Weeks 3 and 4 of the One Room Challenge: Floating Shelves and Mini Fridges

We had some issues out of our control for week 2 of the One Room Challenge. Our countertop situation is not great. We ordered slabs to swap out our dark grey slabs with some brighter slabs. Those were supposed to be installed a couple of weeks ago. They unfortunately made some bad cuts and had to replace a few pieces, and we’ve been patiently waiting to get those installed so we can do backsplash and other things. So the pandemic remodeling goes!

But that’s ok – we managed to plan for other parts of the kitchen, and while it’s only Thursday, we’ll make some good progress this weekend. Here’s our wish list plan of things we’ll be doing over the Challenge:

Replace counters
Replace backsplash
Mud and Paint
Install new sink and plumbing fixtures
Install new cabinet hardware
Install floating shelves
Paint our island
Update our pendant lights (just a tiny bit by swapping out our coloring fixtures)
Update our island stools
Installing new undercabinet light in our butler pantry
Installing a new beverage fridge in our butler pantry

Here is what we had at the end of last week. You can see our counter situation in progress – but I can’t wait to see these Ceasarstone Calacatta Nuvo counters everywhere!

Kitchen ready for counters and tile — Similar Stools | Lighting | Drawer Pulls | Knobs

And this wall, which originally had a red oak desk area:

Small piece of counter installed in nook

This wall had our kids art wall, which I made from an Ikea frame filled with cork lining and wrapped with burlap. We have a new Ikea hack idea in mind for the art display. Can’t wait to get that kid art up again.

This week, we got the new rug that will belong here, planned our floating shelves Ryan will install here, and have started getting shelfie goods. Here is a sense of things we’ll be filling the wall with:

Here is the rug we went with: Rug

And while we are building floating shelves, here are some similar ones that we will fallback to if the ones we build don’t work out: Shelves

And sources to some of the other goodies we’re gathering up:

This weekend, we get to pick our beautiful backsplash up, finish painting the ceiling and butler’s pantry, and hopefully start building and installing those shelves.

Update for Week 4!

I decided not to do an entirely new post and update here because – if you can believe it – our 3rd attempt to install counters was a fail! They delivered the missing white pieces, but they had black marks that wouldn’t come off. I would never allow that for a client, let alone my own kitchen. So they get one more chance then on to a new contractor. What a pain!

In the meantime, we finalized the painting and mudwork in the butler pantry, finalized our electrical and installed the mini beverage fridge. The counters weren’t glued and sealed or we’d start backsplash this weekend. I guess it’s all good – it will be done when it’s done and hopefully in time to finish for the challenge!