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Kitchen Makeover with Custom Island
Building your own custom island may be the perfect way to create a workspace that doubles as a dining area. My husband and I recently updated my mom’s kitchen. We were in a bit of a dilemma on what to put in the large open space in the middle. A table and chairs would have been an option, but just didn’t feel right in the space. Her house is not an open concept house, so the kitchen definitely needed a comfortable space to hangout. The old kitchen originally had an island, but it was small and dated so it had to go. I think one of the biggest advantages of…
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Bathroom Vanity Upgrade
Happy New Year! I hope you are all refreshed and ready for 2024. I’m glad to be back after taking a break from the FC blog. To start the year off, I’m going to share our freshly installed bathroom vanity project for my girls bathroom. Several years back we replaced the large vanity mirror in my master bathroom for subway tile backsplash and round vanity mirrors. I completely love that look but know the counter and sinks will eventually need replaced too. Which is why we chose to do the backsplash, counter and sinks at the same time for the upstairs bath. I am always looking to create the best…
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What to do with dark granite countertops?
Dark colored granite countertops were very much a “thing” twenty years ago, but what to do with them now when everything is white and bright? This has been my dillema for quite a few years now. I considered doing concrete countertops, like we did in our lakehouse, but at the end of the day they were just too rustic looking for my main home, which is pretty traditional. I researched some options to paint the granite to look like marble and then coat with epoxy and I decided to go for it. Because this was my first time trying this, I opted for the Giani Carrara White Marble Epoxy Countertop…
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Mini Kitchen Renovation
Recently we helped my good friend Leanne with a mini kitchen renovation. I say mini, because we only replaced the sink, facet, countertops, backsplash and painted the cabinets. This may sound like a lot, but it only took a weekend, and we worked within a relatively small budget. We have done a similar project at our lake house, where we poured concrete countertops, which was very cheap but labor intensive. The pic below is the before shot. There were Formica countertops on the counters and backsplash, as well as some odd faux granite particle board covering the back of the bottom counters. I’m a fan of painting old cabinets like…
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Stone Entryway
When we did the addition to our lakehouse for the new mudroom we didn’t have enough room for much of a front porch because the septic is in front of the house and we can’t cover it with concrete. For those of you who’ve never had a septic system, septic tanks require access for emptying. There are two access points to the septic, one about 2 feet off the front door and another about 10 foot. Our temporary solution were some odd shaped pavers we had laying around, which helped keep the entryway free from mud when it rained, but it was not very attractive… Step 1 Remove old stones…
