimes just to get an idea of what the final product will look like, I take our cutting board and pull it over the side of the counter and imagine what butcher block counter tops will look like...

Sigh.

But to more pressing matters, we've ordered a vent-less gas fireplace and we be installing it in the next couple weeks!  We're super excited...not only is it going to completely change the way our living room looks, but it will be nice to have some extra heat this winter.  Until then...

-Sal