Outdoor Kitchen

 I'm working on an outdoor kitchen.  I have it all designed and the redwood ordered for the pergolas.  Once it arrives, we can start installing it all.  Meanwhile, this is what we plan for it to look like:

Update:

With the exception of a few small details that remain (completing the toe kicks, add misters, and such), the outdoor kitchen is mostly done (see pictures below).  We have greatly enjoyed using it this summer to store frozen summer treats for the kids, make pizzas with family and friends, cook large breakfasts, host parties, and so forth.  We love the features we chose to include:  tree planter (with Vanilla Twist Redbud and Japanese Maple surrounded by a bed of freshly-scented Wormwood), flower boxes (all planters with drip lines to automatically water them), large workstation sink, drinking fountain, deep storage drawers for dishware and flatware, refrigerator and freezer. outlets for small appliances, microwave, mobile cabinet to extend the counter space for large parties and tuck away beneath the stairs when not needed, pull out trash can, double side-burner for pan and pot cooking, shade pergola with led lighting at night, lounging benches, space-efficient winder steps, plenty of bar seating for our large family. the list goes on. . . .  Enjoy the photos my husband took today as my son relaxed out there with his accordion.  :)

The previous pictures during the build:

Not sure how I never managed to get pictures of the outdoor kitchen along the way during the build process.  It's not completely done and the weather turned bad, but we should be getting it totally finished up this spring.  Here are what pictures I do have.  I ended up getting HDPE cabinets because I felt like masonry or metal would look too visually heavy to sit atop the composite decking.  We chose Fantasy Brown leathered Marble for the countertops and love our workstation sink. Last fall saw lots of grilling and pizza making and partying.  We are looking forward to another summer of "eating out" . . . , in the backyard that is . . . as we remodel our indoor kitchen (stay tuned for progress on that).  Dustin, owner of EZ Life Outdoor Kitchens in Cedar City, Utah helped bring this vision to fruition.  He assembled the cabinets and built and stained the pergola per my design drawings.  He ran the electrical and will be installing misters for us as well.  He has been a pleasure to work with and it's all coming along nicely.  Hopefully I will remember to take some better pictures once the weather warms up and things are cleaned back up.

Dining Table

 My sister had an extra table top that she gave to me a couple years ago.  It has been sitting in my garage awaiting my finding some time--any time--to build the base for it.  I planned it all out and intended to build it.  I even purchased chairs to go with it, but with the other remodels going on, I just never found the time to build the bases.  I eventually decided to hire a local welder to build some legs based off of my designs for the wood legs I had been intending to build myself.  Even though welding didn't lend itself to all the curves that I planned for the wood versions, I think they still turned out really nice and we are really enjoying our beautiful new custom table.

Master En Suite Remodel

I am currently in the middle of a major remodel of our master bathroom and closet area.  This has been a few years in the making.  I started out by drawing a whole new floor plan for the bathroom and designing all the elevations.  The original floorplan was horrendous, with an underutilized and awkward corner closet, a tiny corner shower, the toilet in immediate view from the door, a moldy jetted bathtub taking up way too much space, and carpet throughout!  The new plan includes separate closets, a dressing area, a vanity area, a water closet, and a wetroom with double shower and extra deep soaking tub sans overflow drain.

After I completed the design, I hired my amazing handyman to do all the rough work as well as the tile.  I have never done tile before and I actually had COVID when we got started on the project.  I decided that I didn't have time or energy to do the demo or frame it out.  My handyman, Jeremy Snyder, did all the demo, framing, drywall, tile, and Denshield/Schluter installations.  Ordering the tile was a huge saga that I won't bore you with but was super stressful and drawn out.  We hired a plumber and an electrician for the plumbing and electrical.  They are both clients of my husband and are excellent at their trades.  

I am now working on all the finish work and have completed the following:

-assisted Jeremy where two people were needed, such as with installing the two big windows and with some of the framing.

-installed the new window on the 3-story-high side of the house--this was a nearly impossible task as I had to do it from inside the house.  My husband was terrified I would fall out the window while hanging outside it so he clung tight to my thigh the whole time.

-painted everything

-stained and installed all the french pocket doors and their locking door pulls

-added the privacy film to the door leading to the water closet

-installed all the casing and baseboards including heat forming the arch jamb and relief kerf cutting the "corners" of the arch casing to make the tight curve

-skim coated the shower walls with a masonry mud

-painted and installed shower wallpaper in the shower

-finished out the wetroom with solid surface material and pvc, including a sealed off tv behind the cabinet doors

-built and installed the vanity

-built and installed the linen hutch

-installed the interior of His Closet

-Built the doors and drawer fronts for His Closet

I have never worked with solid surface material before and I was super intimidated about trying.  But, the cabinet guys wouldn't take the job because they have never worked with solid surface before and the stone guys wouldn't take the job because they have never done cabinetry, so here we are.  I was determined to see my vision become a reality (unconventional though it is).  I am pleased to report that things have been going well.  I have built shower niches with adjustable shelves, made v-groove paneling for the back of the bathtub nook, sealed out the tv, made and installed cabinet doors in front of the tv, made and installed the panel details on the tub apron, and installed the casing and baseboard in the shower.  I've also built and installed the shelves, the bathtub nook surround, the window wall trim, the wet window trim, and the panel details on the towel wall.  I Have built the vanity but still need to build the organizer that will go on top.  I've built the linen hutch and am in the process of building the closet faces.  I still need to order the frames to build the medicine cabinet doors.  But, things are starting to have a finished look to them.

*An aside worth mentioning: 

Every time someone sees my full length shower mirror, they react with a bit of horror saying, "I don't want to see myself naked every day!" as if they are unhappy with their bodies. However, what I have learned from trying this out for several months now is that it actually improves my body image. Something about the familiarity of seeing my body every day helps me learn to love it more, all of it. It eliminates the unexpected glances of my ever changing body that bring with them disappointment. Instead, it keeps me familiar with my body so that changes don't catch me off guard. So, I hope that is a helpful perspective for anyone else out there that might struggle with their body image. Remember the artistry of the body and its miraculousness. Art really can't be appreciated if it is only ever seen with a passing glance. Seeing what your spouse sees helps you learn to love what your spouse loves. 

The pictures in this post are in reverse order because that's how they uploaded and it is too much work to rearrange that many pictures.  Haha!

I'm finally getting the medicine cabinet doors installed.  I found some artwork that I liked, purchased the downloads, had them printed on canvas, and purchased custom frames and mirrors to build the doors.  They are artwork when closed and mirrors for getting ready when opened.  I love them so much:

Beautiful vintage love birds for the artwork on both his and hers sides

Artwork when closed and mirrors when open

Finished building the doors and drawer fronts:  Testing out the door and drawer front placement on Cam's closet, using my trusty playing card technique to get even spacing.

Planning out the knob and pull placement for Cam's closet.

Installed the jewelry knobs in the hidden niche behind my cloest mirror.

Door activated tape lights installed in His Closet

Tape lights installed (on a dimmer switch) above the picture rail

This is heaven.  We are really enjoying our new bath nook. It is great for movie-watching at night,

or a good book in the relaxing sunshine of the day.  It doesn't get any better than this!

Doors installed

Finished with the hutch!

Building the linen hutch:  fitting the pieces, reassembling pieces as they are stained.

Used the dremel tool to sand down the one discolored marble tile that was right in the middle of the floor and bothering both my husband and me daily.  I bet you can't tell which one it was.  :)

Installing the screw fixings (called Keep-Nuts).  This was terrifying because I didn't want to accidentally ruin the doors and have to rebuild them.  You can't screww directly into solid surface so if you need to attach anything (like hinges!), you have to use special fixings.  They came with a drill bit and stop to use in the drill press but in my practice runs I determined there was too much chatter with the drill press and the holes were too big.  I found instead that drilling a tiny pilot hole the full depth of the finish hole and then drilling by hand, slowly, with firm steady pressure (from resting my shoulder on the back of the drill) yielded the best results and a nice tight fit.

Adding the hinges

Doors are finally siliconed into place and I can add the knobs and then do the final caulk in the nook.

Building the vanity!

Disassembled and reassembled into place.  No more brushing teeth over the bathtub!

Staining the vanity

Precutting all the pieces

Assembling the base

Testing the fit

Assembling the dividers

Installing the dividers

Assembling the top

Building the doors and drawer fronts

All assembled except the countertop which I will build and install in place

Bracket details installed

Everything just sitting in place--still need to build the drawer boxes and add all the hardware after staining.  Will need to disassemble and reassemble in place to get past the door trim on either side.

 

 

Ignore the plants (haven't figured out an arrangement I like yet), but we got the eschutcheons milled down and installed so now the tub filler looks finished.  Yay!

Still waiting on the welder to mill down the escutcheons for the bath filler but the bath filler and hand shower are finally installed!

Installed the window trim with a deeper plant shelf/window sill

Hung the towel hooks

I got the doors made.  I am waiting on special fixings to install them.  They are just dry fitted into place in this picture with the hinges taped on to see what they will look like.

Hung the shower curtain

Installed the locking door pulls on the pocket doors.  This was a highly tedious process.

Need to actually attach picture cord to the mirror to hang it for real from the rail

Picture Rail trim installed

Crown trim finished

Crown trim going in

Bathtub nook surround is in -- it is starting to look like a real bath nook now!

   

Bathtub nook surround wedged and clamped into place

Book shelf and towel wall face frames go in

Bookshelf interior going in after drilling shelf pin holes into the sides

     

Preparing to laminate the tub surround and the bookshelf surround

Too large to clamp, so had to just put free weights and plates on them to "clamp" them together

Shower wet casing installed

Solid surface Tub Apron built and panel detail added

Shower wet baseboards installed

Installing shower door wet casing

Shower fixtures going in
Look at that rain head!

Arch trim installed and primed

Installing arch casing (NOT FUN)
Had to relief kerf cut the arch trim after the first trim broke when I tried to bend it into place

Shower niches complete

Keeping things water tight by siliconing all niche trim into place

Shower wallpaper complete and getting ready to install niche casing

Installing v-groove panels

Routing v-grooves into solid surface for window wall of bathtub nook

Installing backs and jambs of shower niches

Wallpaper installed and starting to trim out shower niches

Adding panel detail to bathtub nook ceiling

Dry baseboards in

Dry window casing, sills, and aprons complete

Trimming out windows

Toilet installed!

Shower walls primed and painted (before wallpapering)

Skim coating the shower walls (before painting)

Preparing to trim out the dry windows

Flextrim casing arrived but did not hold its form.
They resent it multiple times but it never worked.

Door casing going in

Jeremy did a gorgeous job on the tile but accidentally left too much space in this corner as you can see in this "before" picture.
I increased the jamb width to push the casing out over this gap.  I guess I don't have an after picture.

A utility knife is not sharp enough to cut the wallpaper.
Borrowed a scalpel from my husband to do the trick.

     

Pocket doors all hung and installed

    

Installing privacy film that turned out beautiful

Hung closet mirror after light fixtures were installed

Choosing which doors to use for the doubles

Doors stained and ready for install

TV sealed off and attached to ceiling speakers

Staining french doors

  

Heat forming arch jamb

Trimming out and sealing off tv niche

Prime and paint shower walls (after skim coating)

Tile done!

  

Floor heating installed and marble tile going in

Tub set and uncoupling membrane installed for floor heating

Denshield going up

Showers plumbed

Paint done

Drywall done

  

Installing high window from inside

Framing complete

Walls demolished, window moved, new window installed

Linen Hutch Design

Vanity Design

Wetroom Elevations

Floor Plan

Electrical, Plumbing, and Flooring Plan

North Elevation

West Elevation

South Elevation

East Elevation

Bathtub before (jetted tub that was way too wide
and spit out mold any time you tried to use the jets)

Vanity before (nothing special)

Shower and toilet before (tiny shower that only one person could fit in at a time and a toilet being the first thing you see when you walk into the bathroom.  Note the carpeted floors! Only one window, not aligned with the doorway or bedroom widow, so providing too little light)

Closet before (seems big enough when empty, but this closet had a diagonal wall that made it so that the space couldn't be used efficiently.)