(via thebrickhouse)

justbesplendid:

kitchen chalkboard

(via pictureperfecthome)

More Luce di Luna quartzite.

For whatever reason, I’ve been spending a lot of time dreaming about renovating my kitchen and bathrooms. To say that there is no money for this endeavor is the understatement of the year, so beyond some cosmetic fixes, all of this will remain firmly in the land of makebelieve for some time yet.

What moved me to post about this, however, is a discovery I made yesterday. Now, I’ve always been a huge fan of Carrara marble, particularly the statuary subset which is predominantly white with less overall grey veining. I’ve always loved the look for countertops, floors, even wall coverings. There’s a coolness (both temperature and colorwise) to this white stone that is unmatched.

Of course, marble comes with a huuuuge caveat, which is that, as a calcite based stone, it is extremely vulnerable to acids. Yes, people complain about marble staining (from red wine, for example), but it’s the acid etching that is a bigger concern. On a honed (matte) as opposed to polished (shiny) marble surface, acid etching (this is what it looks like on a shiny surface) may be less apparent, but there are horror stories of people forgetting something acidic somewhere on their counter, only to find that the acid has eaten a hole right through their countertop!

I am not a very tidy cook (nor a tidy person in general, I must admit), yet I am also pretty anal retentive (I know, contradictory, but true), so I realized finally, with pain in my heart, that marble countertops would ultimately not be for me. Every stain, every etch, every chip (did I mention it chips easily?) would be like a wagging finger, admonishing me for my lack of attention. It would be a mistake.

… and then I discovered Luce di Luna quartzite (pictured above, in a kitchen that looks, at least in this photo, extremely similar to my own). With quartz as its primary ingredient, this stone is as resistant as you would expect granite or man-made quartz countertops to be. In fact, by all account it is sturdier than actual granite. Better yet, while quartzite comes in a wide variety of colors, Luce di Luna looks about as close to Carrara marble as you’re going to get. While the base color of the stone is grayer than Carrara, and the veining on Luce di Luna tends to run in (extremely modern) parallel lines, the similarities are striking.

With all its benefits, Luce di Luna quartzite also comes at a premium. It should be no surprise that it is much, much more expensive than many of the items on the market, including Carrara marble. Given that I’d want the countertops in the kitchen to match those in the bathrooms, at the end of the day, perhaps the most affordable solution will remain Corian in Rain Cloud, which, while clearly engineered, manages to capture a similar look at a far more palatable price.

Marble for my kitchen is my greatest wish, threat of stains be damned!

(via thebrickhouse)

Photos via Brian Wolk

No, not my kitchen, but I finally found photographic evidence of what the end result of an under cabinet installation of the white Ikea Dioder strip lights looks like. I’ve been toying with doing a similar installation myself, but I didn’t want to proceed until I had a good idea of what to expect, and from what I can see, the end result is quite nice.

Of course, going with the multicolored lights was also an option, as shown in this video here. Those lights can cycle through the spectrum, or be color selected, but even tho’ there’s a white option (as shown around the 20 second mark), it’s not the kind of pure white I’m interested in. Luckily the pure white strips clock in at 50$, a full 30$ cheaper than the multicolored lights, so it’s a win/win.

Like these folks, I’m going for a superficial installation as well, and don’t plan on having these installed professionally behind walls and into outlets.  That’s why I’m not thrilled by the idea that each light strip is wired independently, since, as you can see in the first shot, that means that multiple wires will likely be bundled together at some points in the installation.

I also can’t get any conclusive information on where exactly the switch for these lights appears on the path between the light strip and the bulb, but I’ll probably figure that out soon enough, since I hope to have these up within a week or so. Who knows, if it works nicely, I might buy a second set and do some above cabinet lighting as well.

Concrete kitchen floor… for inspiration.

(Source: thebrickhouse)

A while back I posted about my kitchen floor, and how I was thinking about refinishing it more quickly with a cheap grinder and brush attachment. Well, I got the grinder, and tried it… and it kinda freaked me out. I’ve left it up to the mister, and today he finally tried his hand at it. He started on the floor of the small built in pantry, and I gotta say, it looks pretty great. With the signs of success in that small space, he decided to spread to the rest of the floor, and I went back to fiddling on the computer.

When I came back downstairs fifteen minutes later, the open plan ground floor looked like something had caught on fire. Grey dust hung in the air like smoke… it was bad. Long story short, lesson learned the hard way; yes, the concrete might be wet, and yes, it’s just a grinder and a brush, very superficially scrubbing away the topmost layer of the floor, but the amount of cement dust being kicked up was insane. There’s a very fine grey coating of it all over the kitchen which will need to be wiped off, and I’m sure some of it has settled on to my living room furniture, so the work has stopped for today.

New plan: buy plastic sheeting, tape off the kitchen, and treat this as an actual work site. You learn something new every day.

This is a photo of my non-functioning dishwasher, but that’s not why I posted it. It is surrounded by my (real) wood cabinetry (awaiting painting… someday), and my (fake) wood countertop (kitschy, yes, but in such good condition that it comes ‘round full circle to clever), but that’s also not why I posted it.

No, I posted this because it’s the only readily accessible photo in which you can see the current state of my kitchen floor. There are many more, but I’m lazy and pissed off today, so you’ll have to make do with this.

After two months of hoping it would just magically refinish itself, I’ve finally bit the bullet today and tried tackling it again. The floor was once covered with two flimsy layers of rolled linoleum, the oldest dating back to 1985. Removing the lino was easy, although it left behind the paper backing in some areas, which was less pleasant. That’s when I discovered razor scrapers, which, when combined with hot water, easily remove the paper backing.

What I was not prepared for? Dry, hardened yellow mastic. This is the glue that’s used to hold the linoleum to the raw cement floor. As you can see from the photo, while some it has been lifted (grey areas), vast sections of yellowed, ugly cement remain. The yellow areas are the spots where the glue has been poured on so thickly that it has filled every pit and scratch in the cement, making removing it a huge chore. Also in the photo, you’ll notice the long crack that nearly bisects the entire floor… but more about that in a minute.

Let’s talk about mastic, and glue removal in general. Here’s a fun fact: there is no guarantee that a chemical preparation of your choice will remove the glue in question, since just as each “glue gone” bottle boasts a mixture of different ingredients, so do the various glue formulations. I am not fond of strong chemicals, and I don’t have the luxury of a fat bank account, so experimentation with pricy glue removal potions isn’t really an option. Ultimately, all my research has culminated into one inescapable concept: “mechanical”.

Mechanical removal of the mastic is the only way guaranteed to work. Currently, I am using hot water, a wire brush, and the aforementioned razor scraper for detail work. Here’s the process: boil water; ladle boiling water onto small area; scrub now wet area with wire brush; repeat… endlessly. It takes forever. I am not interested in renting a floor sander. My understanding is that they can get too overzealous with the sanding and leave unevenness and grind marks. I am contemplating picking up a cheap grinder and wire brush attachment and at least taking a little of the elbow grease out of it, but until then, it’s manual, mechanical removal for me.

Now, about the crack. It kinda doesn’t bother me. I’m sure people that know me well might read this and be surprised, but it doesn’t. I have some leftover dark grey grout from something else, so I’ll likely fill it with that, but I won’t be heartbroken if it doesn’t match… I’ll just call it veining and leave it at that.

If any of you out there have any experience with mastic or glue removal, and have any suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them… you know where I’ll be, on my knees on the kitchen floor!

Anonymous asked: Where can I gat information on the shelving shown at the following website?

http://n9.tumblr.com/post/329342349/open-kitchen-shelving-cluttered-or-attractive

If I was to guess, the shelving you see here is (or can be closely approximated by) the white LACK wall shelves from IKEA. It’s really quite an elegant solution, but please keep in mind that the maximum recommended load for each shelf is 11 to 33 lbs, depending on the type of wall and fastening you use, so make sure that everything is sturdy and safe before you start piling on your dishes!