When we look back over the last year of our beach house remodel, sometimes I wonder what on earth possessed us to take this on! And, although the construction portion of our phase-one remodel is completed, there are still many details and finishes left to do.
We will get there.
Here is our beach house kitchen, as we first found it. The house had suffered much deferred maintenance, then a foreclosure, then a period of vacancy, following by a flipper/ investor who lost interest in the project after gutting much of the interior.
That's where we stepped in. This kitchen was a mess of rot and mold and rat poo, but the light was amazing (that's a huge deal in the PNW), the bones were great, and there was potential for extraordinary views of the beach, a harbor, city lights from across the harbor, a mountain range, and even a volcano!
The first thing we did was demo the rot and mold, and we cleaned up the rat poo. LOTS of bleach was involved!
Then, we lifted the house nine feet to capture those magnificent views.
Unfortunately, we also captured some rooftop views of neighboring homes that were less than ideal, so we did a lighting study on a dark winter day, to see if we could live with fewer windows.
We decided we could definitely lose one of the seven windows in this kitchen, without losing too much light.
A bonus to losing the window would be the addition of some upper cabinets, and the creation of a focal point featuring our vintage stove.
We installed shaker style cabinets, with a painted and glazed finish, an enormous heavy gauge stainless steel sink, and a Paperstone countertop.
We had our plumber install our new faucet -- perfect for giant crab pots!
(A local fisherman sells live crab daily from his boat at a nearby marina.)
The Paperstone countertops got three coats of carnauba wax, followed by a beeswax topcoat.
The original flagstone floors were restored -- a project that involved back-breaking labor, including crawling around on hands and knees with a scraper and a wire brush, followed by several passes with a floor polisher, followed by more crawling and scraping and brushing, and so on.... Ultimately, the floor was deemed clean, and a sealer was applied.
The flipper/ investor we bought the house from had attempted to paint the ceiling, and in the process had gotten paint and primer all over the existing beams. After much scrubbing, the paint splotches are gone, but we will need to re-stain the beams, as the scrubbing removed part of the finish....
Rewiring the ceiling was out of the question, so we devised a track lighting design using existing wiring locations. It's turned out to be one of my favorite parts of this renovation!
And can you believe the glass globes were only fifty-four cents a piece on clearance? They remind me of milk glass.
The stove has been moved from the garage into the kitchen... where it stands in the middle of the floor, waiting to be plumbed in to the gas line....
And we still await the installation of a stove vent (which is a nice way of saying I need to make up my mind about some things)...
Lots of little details are still left to accomplish, but the really hard stuff is done. And that makes Dexter and me want to do the happy dance on our restored flagstone floors!
Here is our beach house kitchen, as we first found it. The house had suffered much deferred maintenance, then a foreclosure, then a period of vacancy, following by a flipper/ investor who lost interest in the project after gutting much of the interior.
The first thing we did was demo the rot and mold, and we cleaned up the rat poo. LOTS of bleach was involved!
Unfortunately, we also captured some rooftop views of neighboring homes that were less than ideal, so we did a lighting study on a dark winter day, to see if we could live with fewer windows.
Lots of little details are still left to accomplish, but the really hard stuff is done. And that makes Dexter and me want to do the happy dance on our restored flagstone floors!
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