Our Kitchen Renovation is in full swing here at Fletcher Creek Cottage and this is week#4 of the Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge! Two more weeks to go! I am so excited to say that this week we completed almost half of the projects left on our “to-do” list! This week our main focus for the Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge was to make the Cane Kitchen Doors & DIY Beams for the ceiling!

Renovation Recap

For a recap of what we’ve finished so far make sure to check out all our previous posts…

BEFORE & MOOD BOARD

WEEK #1

WEEK #2 

WEEK #3

 

The Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge

The Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge gives 12 chosen designers and DIYers 6 weeks to completely transform a space in our homes with any Jeffrey Court tile of their choosing and compete for the grand prize! I am so excited to be a part of the challenge this year! The winner of the Jeffrey Court Challenge is chosen by most VOTES, so we’re counting on YOU!!!

Be sure to  VOTE daily for your favorite designer HERE! 

 

Cane Doors/Drawer Fronts for Kitchen Cabinets & Island

This week our focus was on finishing up our kitchen cabinet doors and drawers as well as building rustic beams that look like they were reclaimed from a barn and install them on our ceiling in the kitchen and throughout the main floor.

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF PAINT

We spent the past few weeks building all new kitchen door fronts/ drawer fronts and all-new kitchen cabinets with dovetail drawers for our kitchen island. We built the door and drawer frames from maple. This week I focused on finishing up the door and drawer fronts. All the doors and drawers got a coat of primer and two coats of paint. The color is called “Mourning Dove” by Behr. It took me weeks to decide on the “perfect” paint color…I had so many samples! It took me a while, but I landed on a warm shade of off-white and I am so glad I took my time choosing the right shade for my space! I painted the base cabinets last week and this week I focused on painting the doors and drawer fronts.

 

For me, paint makes all the difference! I painted the doors and drawer fronts using a smaller angle brush (just in the inside corners) and a foam roller on all the fronts, backs, and edges. I also primed and painted the backs of the doors so they would look finished when the doors were open!

 

Priming and painting took a few days. I primed and painted all the door fronts, backs, and sides but ONLY ONE side of the wood back panels. The painted side of the panels is the back of the cabinet door. The front side of the panels is stained with “Early American” wood stain because the center of the door fronts is caned.

 

After everything was fully dry, it was time to figure out how I was going to attach my natural cane to the inside/back of the doors while making sure the backs looked good. I laid out all my door back panels over the natural cane and cut each piece to size.

 

 

Then I soaked each piece in water for at least 30 min so that the cane would be soft and pliable and stretch well. As the cane dries, it tightens up leaving the door front really nice and smooth! No matter how hard you pull the cane, if you skip this step the cane will be rippled and have a wavy look (not good).

 

My first two attempts at attaching the cane to my doors didn’t work at all! First I tried attaching the cane to the back with my staple gun and even though I had the pressure really low it still shot too far through and splintered the cabinet door. Next, I tried pulling the cane tight and inserting the back panel, and then trimming the cane right away….it worked to hold it in until the cane dried and pulled out.

 

My third attempt was a mixture of the first two tries. I pressed the back panel into the cane (pulling it tight) and then added a staple to each corner and waited for it to completely dry before removing the extra cane around the edges very carefully with a utility knife. The doors came out great and I really love how they look with the natural cane framed with the off-white shaker frames!  I really love the look of the soft natural woven cane…it feels warm and the texture is just beautiful! I couldn’t be happier and I can hardly wait to start tiling and finish this kitchen renovation so I can ENJOY it!!!

 

Building DIY Box Beams/ Installing Beams On Our Ceiling

Before I can start adding my Jeffrey Court Marble Tile, I had to finish one more HUGE project! If you remember back I mentioned that part of this kitchen renovation was adding rustic wood beams to our ceilings.  I needed to get all the kitchen ceiling beams built, stained, and installed up on the ceiling before I could start tiling the kitchen wall. So we spent the second half of the week building our DIY beams.

We chose to use 2×6 rough sawn pine. The beams we made have three sides and they are glued and nailed together and then attached to the 2×4 cleats (that we already secured up on the ceiling a few weeks ago). The cleats are screwed into our ceiling rafters and are very secure.

We cut the two sides of each beam each with an (almost) flat edge and a 45degree edge. The edge that was almost flat is the side that is against the ceiling.

 

Aaron wanted it to be really tight so he cut it at a 4-degree angle. Then we had to cut the center of the “U” (the bottom side) with two-45 degree angles.

 

We build the beams inside on our kitchen table and then put them up one at a time using two ladders and a nail gun. It took us a couple of days to stain, build and get them all up on the ceiling. Once they were up I was THRILLED…until the next day…when I realized how much the raw lumber had soaked up the stain and how much darker they looked.

I thought they looked beautiful, but they were just TOO dark for me. Our ceilings are almost 10 ft tall…so they didn’t feel too large or too “heavy” looking…just TOO dark!

SO, I decided I wanted to re-stain them all. Because I had just primed and painted my entire ceiling a few weeks ago, I used my Delicate Surface Frog Tape to tape off the beams and protect the ceiling from the stain. I ended up using a white-wash stain over the dark, and then staining it all again with the color “Golden Pecan” to get the exact look I wanted!

 

 

I honestly thought it would only take 2-3 hours to redo them…boy oh boy was I WRONG! It took me over EIGHT hours!

 

 

I was on a ladder scrubbing stain into the beams over my head all day and by the end of the day, I was completely exhausted…but also on cloud NINE because of how the beams looked!!! Sometimes in design things come out just right the first go-around…but more often than not, things don’t go as planned and you have to pivot and try again!

 

RECAPPING WEEK #4 /Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge

This week was full of “trying again”. The cane doors didn’t turn out right away and the DIY beams didn’t turn out right the first try either. I had to re-assess and try again! It took a lot more time and effort than I had planned. I had to tell myself to “keep going” lots of times…and you know what…I sure am glad because in the end…they turned out amazing! I LOVE the way to doors look with the cane and I am beyond happy with the wood beams! I could not be happier with the outcome!

This week threw me some curveballs for sure, but with some trial and error and a whole lot of elbow grease…we got through it!

UP NEXT:

We have two short weeks to FINISH this kitchen renovation! I can’t believe how fast this project has flown by and I am so excited to start installing my hexagon marble mosaic tile from Jeffrey Court and see the kitchen take shape! We still have the kitchen island cabinets and countertop to install as well as add new pendant lights, paint my old bar stools and as I mentioned….install the beautiful TILE feature wall behind the stove, fridge, and freezer! Yeehaw!! It’s going to be a crazy busy couple of weeks, but I’m up for the challenge!

 

 

I’m so grateful to Jeffrey Court and our amazing sponsors Frog Tape and Sinkology for the opportunity to be a part of the Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge 2021! I  can’t wait to wrap up this project and share the entire kitchen transformation with you all in the next few weeks and see all the other designer’s spaces finished! We are SO CLOSE!!! It’s going to be amazing…in the meantime…you can VOTE HERE daily for your favorite designer! And for all the behind-the-scenes renovation updates be sure to follow along on Instagram @fletchercreekcottage and @JeffreyCourtHD! 

Thanks for hanging out with me this week as we tackled building our  Cane Kitchen Doors & DIY Beams WEEK #4 for the Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge!