February 26, 2022 – We got our first real snow earlier this month. The pasture looks so nice with a fresh covering of snow. Since we are still living the in the apartment over the garage, we have a great view of the snow-covered pasture (we are trying to stay positive about still being in the apartment).

This month, we focused on getting the kitchen island finished. One of Katie’s colleagues gave her the buffet that we are using for our island. The original style did not fit in our farmhouse look so we painted it.  Unfortunately, we learned that it was made of mahogany which bled through the paint in ugly orange blotches. Katie had to strip it, prime it and repaint it. We then built a book case on the side to make it a little more substantial and added a bar to give more counter space.  To carry on the look from other parts of the house, Katie painted the back splash on the island in a terracotta tile pattern.  We purchased and cut a big piece of butcher block to use both as the island countertop and the bar.  Since we knew we would be preparing food on the wood, we stained it with several coatings of coffee and tea until we got the shade we wanted, and then sealed it with food-safe oil.

The last major building we had to do before we could install cabinets was to raise the mudroom floor. The floor was about 4” lower than the rest of the house and we want that room to feel like an extension of the kitchen (we are going to keep our refrigerator in there to make more room in the small kitchen).  We built a deck over the existing floor, added the heated floor wire, and then self-leveling concrete to make it all even. We are going to put laminate plank flooring throughout the house, including in the mudroom.

Once the concrete floor had cured, we were able to install the cabinets in the mudroom. We wanted to start here to work out any bugs. We installed the countertop, but will have to come back later to cut out the space where the sink will go.