While we had the primer out we went ahead and slapped a coat on the hood cover too (using a 2″ angled brush in the cracks followed by a small foam roller to smooth everything out). Things were instantly looking less wood-sy on that wall.

Once the primer dried on both – we used Zinsser Smart Prime which is low-VOC and was recommended by a few pro cabinet painters that we know – out came the same high-durability paint that we used on our cabinets (yes, there’s still plenty left!) and we gave the brackets, shelves, and the hood a couple of coats. Two thin and even ones over one coat of primer did the trick. We also applied those with a 2″ angled brush followed by a small foam roller to keep things smooth and even. Oh and the paint is Benjamin Moore Advance paint in Cloud Cover, bee-tee-dubs (which many pros use to paint the inside of their clients’ cabinets along with the outside, so it should stand up really well to everyday use once it’s nice an cured up).

But the exciting stuff really started to happen when we finally got to the point of ACTUALLY PUTTING STUFF ON THE WALL. Yowza. Sorry for the caps. I said we were excited, right? Excited might be an understatement actually. Luckily, since we had already drilled all of our screws into the wall, the hanging step was pretty easy. Up went the brackets on the short side…

…followed moments later by the shelves themselves. Can I get an “Ooooh”? How about and “Ahhhhh”?

Don’t worry, we weren’t gonna just let them sit there unsecured. We just had some other things to do first – like making sure everything was still level. It was. Phew.

So then we put everything up on the long side of the wall.

We had mentioned in the previous post that we had originally planned to screw the shelves into the wall (we even made some pocket holes in preparation for this step). Well, after feeling how solid the brackets felt (more on that here) and not really wanting to put 12 more cringe-inducing holes in our tile – we opted to just use those pocket holes as a spot to screw the shelves firmly into the brackets (so the screw actually went straight down, not at the angle of the pocket hole). In hindsight, we definitely could’ve skipped the pocket hole step, but at least now the screw will be hidden in a spot that we can easily caulk over.

Speaking of caulk, that was our next step after everything was drilled together. Since there were some dark seams where the shelves met the brackets, we just ran a thin bead of white paintable caulk along the top of each bracket and smoothed it with our finger to make the shelves and brackets look more like one unit. Tedious? A smidge. Worth it? Totally. Then of course we painted over it so everything matched.

And with that folks, we were done! Except for more waiting. Booooo.

As eager as we are to immediately fill them with plates and bowls and cups, we resisted that urge in order to let all of the paint cure a little bit longer – just because we caulked those screw holes and around the edges which called for some touch up paint. We definitely don’t want to jump the “fully cured” gun (which could result in a bunch of dents and dings in our shelves during their first few days of use). So for now we’ll just have to enjoy these empty “after” shots thanks to following the full curing time on the paint can’s directions. But tomorrow – oh baby, it’s on. Sherry’s even planning to shoot a little time lapse video of the process of loading them up.

Oh and of course we still have to add crown molding to the ceiling to finish things off and make the top of the hood a lot more seamless. But slowly it’s all feeling a lot closer to “done” than “just started” – especially now that the hood is painted too (never mind the fact that we still have some patch work to do on the ceiling along with that aforementioned crown molding).

We’re really happy with how the brackets turned out, so we haven’t thought twice about our decision not to do true floating shelves. We think these are really charming – and they’re super stable so Sherry could probably hang off of them if she wanted. Instead she wants to fill them with ceramic animals. Same difference.

It’s nice that there’s still plenty of room to load them up and make them really functional, even with the brackets (no, they will not actually end up full of ceramic animals- not on my watch). Our shelves are deep enough for our 12″ dinner plates and the brackets are 15″ apart so we should have lots o’ room to put everyday stuff up there – which we hear from other open-shelf-having folks works really well, since it’s used often enough not to get dusty).

And even though it was a bit weird at first to see our wall of penny tile suddenly broken up by these bright white lines, it’s cool to see the thing we’ve always envisioned come that much closer to being a reality.

So we should have pics (and a video) of the shelves all filled for you tomorrow. Until then, we’ll leave you with this slightly-closer-to-after shot of the room. We’re definitely getting there. And we’re counting down the seconds to Operation Cork My Floor (along with adding that crown molding, patching the ceiling, adding a pendant over the sink, covering the base of the peninsula with some decorative wood planks, hanging some art to the right of the fridge, do something to the side of the pantry, etc).

We feel especially giddy when we look at old photos of the room back when it looked like this:

We can hardly picture that old room anymore. Isn’t it funny how quickly your brain replaces things? It’s so crazy that we lived with the room just like that for over six months before even painting the paneling. But once we finally got the ball rolling… well, it’s still rolling. Haha. Is anyone else in the home stretch of one of their home projects? Though I probably should knock on wood when I say that, since it sounds like a sure way to jinx myself into some last-minute wrench in the plan (he says as he gets up to literally go knock on wood while crossing his fingers and eyes).

I love this vase from Crate & Barrel (a gift from John’s older sister for my birthday a few years back) and it looks especially good with floppy flowers sort of splayed out around the wiggly perimeter.

And I love the two-tone tulip action going on. The prettiest color combinations are always found in nature, huh? Buttery yellow + poppy reddish pink + fresh green = yes please.

I like how they’re leaning out like they’re growing towards the sun in our natural-light-less kitchen. Oh the irony. These guys have actually been alive a few days now, so I guess they only need water but not too much sun (since they have yet to fall to pieces). Whew.

Oh and just for fun, I played around with them in another vase. Well, I guess it’s not really a vase (it’s a seeded glass hurricane meant for a candle that I grabbed at HomeGoods a few years back). Just as pretty, huh? Oh and I got us a kitchen radio on clearance from Joss and Main about a month ago (and we finally plugged it in after staring at it on the counter for a while). Let me tell you, it’s novel. We’ve actually never had a radio in the kitchen but since we log so much hangout time at the peninsula these days (doing blog stuff/book stuff/projects/eating) we thought it would be nice. And it is. Especially with pretty tulips next to it.

The hilarity of this photo is that if I were allowed to share behind-the-scenes book pics, the next photo would be what you see if you swing the camera about six inches to the right. A shot of our monstrous dining table that sits just beyond this half-wall and is completely full of lamps/ceramic things/paint cans/fabric/baskets/bottles/books/frames/etc. Seriously, you can’t even see the tabletop anymore. So when I say there’s a sliver of beauty in our completely trashed house, I really do mean it. And the juxtaposition is hysterically funny to us. So just know that the over-sharer in me is dying to slather chaos pics all over this end of this post to balance the sweet charming “moments” in the kitchen. Oh well, when the book is out we’re allowed to share it all, so we’re counting down the months.

Anyway, back to the kitchen and our little budget blooms. I now firmly believe that every kitchen is made better by three things: flowers, a radio, and a white ceramic tea kettle (of course). Closely followed by a giant ceramic rooster. And a wall full of penny tile doesn’t hurt either. Have you guys been buying flowers or other greenery lately? Have you played around with a few different vases just for fun? Do you have a kitchen radio? Do you even listen to the radio anymore? Oh and what are three things that you think makes any kitchen better?

Psst- Check out a whole mess of Budget Bloom posts from over the last few years here.

… you know I spray painted that sucker glossy white, right? A few thin and even coats later (I used the Rustoleum Universal stuff with built-in primer) I was left with this guy. I don’t know why I’m holding him up sideways in front of the other wall. I blame book craziness (how long can I blame normal weirdness on book craziness? Two weeks? A month? Three years?).

Then it was hanging time:

And then came Clara’s coats and hats and Burger’s leash:

Ta-dahhhhhhh.

Why didn’t we do this months ago? Now there’s no more running around to try to locate one of Clara’s coats (which used to end up in any number of odd places since it didn’t have a designated drop spot like this).

I can even picture her little lunch box and backpack hanging up here someday. Sniffle.

And there’s still plenty of space for tucking our laundry basket in there. This tiny 3.5′ wide room (not exaggerating, that’s literally the width) is definitely a lesson in figuring out how to get the most organizational bang for our buck. Between the baskets and bins on the shelves that we built next to the washer and dryer to our low-profile shoe caddies made from recycle bins from Ikea by the door, we definitely have squeezed lots of function into this sliver of space.

So that’s another little project that I can officially check off the list, and one more item out of the playroom! Holla. What are you guys spray painting, hanging, organizing lately? Anyone else have random “Dude Get On That Already” challenge coups to share? Isn’t it funny how sometimes it’s the littlest projects that make the biggest difference? We’ve been using these hooks so much for the past few days that we have already wondered aloud several times how we ever lived without them. It’s the little things.

Psst- Sometimes you just need your mom, right? More on that over here on Young House Life.

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With the hood cover now built, we could finally put the shelves in around it. We were originally going to build true floating shelves (maybe even breaking out Ana White’s instructions) but after looking at some of our inspiration pics again, we decided to open ourselves to the idea of using brackets instead. Note: For anyone wondering how the whole dust/grease situation is with open shelves, check out this post (we’re crazy so we did our research). Apparently the consensus is that if you have a great range hood (check!) and put dishes you use often up there (soon-to-be-checked!) it’s all good. Rarely used items stored inside of cabinets get dusty too, so the key seems to be to have a good hood and to rotate things and use them a lot when they’re out in the open. We’ll definitely tell you how it goes for us. 

Besides just liking the look of them, brackets would also make us less concerned about things ripping out of our wall o’ tile (and you already know that stresses us out). Plus, we had heard that Home Depot had some pretty good and affordable options for brackets. Here are the ones I found – actually this is the photo I texted to Sherry to ask which one she liked best since she was at home with Clara and the photoshoot crew.

We both agreed the last one was BY FAR our favorite, so I picked up 12 of ‘em along with some 12″ framing lumber to act as our shelves. A few of you had said this 12″ framing lumber + brackets system worked well in your kitchens (and we had good luck with them making our office desk) so why not, right?

Well, one “why not” would be that they’re not wide enough for our plates. We have 12″ dinner plates and since 12″ in lumber terms is really closer to 11.25″, we realized we’d have some plate overhang-age. Which is never a good look:

After briefly contemplating getting smaller plates, we devised this solution instead: adding some 1 x 2″ trim around the end (just like we did to finish the top of our homemade console table in the living room).

Not only would it solve our shelf depth issue, but it’d also mean I could cover up the rough end of each board with a nice smooth piece of wood. A win-win, dontcha think?

With all of our materials purchased our total came to about $116 (for brackets) + $15 (for the shelf boards) + $10 (for the smaller boards to frame out the larger shelves) = $141. Which isn’t exactly cheap, but we knew we’d essentially get four shelves worth of storage (two big and two smaller ones) which is about the equivalent of three upper cabinets (which usually go for around $300+ total). And thanks to saving money with things like reusing our original cabinets, building our fridge cabinet, our self-installed wall of tile, and our craigslist range hood we were ok with a semi-splurge in the shelving category (plus we already have the paint and primer we’ll be using).

Next we began marking and measuring everything. We used the same weighted-thread-hanging-from-marks-on-ceiling method for indicating where my studs were (which we used here to hang our range hood). Ends up they’re pretty awesomely placed to get even looking brackets – except for the two on the end of the long side (that stud is being used by the hood, remember?). But we figured we’d just use heavy duty anchors on the other two (sunk into tile we knew they’d be nice and strong).

We also used this moment to measure and cut our shelves too. I know it may look short on that one end, but remember we’re gonna trim it with a 1 x 2″ board, so that’s intentional. Oh and see those subtle gray lines in the photo above and below? Those are our hanging pieces of thread to mark the studs. Just didn’t want anyone to wonder if we drew on the tile or anything.

We decided to just trim the exposed sides so each shelf had a slightly different configuration. The long shelf on top would have the wall and hood on both ends, so it only needed trim on the front. But the short shelf on the bottom would be exposed everywhere but the back side (the one on the top right would run into the hood and the one on the bottom left would run into the wall). I know it might seem strange not to just trim them all out in the same way, but we knew from building our console table that once it was all put together and painted it would look great this way. And of course we cut the framing lumber to different sizes to account for the trim, so they’ll all be the same finished length and depth.

We attached the trim with some wood glue and finish nails. You’ll notice we also have some pre-drilled pocket holes on the top. I was thinking it might be nice to screw the shelves directly into the wall (in addition to screwing them to the brackets).

That night I also broke out the wood filler to make the thin seam between the trim and 12″ board completely disappear. It was a small detail, but we thought once primed and painted it would really help make it feel like one solid board. See how even in the photo below (without primer and paint) you can’t tell that some are trimmed out on one side while others are trimmed out on two? We’re actually glad our plates didn’t fit on the boards alone since the trimmed out result is so much more finished looking.

While all that was happening, we also started getting ready to attach the brackets to the wall. We leveled and taped up some 1 x 2″ scraps to act as our placeholder shelves so that we’d know exactly where the top of the bracket needed to sit.

The brackets came with two metal hooks on the back, so I used my favorite paper template method to help figure out where I needed to drill corresponding holes on the wall. The strip of paper is taped to the bracket on the top and bottom, but the tape on the sides is facing out to stick to the wall. And the two holes are punctured right where the notches are.

Then I put it in place on the wall, pressed the side pieces of tape against the tile, and carefully peeled the bracket away…

…leaving my paper template in place so that I could mark through the holes.

See? Easy right? Now just pretend it wasn’t super tedious to do it 11 more times.

And since I still cringe at the sight of our tile getting drilled into (especially 24 times!) I couldn’t bear to photograph it again, let alone share it here. But here’s some of the final product – a dozen pairs of screws waiting for brackets to be hung on them. That my friends, as subtle as it may look, is the look of progress.

Here’s a sense of how everything will hang. We did a test run of hanging one side to make sure the screws weren’t in or out too far, and to make sure they felt secure. They did! Phew. True to form, Sherry can’t wait to load them up with dishes and plates galore.

But as excited as we were to just get the darn stuff hung, we knew it would behoove us to do all of our priming/painting beforehand – (that way we wouldn’t have to worry about taping off the wall or getting paint on our grout). So this is where our shelf-hanging tale ends for now. Waiiiiiting for our primer to dry so we can apply two coats of paint (the same color that we used for our cabinets) and then hang it all up once it’s nice and cured. Oh yes, and we’re priming and painting the hood too, so that should look nice and crisp the next time you see it.

Once dried, it should be pretty quick to get everything hung so we should should have “after” pics for you by Wednesday, barring any unforeseen craziness (who are we kidding, it’s week two of three for our in-home book shoots and we live in Crazyville, but it would take a pack of wild boars running through the house for us to slow down on our shelves). What did you guys do this weekend? Any lumber stuff? Priming? Drilling through tile? Prepping 35 more secret projects to shoot for your book while your daughter ran amok and your chihuahua ate various crumbs leftover from the past week of visitors?

Psst- The inspiration pics in this post were found at The Inspired Room and You Paid More Than Me.

Future Top Chef: Clara, considering the amount of time she spends using the play kitchen we made for her for Christmas. Although the thing she “cooks” most is a bunch of toy animals (they also get lots of fake baths in the sink).

Most Gifted: Us, at least when it comes to recapping all of our Christmas gifts – like earrings, art, art supplies, buttons and this cheeky t-shirt.

Most Secretive: All of the lady-bloggers (including Sherry) who participated in a Secret Santa gift exchange last month. January meant they could finally reveal their identities and the deets behind the gifts.

Most Likely To Be In The Dark: Clara, thanks to her new blackout curtains. They’re still not officially sewed, but that doesn’t keep us from getting some rock star naps lately! Thank goodness. It’s like she knows we’re trying to knock out five secret book shots in a two hour period so she gives us an extra half hour just to be sweet.

Most Artistic: The wall in our living room, which got a small little art switcheroo (color mats became more muted linen ones). Oh and we shared a behind-the-scenes glimpse into our ottoman. Our over-sharing spirit knows no bounds, apparently.

Class Stud: This stool that we made over for a feature in a recent issue of Do It Yourself magazine (after we gave it a little paint and fabric update with some nail heads).

Most Deranged Re-Arranged: Clara’s room, which is on its third layout in one year. I guess that’s what you get when you try to configure furniture meant for a smaller differently-shaped room into a new space.

Best Couple: The new sheer curtain panels that joined the existing printed panels (well, half panels) in our living room to beef up their visual presence a bit.

Book Worm: Our family yearbooks! Our big photobook featuring all of the highlights from 2011 arrived in January (and Clara has already learned to request “look at pictures” to go through it together – awwww).

Most Faux-Real: The antlers we sprayed white and hung atop Sherry’s noggin in the kitchen as our first “Dude, Get On That Already” project where we have vowed to use things or lose them donate/craigslist them.

Best Tour Guide: Burger, for showing you around his “room” in our post about hanging a new light fixture in our master closet.

Least Upright: Me, while snagging a few new closet chandelier pics while Burger supervised.

Most Dramatic: The transformation of our cabinets, having (finally) gotten their paint makeover.

Most Tedious: Installing our penny tile in the kitchen, which required a fair bit of time and concentration – so much so that the process spanned three whole posts. Including this one (where we covered how we figured out how to cut the penny tile)…

… this one all about how we planned and executed our first (small) wall of tile…

… and this one about finishing up the whole thing (including a video of the thinsetting process). Fortunately it was all totally worth it in the end. We still find ourselves petting it every now and then.

Most Annoying: Me, for getting a Tears for Fears song stuck in lots of your heads thanks to my post entitled “Grout, Grout, Let It All Out.” Uh oh, did I just do it again?

Most Swiss Cheese-esque: The ceiling in our kitchen, which was rocking quite a few holes following a visit from the electrician.

Most Well-Rounded: Our new globe pendant lights over the peninsula in the kitchen.

Little Miss Perfect Award: Definitely not Sherry, who owned up to the fact that life isn’t always rainbows and unicorns at Chez Petersik in her “The Real $her-dog” post. But that’s why we love her.

Mr. Mom: me (I’m feeling better about accepting this title thanks to lots of encouraging comments on my “The Real J-Boom” post where I talked about my insecurity about being a work-at-home-dad). Aw, shucks.

Cheapest: Our Jenn-Air range hood found on Craigslist for $60 (after we talked them down from 65). I’d say it’s our best deal of the year, but it doesn’t mean much considering we’re just one month in. It’s like seeing a movie preview these days that says “Critics are calling it the best film of the year.”

Most Supported: The aforementioned vent hood, which you saw us hang earlier this week (and a bit later – though technically in February – you saw it get all covered up too).

Most Commented: Our post about how we handle less-than-kind feedback (wowsa, it wracked up over 1000 comments in one weekend). Must have been this picture…

Most Chaotic: Our house, as the perfect storm of kitchen renovations and book photo shoots converge in one typhoon of craziness. Hey, on the bright side – one week of three is officially complete! And we have over 35 projects fully shot (before, progress, and afters) and in the can. Go team!

Biggest Chicken: Jarvis, the oversized ceramic rooster that we amped up with some aubergine spray paint.

Most Dated: Our page o’ monthly round ups that we finally organized (so you can see virtually all our 2011 projects in 12 posts). Guess we gotta go add this guy now…

What did you guys squeak out in the first month of 2012? Have you ever made a list of accomplishments to look back on? Feel free to use the comment section of this post to list what you’ve done (or just toss out a few highlights). It’s so nice to take a break from adding things to the to-do list for a second, just to look back and appreciate the things you can mark “done!”

Hi guys! I’ve been torn for a while about which project to submit, but I’m going to go with my daughter Ella’s room because a) the story involves dead pigeons – and what good renovation story doesn’t? – and b) it’s not a kitchen – our kitchen still kind of stinks – and c) you seem to enjoy a good kid’s room with lots of play value and the flexibility to change things up.  So here’s the story.

When we first saw our home, we were drawn to the mansard roof and the attic beyond. Undeterred by the deteriorated brick walls, the water damaged wood, or the pigeon remains, we saw the possibility in that attic for a treetop bedroom and we were sold.

Demolition began and we removed the rotted pine flooring and salvaged a single wall made of tongue and groove pine.

Then we designed wardrobes (we had them fabricated at a local millwork shop) that went in, providing storage and a hiding place for the ductwork that serves this floor and the one below. Next, we covered the exposed rafters and installed beadboard in between.

The best part? Those old pine boards were installed on the front wall, adding texture to a wall that has become an ever-changing activity and display wall for our daughter’s creativity.

See the map sitting in front of those boards on that angled wall? They’re hard to notice in the photos but are really great in real life. The view of the Gateway Arch and the summer fireworks from that dormer are just icing on the cake.

I’ll include a before and after of the mansard we rebuilt (well, mostly my husband did since I was pregnant and then we had a newborn.  The mansard is an integral part of her room, but was an expensive necessity!  So I always joked to Ella that she had the most expensive nursery on the block  (slate and copper ain’t cheap, but our own labor is!) Enjoy! – Kristin

If you wanna read and see more of Kristin’s makeover, hit up her blog for the full scoop on what a lucky girl that little Ella is. Thanks for sharing Kristin! Now, who wants to fight me for that room?

So we did the normal thing and donned sunglasses and hats along with breathing masks. Why? Because we can’t find our safety glasses (book shoots = can’t really find anything). And ceiling dust is gross when it’s up your nizzle.

Then we got our patch on. I’m the designated Spackle Wench in our family, but John has longer arms, so he helped me by doing step one: lightly sanding the outside of the holes we were patching.

Then it was time for these guys from Home Depot. They’re basically a wire mesh patch that’s stuck to sticky paper. You stick it on the hole firmly, spackle over it, sand things down, and paint. Das it. They really make things pretty easy – even on a ceiling (the most notoriously annoying plane to work on in any room). Hardest part: gravity. More on that later (there’s video evidence of my struggle).

After the mesh patch is stuck up on the wall (darn, no pics of that, but that’s all in the video), just get some spackle on the biggest putty knife you have and squish it all over the mesh pad. Smooth it as much as you can with the spackle knife, but know that sanding everything down afterwards is when you’ll get the finished look you’re going for (so it’s always better to build things up slightly more than you need since you can always sand it down).

Then just wait the recommended drying time and get to sanding. I like to use a sanding block when it comes to sanding large planes like walls and ceilings, just because it keeps things straight (sandpaper is so floppy that it’s hard to keep things as rigid in this case, but it’s great for sanding furniture since it flexes to follow the lines of those items, like the legs of a chair).

After sanding everything (and sweeping/vacuuming/showering to get the white powder off of everythingintheentirekitchen-urgh!) it hopefully looks like this. See the three dark-ish areas where those holes used to be? They just need some paint (along with other dirty areas of the ceiling that got grunged up under the old fluorescent lights).

Here’s the hole next to the new pendant lights that we patched too. Oh and see the one over the sink- that’s still waiting for a fixture, so it stays. We’re on the hunt so we’ll keep you posted when we plug that guy up with something light and pretty.

Two coats of ceiling paint later (bless the previous owners for leaving that behind for us), any evidence of those old holes were history:

Here’s the other former-hole next to the pendants after paint. See it? Me either. Huzzah!

And here’s a video. Admittedly, things got a little wonky (falling spackle, shrieking Sherry, an offhanded mention of a slug, etc). Yes, there are outtakes right in the middle of the thing. But it kind of perfectly captures the whole process. You’re gonna get messy, and it might take a few tries to get things to stick. But in the end, you can totally get ‘er done. As in, this is about a 2 on the difficulty scale. So put on your Brave Girl Underoos and get ‘er done! Or your Brave Boy Underoos if you’ve got those.

Hope that comes in handy for ya. Next up in the kitch: shelf planning and hood painting. Hootie hoo. Then floors. Momma’s excited. Bring on the colorful plates and bowls! Ah accessorizing, the best phase of every project. And the cork – that’ll be a room-changer for sure. What are you guys up to this week? Any hole patching? Shelf building? Painting? Secret project-ing? Spackle-dodging? Tell $herdog all about it.

As for the hood cover, the first thing we did was use photoshop to mock up two different options to figure out what we thought would look best. This was our original thought, since it looks most like a lot of the hoods in our inspiration pictures. The squares on the front are supposed to be panels we’d make using trim.

But it looked a bit top-heavy to us, so we tried this version instead:

We liked that much better, so I took some measurements and drew up a “technical” drawing of the plan. I roughly sketched the hood to scale (using some graph paper under this white sheet) with pen and then used a thicker marker to design the cover around it.

And in the other corner you can see where I started to figure out what sort of wood I would need to actually build this thing. I’m not going to even try to explain what this means now, since it will become clearer as you see the actual cover come together. But just know my goals with this thing were to:

• Make it sturdy (and use moisture/steam/grease resistant plywood so it would last)
• Make it as light as possible (I didn’t need worry about another heavy thing falling off of the wall)
• Make it pretty

When I returned from the store with some plywood panels and 1 x 2″ boards in hand, I got right to building. I was going to build from the bottom up so I started off by building a frame and cutting some plywood panels to size:

The frame is basically three pieces of 1 x 2″ screwed together in a U-shape using my Kreg Jig. To attach it to the wall, I made a couple more holes with my jig so that I could screw it tightly to the wood plank that we used to mount the hood (see, I told you that weird overhang would make sense!).

It looked a little something like this. Note that it’s not touching the actual hood at all, so our cover will essentially float around the entire thing (our high-efficiency range hood should have no issue directing moisture/steam up into the hood and up the vent, and our wood surround should stand up to everyday use like many wood hood surrounds built by various cabinetmakers and handymen/handywomen). We’ve heard from a ton of folks in blogland who have built or hired out wood covers since revealing our crush on them and we’re happy to report that everyone seems to have had a great experience with them (no moisture or steam issues with the wood around the hood). It actually makes sense since non-covered range hoods usually have wood cabinets against either side of them and they don’t typically have issues with those sort of things either.

Note: these pics were taken before we realized we should use metal foil tape and not duct tape for those vent joints, but we’ve since swapped it out and will share those pics in another update post about other things we have to share, like how we patched our giant honking ceiling holes, etc). 

With the frame in place I started nailing the thin plywood panels in place.

Here’s what it looked like with the first three sides done.

Remember the reason that there’s a small gap around the outside is to leave room for us to reach the control buttons on the front of the hood. There’s enough room for our fingers to slip in, without being a totally garish amount of space.

And if you’re Sherry’s height (or me slightly ducking) you can even see the buttons so you don’t have to wonder what you’re pressing (to see any buttons on the underside of a hood you usually have to duck a bit to see them, so we like that ours are just as accessible, albeit slyly hidden).

To add the next “tier” to our cover, I had to build a slightly smaller version of the previous 1 x 2″ frame. Since this would be the one against which the sloped part of the cover would sit, I ran it through my table saw at an angle to make it easier for the angled piece of plywood to lay against it. I didn’t measure or anything to make the angle perfect – it was just an educated guess since I figured anything would be an improvement over it meeting the original square edge.

Here it is attached to the upper portion of the hood.

Even though the next set of plywood panels would sit just fine on the top edge of the previous set, I did add a small piece of 1 x 2″ to give me a place to secure them with a nail. And yes, I gave it another guesstimated angled cut to help that sloped piece sit better.

This picture should help make more sense out of this. See the sloped plywood panel in place?

The next two sides would be on only non-rectangular pieces of plywood. Since this angle had to be exact, I held the piece in place so I could mark the exact line that I had to cut.

Then I ran them through my table saw to get these fun little quadrilaterals. Wow, I don’t think I’ve used that term since Mrs. Miller’s 9th grade geometry glass. That’s the class where I decided I should wear my glasses during tests because they would help me feel smarter (even though I just needed them to read the blackboard). Nerd alert.

Anyways, here are those two panels attached on the sides. It’s starting to look like something, no? Of course it’s still very clunky and unfinished looking without trim, but we’ll get there in a minute…

For the third and final tier, we had to cover the vent pipe with the section I affectionately called “the chimney.” First I cut my tiniest 1 x 2″ frame to date. Ain’t he cute?

And then I screwed him straight into the ceiling (hitting nice firm wood that I knew would hold it nice and snug – you never want to drill up into nothing- that hollow feeling is the worst). The only problem was that I hadn’t accounted for how gargantuan the hole was for that vent pipe. Guess we’ve got more patching to do (Sherry’s my spackling queen). And we’ll eventually be installing crown molding around all of this too, so it’ll look nice and polished in the end.

Here’s the chimney covered with the plywood panel, essentially completing the major construction phase of this project.

So here’s what it looked like at that point. Hood is sufficiently covered. We still have access to the buttons. It’s plenty secure and we’re happy with the shape of it. It’s just looking a smidge unfinished. Okay, maybe more than a smidge.

This is where trim comes in. And I’m telling you, it’s one of those “details make the difference” things. I decided to make the trimming portion on this fairly easy on myself. In keeping with the theme of “make it light weight” I decided to use some super lightweight plywood. And to minimize nail holes (and having to hammer against the cover) I opted to glue everything in place. This method should definitely hold up to heat and moisture and all other kitchen loveliness (grease!) – especially once it’s primed and painted with the same super durable Benjamin Moore Advance paint that we used on our cabinets – so we’ll keep you posted.

We also ditched the idea of doing panels across the front and sides (as shown in our original renderings) because we kinda liked the clean look better (and worried smaller boxy panels might not jive with our existing cabinets). It also made my job a bit faster, meaning I had the first row of trim cut and glued into place in no time.

I did like working with the LiquidNails because it gave you a bit of play for the first 10 minutes (hence the tape above to stop it from moving when playtime was over). But I ran out about halfway through (it was an old tube leftover from something else) so I started using this leftover tube of Loctite instead… and kinda wished I had used it from the start. I wasn’t able to wiggle things into place as much (I had to peel it off and restick it instead) but things really stayed in place – meaning no more green tape was needed.

The top portion of trim took me a bit longer (especially because I ran out of wood and had to run out for more in the middle of everything), but by the end of the day I had it looking like this:

The angled cuts on the side took a bit of time too. We opted not to put trim on the chimney part because it’s not really supposed to be a “decorative” part of the hood. Plus there weren’t any open seams between the plywood or anything that needed “finishing.” Once we patch that ugly ceiling hole and add crown molding around the entire top of that wall (and hood) we think it’ll look swankypants indeed.

It’s not 100% perfect. For one, it needs to be primed and painted (we’ll do that when we prime and paint the open shelves we’re about to build) and it needs some caulk in a few places just to make it 100% seamless. But I’m just proud that I accomplished my three goals. It’s sturdy and durable. It’s lightweight. And it looks pretty (if I do say so myself).

Now of course it doesn’t have some of the bells and whistles that a professional hood might have, but once it’s primed and painted it should perform just as well as a painted cabinet would next to or above a hood. And it certainly was cheaper than the $3 – 4K price tag we saw some places (check out this post to see a price that had Sherry spitting liquid at her laptop). In the end it cost me about $90 to complete, mainly because I didn’t realize how much wood/trim I’d need. So I think that brings our total for the hood up to $150 (since the hood itself was $60 thanks to craigslist). Wait, that doesn’t include brackets/wood to hang it, so make that around $175. Still not bad considering we paid $250 for our last kitchen’s stainless steel hood (and it wasn’t an industrial strength JennAir one like the beauty we scored this time).

Even though it’s still a big, tan-colored box on the wall – I did take some “after” photos of the kitchen for ya. Mainly because with book photoshoots starting in our house this week I wasn’t sure of the next time our kitchen would look this clean again. It’s definitely still looking pretty raw in there (we need crown molding, shelves, a ton of color that Sherry can’t wait to add with art and accessories, new floors, an installed dishwasher, a light over the sink, etc) but we’re getting there.

As much as it’s kinda weird for us to see something hanging from this wall that’s been empty for two months, we do like that we’re starting to break up the sea of tile a bit. In some ways it just draws your eye more to that wall so you can stand there drooling. Not that we do that. Much.

It mainly just makes us eager to get that thing painted, get the ceiling patches sanded and painted, and get those open shelves hung. Sounds like a good project to talk about next, eh?

 In the meantime, let’s talk about range hoods. Ever built one? If not, I never had either until a few days ago, so you never know what you might find yourself doing down the road…

I’ve actually been hiding this $12 HomeGoods find in our playroom for… oh… five months? So it was about time I attended to him. Yup, this guy’s part of the self-imposed initiative I like to call the “Dude Get On That Already” challenge, since I’ve solemnly vowed to use it or lose it (aka: use it or craigslist/donate it) when it comes to all the things we’ve been hoarding in our full-to-the-brim playroom.

At first glance you might think “he’s a fine looking roughly weathered white & tan rooster” (or “you need ceramic animal rehab” which could also be true) but I thought his distressed white finish was a little more country than my usual crisp & modern ceramic animal tastes, so I decided that giving him a coat of new color would be just the thing. And I wanted to pick a pretty daring color, just because… well, he’s a giant rooster. Don’t want him to take himself too seriously now do I? So after standing in the spray paint aisle for at least ten minutes weighing all the bold and bright options (and singing Jingle Bells to keep the bean entertained), I grabbed Rustoleum’s Painter’s Touch in Aubergine (satin). And I was plum excited to use it. Groan. Sorry, the puns just happen. It’s a gift and a curse.

If I really wanted to be an overachiever, I would have used some spray primer (that always helps paint “grab on” when you’re spraying slippery things like ceramic) – but because the can said “two times the coverage” I figured I’d try my luck without it and just go back and add a layer of primer if things went haywire. Luckily they didn’t. I just did my usual thin misted coats routine (read more on that here). Check out how crazy things were looking at first. If you’re spray painting lightly and thinly, there’s not good coverage until the third or fourth coat, so the first one had him looking a little… hot pink:

But after two more thin and even coats, coverage was good. And Jarvis was aubergine. Oh that’s his name. Everything with a face deserves a name, don’t you think?

He looks pretty fun in front of the light avocado walls in the kitchen.

Oh and in case the scale wasn’t clear until this photo, he’s giant. Like a foot and a half tall. Who doesn’t want a giant aubergine rooster named Jarvis waiting in the kitchen to greet you in the morning? Cock-a-doodle-do to you too, Jarvis.

Although if I’m being honest, I’m not 100% sold on the color. It’s fun, but I’m not sure as the kitchen comes together if he won’t get a few more coats of another bright color someday. Say yellow… or slate blue. So I’ll keep you posted. Plum is fun, so who knows – it could totally stay.

What do you guys collect and stash in a spare corner/room/closet only to look at it months later and feel crappy for just leaving it there? These “Dude Get On That Already” projects are small, but they’re making me feel pretty good for some reason. Maybe it’s the whole “every little bit helps” thing? Or the fact that we’re inching towards clearing out the playroom which means it’ll be a blank canvas for paint and curtains and a rug and furniture and accessories. Wheee. It’s almost like that dream when you find an extra room in your house. Except we’ve always known it was there and have been filling it with weird stuff instead of discovering a secret wall or staircase that leads to it. Am I the only one who has that dream?

Psst- Jarvis is second to none when it comes to giant roosters… except for Beyoncé. If you haven’t read the funniest post on the internet about her yet (salty language warning) check that out here.