iseecerulean

It's amazing to me how putting countertops on made the project seem weeks closer to completion.

Susan's gratutitous cat picture...

The stupid upper cabinets wouldn't work to my satisfaction.  My daughter tells me I'm a perfectionist, but doesn't think that's a bad quality.  Shelves it is.

Since the glass front cabinets were the centerpiece of my original design plan and they're not ending up in the build I took the opportunity to reexamine the project.  I had a few quirky ideas, inspired by some new scrapbook papers.  As I was trying the new papers out my daughter entered my studio to ask if I wanted a sandwich..."Mom, that print is too big, it's awful!"...she stayed for over a hour, our stomachs rumbling, while we went through my entire stash of papers.  After the new papers were chosen we decided on a floor color relatively quickly, briefly debated repainting the cabinets, then had a heated argument about countertops. She toned down my too quirky ideas into a mildly eccentric new plan. 

Here's where the kitchen is at this morning....

And here is Susan's gratuitious cat picture...

I've made and discarded several sets of upper cabinets for the cedar kitchen.  I can't get the pin hinge holes right...even with the drill press!  I was ready to take the dollhouse out to the back yard last weekend to set fire to it, I was so frustrated. 

Susan counseled me to "throw a sheet over it for a day and make something quick and satisfying", so I took her advice...assuming that when she said "make something quick and satisfying" she really meant "drink Scotch, eat fudge, and go on a Netflix binge"...and that by "day" she really meant "week". 

I've got a new idea for glass front cabinets that doesn't involve pin hinges.  If I can't get that right this weekend I'm putting shelves in instead.

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I didn't take pictures of the failed cabinetry, but I have a few others to show you.

Last Monday we went over to Matt's sister's house, along with the rest of his family, to have dinner and raid her over-abundant vegetable garden.  My brother-in-law the builder took me into his workshop to give me some small scrap wood he'd been saving.  Score!  Oak, walnut, koa, and others I forget...I need to learn how to identify which wood is which.   I can recognize and rattle off the taxonomic names of most of the trees in our area, but once the leaves and bark are removed from the wood I'm at a loss.

He was shocked when I told him how much I pay for strips of basswood, and told me to never buy it again, to come see him instead....that if I don't abscond with his scraps he'll use them for kindling.

The small strips, which are 1/8" square, fit nicely in a stoneware crock I purchased at an art fair last month.

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Susan's gratuitous cat picture...

I haven't posted in the last week because I couldn't get pictures from my camera to my computer.  I finally found the cord to my camera this morning, thank goodness...I was going batty trying to determine what I'd done with it.

The island is made...

It took longer to trim out the sides and back than it did to make the door fronts....

I decided on a paint color.  I'm going to stick with my original plan to paint the cabinets green.  On a whim one day, at the office, staring out the window when I was frustrated with a particularly tedious spreadsheet, I walked across the street to the paint store to buy a sample pot of a brand new, prettier green.

I laughed at myself when I got home..it's almost precisely the green I was going to use in the first place.  Oh well, at least it was much more expensive (roll eyes).  This one is called  'seedling'.

I designed the upper cabinets to have glass fronts and be lit.  I learned from making the glass windows in the English Cottage Kitchen and the acrylic sheet greenhouse in the Michigan Lake Cottage that sandwiching glass or acrylic between wood is not very easy, very sturdy, or practical for pin hinged doors.  This time I made the doors from a solid piece of 1/8" thick plexiglass, with the wooden 'frame' glued on top, and the pins and handles inset (with heat) into the plexiglass.  So far it's working great. 

The protective film on the plexiglass was coming off, since I had to peel it back to glue the wood on, so I removed it, cleaned the plexiglass, then covered the doors with low tack painter's tape. I don't want the plexiglass to get scratched while I work, so the doors will stay covered until the final photo shoot when the kitchen is complete.

This is where the first of the upper cabinets stands now...a tangle of wires and clamps...

I tried to take a picture of one of the doors before I covered it, but I couldn't manage to hold the door with one hand, the camera with the other, and remain steady when I depressed the shutter button.  Here's the best picture I took...if you squint you can almost see what I did.

I painted the lower cabinets and installed the handles...

The side door on the end cabinet is where I'm housing the 9V battery that runs the lights.

Hopefully I can finish the first upper cabinet tonight, then get a good start on both the second and the range hood.  When I'm done with those I can start the cabinets for the other side of the room.  I've got to start kicking it into high gear...I just found out I have to be in St. Louis on business for a week in mid October, which knocks two weekends worth of build time off the contest deadline.  I'm not going to do sloppy work to meet the Halloween deadline, but I'd like to be able to enter the contest.  I think I'm far enough along now that I can manage it, if I push myself.