kitchen Archives - Bigger Than the Three of Us

Kitchen Reveal with Dark Cabinets and Open Shelving

November 23, 2016 by Ashley Mayes 88 Comments

Oh my gosh guys, today is the freakin’ day! Finally, our Kitchen Reveal with Dark Cabinets and Open Shelving. I’m so excited to show you the whole thing!! You know what else? Today marks the 40th time I’ve posted about our kitchen. There are 39 posts that are linked at the bottom of this post that host all the DIYs, design boards; you name it! 39 posts?! Crazy, right?!

The backstory of our kitchen renovation in a nutshell is this… We decided that we were going to lightly update the kitchen about three years ago. Lightly meaning, take down wallpaper, paint, add new lighting… you know, that type of thing. Well, we did a few of those things and then started tacking on a few more. Then, all of sudden, Luke came home from work one day and I had taken the kitchen cabinets off the wall. So, to be completely honest, we had not saved for a kitchen renovation because we weren’t planning on doing a kitchen renovation. As we kept doing or dreaming about projects, we realized that we could have a pretty fantastic (it might not be my dream kitchen, but it’s close) kitchen if we took it slow and just paid for products as we had the cash for them. So, that’s why this project has been the longest project ever. I think that next time around (for example, our basement remodel) we will have a more clear picture of what we want to do beforehand and how much it’s going to cost. I can totally live through a one year project but I don’t want another project to span over the course of a few years. Live and learn, right?

Now that we have finished though, we absolutely love it and would probably do it all over again if we had to. =)

Without further adieu, grab a cup of coffee with me and let’s chat about the kitchen.

** Posted 08/24/17: After you read the reveal, if you are curious to see what the kitchen looks like today (10 months later) and to see if we still love everything including that open shelving… click over to see Kitchen Updates and What We Love About Our Kitchen.

If you’re a recent reader, then you may not have see the kitchen before the renovation. So, I’m going to back up and share a few pictures of the before and then we can get into the nitty-gritty of what we decided to do and why.

From the dining space into the kitchen, here was the before:

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What I’m Loving :: For My Kitchen

September 9, 2016 by Ashley Mayes 25 Comments

Happy Fri-yay! Do you feel like you had a productive, short week? I was just thinking about that and I think I was way more productive this week than I have been in a long time! But, that doesn’t mean I’m not ready for the weekend. I’m so ready! We, actually, don’t have a ton of plans… well, other than FOOTBALL! I can’t begin to explain to you how happy I am that it’s football season. It’s totally my favorite thing! So, yay.. it’s football season. Now, I’m off to gain 10 lbs by eating chili and sitting on my butt each Sunday. =)

But first, I’m so excited to share that we made the final purchases for our kitchen! Seriously, it’s the best feeling ever. We’d been saving for awhile for a dishwasher and sink and finally made it happen this week. So, yay! Both are set to be delivered within the next 10 days, which means the official kitchen reveal should be the first week of October!

I realize that it’s been forever since I’ve shared progress on the kitchen, so here’s an image I posted on IG.

It’s looking more finished, right?! I don’t think this will be how the shelving will look when we do the reveal, but it’s a cute look. Luke thinks it’s a bit cluttered.

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How to Install Heavy Duty Floating Shelves – for the Kitchen

June 8, 2016 by Ashley Mayes 57 Comments

*Edited 11/27/16 – Make sure to check out our kitchen reveal (includes all the kitchen posts and lots of details!).

*Edited 08/24/17 – See what we think about our open shelving in our Kitchen Updates – What we think about our Open Shelving in the Kitchen.

Are you wondering what has gotten into me? Two kitchen posts in one week? It’s definitely unexpected, right?! For some reason, I’m just motivated. Weird, but true. So today, let’s chat about How to Install Heavy Duty Floating Shelves – for the Kitchen.

When it came to deciding what I wanted for the open shelves, I knew things I didn’t want. I didn’t want to piece my wood around the shelving supports, meaning that the shelves were super chunky. I like that look but I wanted something more streamlined. I also didn’t want a shelf that couldn’t hold a standard plate.

Those two things together made mounting the shelving very difficult.

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There are a few different ways to mount shelving. We looked at this tutorial from House Updated and really liked it but just weren’t confident in our ability to get it straight.

So, after quite the search fest, I finally found a supplier who would make something that works. SilicateStudio, on Etsy, makes hidden mounting brackets for heavy-duty shelving and mantles.

I needed shelving brackets for a 6ft hardwood board that was about 11 inches wide and 1.5 inches thick. The recommendation from SilicateStudio was to purchase (4) heavy-duty hidden floating shelf brackets. The brackets ended up being around $230, so it definitely wasn’t cheap.

The brackets have hanging guides but it’s basically up to you to find your studs and position them in the wall.

Supply List

Heavy-Duty Shelving (4)

Drill (this is my absolute favorite because it’s lightweight enough for me but gets the job done!)

Measuring Tape (has built in marker)

Mallet Heavy-Duty Anchors

Let’s get to the How-to!

Luke measured and re-measured (he knew his life depended on it … lol) and hung them up. The brackets went up at 20″ from the countertop and 33″ up.

As you can see, we chose to hang them up before the tile and then cut tile to go around them.

We finished the tile and then grouted with the brackets still up. Then we, pulled them down to make a template for our shelving.

I wanted a pretty wood, so I went to a custom wood shop to find and buy. There are lots of pretty woods out there, but since I was wanting the board to be around 11 inches wide and 1.5 inches thick… that limited my options. To be completely honest, I can’t even remember what I choose! I think it’s Ash. The price of the wood with the holes drilled for the brackets was around $300.

Again, you could totally go a different route with both the wood and brackets and save some money.

Luke had measured and diagramed out the wood with which bracket went to what (the brackets were just a tad off from each other). So, when we went to hang the brackets back up, we had to hand them up in order.

Each bracket had two screws that hit studs.

For the drywall anchors, we used these:

Since they say they hold up to 143 lbs and we used (6) plus two stud screws… I feel pretty confident that the shelves are staying put.

Getting the wood on the brackets was quite the experience. The shelving weighs quite a bit and it’s tall so we definitely had to manhandle it on.

We wiggled and pushed it on and then finally tapped both shelves in with a mallet.

I’m confident they aren’t going anywhere.

We still have to caulk around the edges where the tile doesn’t quite meet up perfectly. Well that, and play with the styling because, you know I’m not done with that.

The goal is to have them functional yet pretty. I’m sure once I find something that works well, I’ll do a blog post about it.

So, would you ever have floating shelves? I know they aren’t for everyone! Tell the truth. =)

Pin for Later: How To Install Heavy Duty Shelves

*Edited 08/24/17 : Love this next photo of the shelves!

PIN For Later : How To Install Open Shelves In The Kitchen

If you liked this post, then you may like:

Kitchen Reveal

DIY Feather Art

DIY Wood Wall Art

DIY Spice Drawer Organizer

If you decide to put up open shelving in the kitchen then you are probably going to want my Kitchen Shelving Styling Guide! Sign up in the box below.

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Modern Barstool Round-Up

March 7, 2016 by Ashley Mayes 9 Comments

I have a confession. I used to be a sucker for sales. Yep, I admit it. If something went on sale that was better than what I had, and if I could afford it, then I would impulse buy it. Yep, that was me. HomeGoods really sucks me in like that. Well, over the past 1.5 years I’ve started to really enjoy design and decorating. I love sourcing products and good deals, but now I have to fall in love with something before I buy it. It’s all part of the fun for me. So, today I’m sharing a Modern Barstool Round-Up.

When we moved into this house, we brought barstools with us from our last house. We had originally purchased the barstools because we were going to have company and we needed two extra seats in the kitchen (at that time we had a counter-height table so the barstools worked great!).

Well, those barstools were cheap and super uncomfortable. But, they worked and they worked for a few years. Fast forward to this house. We had them in this kitchen for a few months and then I happened across these super-padded, neutral linen barstools. They were on clearance and I got them for a steal.

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Custom DIY Kitchen Doors and Cabinets – All the Details on the Costs!

February 2, 2016 by Ashley Mayes 49 Comments

I’ve been asked and asked about how we accomplished parts of the kitchen and what the costs were. Thank you for being curious! But, I feel terrible. This post, for some reason, has been slow to publish. I was actually going to publish it about two weeks ago and then we had a little mishap on placing the hardware at the wrong height. We had to sand, fill, paint and then put the hardware on again. So, all of that’s to say that I was just now able to take pictures of the whole thing with the hardware in the right spot on all of the doors. So, today I’m sharing our custom DIY Kitchen Doors and DIY cabinets – All the the Details on the costs!

*If you’re new here, we are in the midst of a very long kitchen remodel. We are the slowest DIY’ers ever. Part of that is that we do not like to work in the evenings through the week and the other part is that we pay cash for the renovations. Just keeping it real. =)

Ok, let’s jump right in.

I guess we will talk about the original kitchen cabinets first. We KEPT all the cabinets and drawers in the ‘U’ shape. There was nothing wrong with the actual cabinets or drawers and this saved us a lot of money! The drawer fronts on all the drawers and the cabinet doors were tossed out.

The drawer fronts (look closely below to see) were broken in a few spots on multiple drawers.

My grandpa and I then made drawer fronts. We made them out of poplar (since we were painting them – we used Benjamin Moore Advance to paint them) and used the original drawer fronts for sizing. I believe we made 13 of them and they ended up costing around $125. They were pretty easy to make since I’m a simple girl. I wanted just a rectangle with no border or anything.

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