Looks absolutely wonderful. You and DH have a lot of talent. I am sure all the rest will be equally lovely. No suggestions here. It looks perfect. Are those old jars ? Will they seal well? I really like their looks. Where did you find them ? c

I echo Trailrunner... no suggestions because it looks wonderful! Everything! Hinges are lovely, cabinets beautiful and I'm a glass jar freak, too so I love those! I love your pantry!

So beautiful! I love it.

I also love how you customized the bin pulls. Looks perfect!

Thanks for the complements :) My DH is great! I can draw up what I want and he's always gotten it just right! He is self taught, and has incentive to keep working on projects because he gets a new tool with each project!! That works for both of us!

The jars on the top shelf are new Ball canning jars with rubber seals. I'm storing my herbs and spices in them. I have more to fill and place on the shelf.

Some of the 2 qt. jars are old, from an antique place. They have metal lids with glass inside, so the old metal doesn't touch the food. They do seal well, I've been using them for a long time. Others have glass lids with the metal hinge/clamp on them. I use a rubber ring seal with those and it works well. The two gallon jars on the far left of the photo are finds from Marshalls/Home
Goods.

I was afraid that the overall view was too much with the hinges and pulls all dark. I'm so used to my kitchen cabinets with the painted over white hinges that I was considering painting over these too.

I love it! Can't believe he made the hinges!

Questions: what is the counter?
what color are the cabs painted?
and how does one affix a custom panel to a dishwasher?

This is just incredible!!!! Even more so as it's DIY. I love the dark hinges and wouldn't paint them.

I'm drooling! Will he come do one for me?

You are so lucky! I'm certain my dh would do this stuff if he wasn't trying to get his RA under control but my honey do list is getting longer and his health is getting worse. My parents were going to come and try to catch me up while he was away last week but we had 8" of snow.

You are blessed!
Alicia

Handy to have a DH like yours! What a great job you guys have done.
vic

soshh, DH didn't actually MAKE the hinges. We ordered them from VanDyke's (someone here suggested them to us when we were looking to find a match for our originals). They don't carry them in offset, so we got the surface mount in nickel plated and "customized" them.

Here is a photo of the original hinge and then what we ended up with for comparison:
{{!gwi}}
Hinge purchased from VanDykes

It was actually kind of fun trying to figure out how to come up with something different. I'm still trying to get used to the dark hinges though since the originals are painted. I like the old look, but maybe we should have kept them nickel plated to have a lighter look. Still not sure. I know I can't go back to shiny though! DH would shoot me! Not to mention that he'd probably NEVER do another project for me - much less finish the rest of the butler's pantry and kitchen! He says I'm way too particular, but I say I pay attention to the details!

I'll have to re read the other posts to see what other questions needed answering. I've got a short memory! Especially after having to make so many decisions with this project!
Terry

Soshh, the counters are Formica laminate, Basalt Slate in a honed finish with the Futura edge (just a basic curved top and bottom with the center part straight) for a simple look. I really like soapstone, but couldn't justify the price right now. I've always had formica in the 33 years since I've been married. Mom always had it and the kitchen in this house came with the original white formica with little gold specks in it! It was still stuck down tight and in good condition after many, many years. A couple years ago I got really tired of the gold specks, so I decided to do a dark faux finish on the top to see if I'd actually like the contrast, and I had lots of complements on it. I liked it so much I wasn't in a hurry to put in new ones (I hate making decisions!). Well, it was time, so I had to make those tough decisions and decided to just go for it. I really wanted to keep the kitchen and butler's pantry in line with the age of the house. We have original pine floors in most rooms and the original tin roof (now painted barn red), so I couldn't do anything too fancy.
Here is a photo of the original counters

Here is the faux finish I did to hold us over till now. Note: I WILL NOT be keeping this green wall paint. It was a wrong color choice and hurts my eyes when the lights are on (similar to how ears hurt from fingernails on blackboards :)

So now we have to figure out how to do the Basalt Slate Formica in the kitchen. We are keeping the old farmhouse sink, stains and all (still trying to figure out about reglazing or not). The counters are shorter and less deep than todays countertops. I definately want to keep the original cabinets, but raise the tops and make them a little deeper. I've seen this done by putting a "filler) on the top of the cabinets (they need to come up about 2 inches) then putting on a deeper counter top (ours will be about 2-3 inches deeper than original and placing a strip of crown molding underneath the new counter top to the cabinet fronts. That is how we plan to do it, but we have to figure out the sink area. We will probably have to build out a box under the window, extending the window sill a couple inches and mount the sink on the front of the box. I'll probably use white tile around that area. If anyone has any ideas on that, please chime in!
Terry
Terry

soshh, the paint color is Ralph Lauren's Country Stove White but we had it mixed in Behr paint. I usually use SW or Behr because the odor doesn't bother me.

Cheri, thanks for the vote on keeping the hinges dark. Every positive vote helps give me confidence that I made the right decision :)

Alicia, depends on where you live, I'm alway up for a trip!! I hope your DH health improves and that spring will come soon for you.

God has certainly blessed me more that I could ever imagine. I'm so thankful for this wonderful man He gave me and that he likes to stay busy! It's a good thing, with this old house he'd be in trouble if he was a couch potato!

Thanks again for the kind comments.
Terry

Beautiful work! I love all the attention to detail you two have put into your kitchen and pantry.

May I ask how you're planning to put a panel on your dishwasher? We have two of those Frigidaires (ss versions) and I would love to cover them, but I didn't think this was an option without a panel-ready DW. If there's a way to do it, I'd love to give it a try!

You two are so creative! I love what your husband did with the hinges, and what you did too. I like the contrast of the black hinges on the white cabinets, it's a change from the kitchen's painted hinges, which I like too. Here's a kitchen with a similar feel. (Orchidluvr's kitchen from the FKB.)

Your faux finish on the kitchen counter is amazing. How did you do it?

I like the cute little spice shelf. Some of your glass jars look like the necks are on a tilt-- is this just my imagination or are they some kind I've never seen before?

As far as reglazing the enamel on your old sinks, as far as I know it doesn't hold up to daily use. It's not a true enamel, not anywhere near as tough as the original finish. When used a lot it starts to peel off. I've seen it happen, and have also been told this by a guy in the field.

worldmom and soshh, I really wanted a dishwasher with a paneled front, but didn't want to pay $$$ more to get that type dishwasher, so I was really settling on this one. It had all the features I wanted at a good price. I really liked that the front was smooth and one piece and that the electronic buttons were across the top of the door where they wouldn't be seen. Also, this dw can be used in a top rack only cycle (good when there are just two of us).

When we opened the installation directions (well, I opened the directions, NOT DH ;) it had instructions for replacing the panel with a wooden one. It looks like all you do (or all DH will do :) is remove the existing panel and make a custom cabinet front with narrow side strips to fit in the space, then screw it on. I'm so glad this is an option! DH said he'll do it after the sink installation in that room. Yea!!

If you have a dw with the electronics on the top of the door, you might want to check out your instruction manual, maybe it can easily be changed like ours. Hope so!
Terry

Terry, thanks for that info! Good to know! Use it well, you made great changes.

Terry, I just realized we have almost the same hinges on some of our old cabinets. Some were changed but one wall is the same. They were painted over too, but the PO then painted some gold!

soshh, glad to help! I really do like the shape of the original hinges.

eggandart, thanks for the compliments and for posting Orchidluvr's kitchen photo. I really like her kitchen also.
About the faux finish on our old laminate, it was an easy process, but very time consuming.

Here are the steps on how I did the painted faux finish on my old laminate countertops:

1)Clean the countertop really well. I didn't have any gloss left on my countertop, but if you do, you might consider roughing up a little with a light sanding.

2) Wipe down well and dry. Using a 6" foam roller, I applied a primer coat. I think I used Bins 123 if I remember correctly. Let dry a couple hours.

3) Apply a base coat of black paint with a 6" foam roller (I just used acrylic craft paint because I didn't have a large area). Let dry an hour or so.

4) In foam plate, drizzle colored paint for faux finish (I used all paints I had on hand from other household projects, both flat wall paint and craft paints). I used a gold, brown, white tan and some of the black base color. Just drizzle the colors around leaving some of the white plate showing underneath. Apply with a small natural sea sponge in a stamping up and down irregular pattern. Keep stamping the paints on counter until desired coverage over top. Let dry.

5) Now, go over the counter with more drizzled paint on the sponge, picking up colors to soften or darken as desired. Let dry a couple hours.

6) With 6" foam roller, apply first coat of polyurathane. I used water base, matte finish, but if I did another countertop, I'd use oil based poly for a harder coat. Don't use oil base over light paint because it will yellow. I don't think it would matter over dark paint. Let dry overnight.

7) When poly is good and dry, lightly sand with fine sandpaper. Wipe dust off.

8) Apply second coat of poly. Let dry as directed, then sand again lightly.

9) Altogether I put 4 coats of poly on countertop, sanding between coats. I ended up with a nice, smooth surface that has held up very well for over 2 years. Until now, I haven't had a dishwasher and used my sink and counters daily for dishwashing and drying.

Let me know if you try this and how it works for you. Also, feel free to email me if you have any other questions about the process.
Terry

When we opened the installation directions (well, I opened the directions, NOT DH ;) it had instructions for replacing the panel with a wooden one. It looks like all you do (or all DH will do :) is remove the existing panel and make a custom cabinet front with narrow side strips to fit in the space, then screw it on. I'm so glad this is an option! DH said he'll do it after the sink installation in that room. Yea!!

Thank you SO much for telling me about this! I am absolutely THRILLED about this. I don't mind our big fridge and freezer hanging out in all their stainless glory, but I was worried about having so much showing on our sink wall (we have a DW going in on either side of our sink, and this is highly visible from the dining room.)

Yay! Thanks again!

Worldmom, you're welcome. Did you manual end up including the panel instructions also? Please show photos if you decide to panel them. I'd love to see what you do!
Terry