{shell & seaglass}: {bungalow kitchen love affair} ...continues...

guess what.
bungalow kitchen progress! well, at least in the two steps forward, one step backwards kind of progress. ...yeah, so there was a run in with the paint. ...not enough sanding prior = peeling/scraping off after. i didn't really document this happening, as i was too busy fussing to bust out the camera. but here are some spots on the drawers that flaked off. oh & i should mention the bottom right is of course a re-sanded & newly re-painted drawer front.

so in a frustrated, yet forced re-focused effort to do things the right way, we went back to the drawing board...this time with a hand-held power sander (which was surprisingly affordable). and sanded off sheets of polo blue paint. (author's note - power sanding, while easy to do, makes a ridiculous mess over your entire house. would not recommend doing so if you aren't already living in a construction zone, as we are. otherwise taking care to cover & seal off livable areas is highly recommended.)

some of the polo blue did adhere and the sanded first coat just meant for a smoother second coat. it actually is best to sand between coats when going for a high gloss surface with oil paint, as one might desire on kitchen cabinets. we tried to have as much patience with this step as possible, but there is very little gratification in making piles of blue dust (and very little to show for all of your efforts i might add, hence the lack of kitchen photos even though i swear we've been hard at work.)

ok, so the biggest upgrade to the bungalow kitchen has of course been the installation of all the appliances, with the most notable change being the microwave & range. see the before picture below...there was a drop-in stove with a skinny vent (which was extremely nasty to take down as what you cannot see in the picture is all of the grease that was built up inside of said skinny vent.) we cut out the drawers under the original drop-in stove to make room for our slide-in range (note: when buying new appliances it is significantly cheaper to keep the stove & oven all in one piece.) oh and also there was a separate wall oven, which also explains the enormous hole in the wall (more on that later).

so of course when we wanted to install a microwave in the place of the skinny vent, we were presented with the issue of shrinking space between the bottom of the microwave & the top of the stove. also apparently the skinny vent was also a bit longer than the length of a standard microwave, so we would be left with an awkward gap between the long cabinet to the left & the microwave side.

in the below two photos you can see our steps to fit our existing cabinets to house our gleaming new microwave. (both photos show more views of annoying peeling/sanded polo blue paint). below left is without the skinny vent. and below right is our creative solution - a baby shelf. (full disclosure - we did hire a cabinet guy through ricky the contractor to do the construction & installation of the microwave. images of it coming crashing down onto boiling pots of water kept us from attempting the diy for this part of the project). BUT b & i did completely come up with the solution on our own. you can see in the below right photo how the bottom of the shelf had to be moved up about 5 inches from where it was to accommodate the additional height of the microwave.

and *ta-da* ! microwave, baby shelf (we took out the middle partition so it makes one long shelf instead of the two square shaped shelves that were originally built by the cabinet guy. my thought was this will serve much better for olive oil, pam, and other cooking necessities that are nice to have at hand). ALSO will you just look at that gleamingly smooth polo blue paint. still plans to paint yet one final coat (after sanding of course...ahh, it never ends) but this is pretty much the final paint look. cabinet doors will be added back but of course we have to chop off the five inches on those too. oh and a backsplash is in the works...thinking aqua baby subway tiles.