THE CABINETS ARE HERE THE CABINETS ARE HERE THE CABINETS ARE HERE. Thank you Home Depot.
I'd show you a picture of them but they look like pretty much anything else in a cardboard box.
So NOW the work begins. Oh my God. I can't believe I just said "the work begins". The work has been going on since about last April. That's when this whole ridiculous fiasco began. With me deciding, pretty much on a whim, that I was going to rip up my kitchen floor and install radiant heating and composite tiles.
The kitchen has been a mess since then. And so have my nails.
Even though the cabinets are here, I'm not ready to have them installed yet. I want to wait until the sink, stove and fridge are here, plus I still need to rip out the rest of the old kitchen, repair the floor and paint and repair the walls.
I couldn't do any of that until I knew when the cabinets were coming. And, as is often the case with renovating, I had no idea when they were coming until the delivery people called to tell me they were on their way.
One of the walls I need to paint and repair is this brick wall.
It's only the slightest bit of a mess. Compared to say, a port-a-potty beside a Mexican restaurant beside a construction site, it's positively pristine. I found the brick wall behind my old pantry. Well, behind the drywall that was behind the pantry actually. If you missed it, I highly suggest you watch the video of my mother Betty ripping out the drywall in her Fitflops.
My house was built around 1840 (I wish I knew the exact date and everyone who lived here and all that stuff, but I don't), and every 50 years or so someone puts on a little addition. Because of that the house has several brick walls inside, all which were the home's exterior wall at some point.
When we first unearthed, or unsheetrocked I suppose, the wall I was hoping I could maybe strip it and leave the brick. It's partly painted, partly stained and has big chunks of missing bricks. All the better to hide a body in I suppose. Or body parts at least.
After further consideration and consultation with my psychic, my social worker, letter carrier, neighbour, plumber, counsellor, councillor and cats, I've decided to paint the wall white. It will go better with the Scandinavian feel I'm going for AND it'll be easier. Pretty much everyone agreed, except the cats, but they're assholes.
My interior designer Carol Reed and my sister with the pink suede tool belt are walking me through the disaster of the brick wall.
Carol sent me these inspiration photos of a variety of painted brick wall finishes. Because there's more than one way to piss off a cat.
This wall is straight up, painted white. No distressing, no whitewashing. Just a beautiful, clean, white, brick wall.
And here, ladies and gentlemen, we have various brick walls in various stages of distress. I really, really love the middle one, but again, it isn't quite right for the space I'm envisioning. "The space I'm envisioning" Hah! I sound like a snot. The point is, I want it a little cleaner looking, something closer to the wall on the right. That wall looks fairly solid with a bit of shading and shadowing which looks very natural and authentic.
The wall on the right here is nice, but it's completely whitewashed and I can't really do that without stripping my entire brick wall. The one on the left looks pretty good though.
And this final wall is O.K. I'm not in love with it. I feel like I can actually see the person standing in front of it deciding which bricks to paint over and which bricks to keep natural. If I can actually see the thinking process in something that's a bad sign.
The cats liked it. They really are assholes.
The other problem I have to figure out is the big mess at the top of the wall where the bricks hit the ceiling. Or rather don't hit the ceiling. There's about a 4" strip between the bricks and the ceiling that's just a mishmash of wood. The crown moulding I have right now is no longer available so I have to figure out a way to disguise the wood near the ceiling or replace ALL of my crown moulding. Which I will fight doing tooth and nail. My sister with the pink tool belt came up with a partially ingenious, partially insane solution. I'm going to try it and if it works, I'll let you know.
So tonight and tomorrow I'll be tackling the brick wall with a can of paint and a paintbrush. I have a little bit of a plan in my head about how I'm going to go about it and how I want it to look, but for the most part I'll just start painting and figure it out as I go.
And when I'm finished no one will be able to see my thinking process. I think.
Kim from 3 peanuts
Typically I go for a brick wall with a little character like the ones you have shown here but I fell in love with the really clean white one Carol sent too. It just seems so calming and crisp. Either way, I cannot wait to see what you end up with. You always do a beautiful job.
Lynn Rollins
(website under construction but new year's goal is to get it great!) LOVE the very first one with the tufted chair in the corner. It seems the most Scandinavian, in the sense that it's the most simple of all. I am into that too right now, color be gone.... clean, crisp, uncluttered, minimal white bliss. Carry on! I know you'll get it exactly like you want it! Happy New Year.... soon it will be time to find fiber optic grass again.... I intend to have it again this year and taunt you....
marilyn
let me know if you need me to bring chips
Karen
hah!! ~ k
Gail
Hey....I was just talking to hubby and he said that you can buy half bricks at a brick place. There's one near ya...http://hamiltonbuilders.com/
JF
wow, I'm thrilled, intimidated and immensely glad I can vicariously live through your reno while my (boring, pedestrian) place stays pristine. . .or at least livable -- can't wait to see how the wall turns out
don't listen to the cats, they're just jealous of your opposable thumbs
Gail
Have you looked into faux bricks? You can either paint faux bricks on a piece of wood or buy thin bricks. Also have a boo in the tile section. Seems like they have a lot of brick-like stuff.
jane
Want to know who owned your house? Go to your Land Titles office (or whatever they call it in Ontario), pay the small fee, and you can get the history of who held title. Its fun and easy.
Suzanne @ Le Farm
...sometimes you just have to keep an open mind as "it" tells you what "it" will freakin' allow! ("It", meaning your stubborn ol' brick wall that won't reveal how it's going to look in a sparkling new coat of white wash until the bitter end.) Thank God you are a relentless renovator that won't stop until it looks "just right"...good luck, Goldilocks!!
Debbie W.
The cats are assholes!!! OMG just about spit coffee out my nose!! Classic!! Love the brick wall too, whatever you do will be awesome!!
Su
don't you just love how old houses make you change and rethink your plan? You start with a reno idea and the house says to you hmmm no you can't do that you have to do this instead?? good luck with the painting - can't wait to see it!
Jody
Personally I love the brick wall the way it is--lots of character. But enough about the wall....How are the chickens in this crazy crazy cold. This morning it is -24. Can the chicks come inside?
Karen
Jody - I would absolutely bring the chickens inside to spare them! But I didn't. What I ended up doing was locking them in their small, sleeping roost area. That way it gave their body heat a chance to warm up the area before it got incredibly cold. I'm going to keep them in there until the temperature is a bit more reasonable. It worked perfectly by the way. Their bodies and a lamp were enough to keep their sleeping area above freezing which to them is balmy. ~ karen
Tigersmom
"Compared to say, a port-a-potty beside a Mexican restaurant beside a construction site, it’s positively pristine."
This is one of the many reasons I like you to a point just before it becomes creepy.
As for that wall, artificially (and even some naturally) distressed finishes make me itch, so my vote is for the beautiful clean solid white.
And as for the solution, I wonder if it involves using that large board lying in front of the wall as a sort of crown moulding on the brick part of the wall which may actually work (as a further means of making a feature of and highlighting the brick wall) because the texture of the brick wall makes it different enough from the neighboring wall. Are you going to try it leaving it raw first and then if you hate that, painting it white, too? What do the cats think? Maybe you should ask them and then just do the opposite of whatever they say.
And I now see the source of the marble in so many of pictures. It's on what is going to become your island, perhaps? I'm going to have to go back and look at your floor plan and your other kitchen reno posts since I have slept soooooo many times since this thing started. Which leads me to a request: Will you please do a recap post on the before state of your kitchen sometime close to right before the big completed reveal?
Karen
So a before prior to the after? ~ karen!
Tigersmom
Ok - now that I have had enough coffee I realize that I may have been asking for something you were already planning on doing.
I actually know better than to try and talk before coffee. Too bad that doesn't translate in my brain to not typing before coffee, too.
I also can't believe I was foolish enough to think that you had demo-ed your entire kitchen before having the new stuff there and ready to go in. No, that is something I would have done (and did, well, not actually me, due to the time crunch we were in on our long -distance reno.) I was seriously wondering how you entertained for both Thanksgiving and Christmas with just your grill and maybe a borrowed hot plate. Doh!
Ruth
I actually prefer the very first one, but - then again - I never did 'get' the fascination with the whole distressing thing. Distressing a perfectly good paint job = waste of perfectly good paint = befuddling, to say the least. A distressing state of affairs.... :D
If you actually decide on that middle one, which looks like an old warehouse of some sort, I think I might have kittens. LOL!
Kelly
I can always count on Carol Reed to make me absolutely drool. LOVE that first picture. I'm ready to move to find a house where I can have those windows and the beautiful brick wall, but then I'm a wee bit promiscuous about real estate. Other people like buying art or fashionably clothes. I like buying houses. And it's amazing the things I learn here: brick dust. who knew????? I've lusted for an interior brick wall for, like, ever and here I'm finding out about brick dust.
Bonnie G.
Bazinga! You got me. I can't wait to see what you do but somehow I know it will be ingenious and look great! This is getting so exciting that I'm imagining it's the remodel of my own kitchen again. Sooo exciting ... hope I don't pee my pants!
BTW Happy New Year Karen.
Teddee Grace
Good luck! I also like the center example in the row of three. Also, thank you, thank you for using the word "ingenious." Most bloggers in the states would be substituting "genius" and I even saw this misuse in Glamour magazine recently. Of course your sister may be a genius, not insane, to come up with this ingenious idea. I'll be waiting to see.
Valerie
Do you ever feel like you are hitting your head against a brick wall?
Vote for the brick painted white, then with a few large white subway tiles somewhere else to compliment the brick.
Caro
Good choice to go for the clean white exposed brick wall! We have exactly that in our kitchen and diner and I love it. It adds a lot of interest to the room while still matching the other plastered white walls. And it doesn't look rustic but Scandinavian clean and bright..which is appropriate, I think, as the wall is in Scandinavia ;-)
Btw, we constructed a diy-light-solution to conceal the wall-ceiling-problem. It's basically a white wooden plank mounted diagonally with fluorescent tubes behind it. Gives a beautiful indirect light, which pronounces the bricks even more.
Karen
Very nice idea with the plank and the tube. ~ karen!
Julie
What's up with the ombre grey wall in the background?
Karen
Oh, lol. That's from ages ago. From before when I was just going to paint the kitchen and redo the floor. I was looking for gray colours. Then all of a sudden I was redoing the whole kitchen and so the walls have been like that for several months. :) ~ karen
Julie
I like it that way. haha. Good luck Karen! I can't wait to see the finished kitchen.
Jen
Love the concept of the brick wall. However, I doubt the house built in 1964 has a nice brick wall hiding behind the sheet rock. So jealous of old houses.
~ Jen