House Project

Well, we started another project. That seems to be what the weekends are for around our house. Although, at the moment, that means 3 unfinished projects. Enough to drive this girl crazy. However, plans are now underway for finishing the scullery. For our bedroom, we’re at the mercy of the hardware store, waiting for a part to come to do the floors.

So, our project. We have one room upstairs in our house. When we moved in, it became the “I don’t know where to put this” room which quickly resulted in an eyesore. I started making plans in my mind. Maybe it can be a studio with my sewing machine and crafts and Jeremy’s music gear. Then I thought how wonderful it would be to have a home school room. The windows and fantastic view would be perfect. As Jeremy and I talked, though, we realized that our kids could really benefit from having their own room. While we have plans to add on, we felt we just couldn’t wait any longer for that to happen. So this past weekend, we jumped in to make it Joshua’s room. Our project list for the room…

• Paint ceiling, walls, cabinet, and floor.
• Put up baseboards
• Make curtains
• Make a headboard for Joshua’s bed
• Make a slew of DIY projects to enhance the room.

Well, we didn’t progress too fast this week on our scullery renovations, but the key is that there was some progress. As long as there is some, I’m ok with the speed (I think). This is we ended week one…

The obvious things I see are a big pile of rubble and tile still on the walls. Well, I’m happy to show the following progress…

No rubble and all the tile that is coming off the walls is off. Yea! Progress! The demo is getting close, but we’ve still got two non-load bearing walls near the doorway to take out as well as the floor tile. I’m hoping week three will report that progress!

Welcome to today’s edition of Jen’s Kitchen on What Is A Scullery?

After my post on our scullery renovations last week, I saw the need of explaining what exactly a scullery is. Questions on Facebook and the comment section of that post indicated that several of my friends didn’t really know what it is. Come to think of it. If I had not lived in New England for a five year stint, I don’t know if I would have known what a scullery is either.

If you Google scullery, it will tell you that it’s “a small kitchen or room at the back of the house used for washing dishes and other dirty household work.” Some definitions also say that it’s for laundering clothes. That’s precisely what my scullery is…a small room right by my back door. It will (when it’s finished) contain a dishwasher and my washing machine.

My kitchen is separate. That will get a renovation eventually, too, so that I can have a proper oven. In the meantime, I’m using a basin to wash dishes in and my vegetable washing sink to rinse (it makes quite a mess, that little sink). My little oven sits on my counter for cooking. It’s really not that bad. They say you can do anything for 3 months (although I’m hoping this scullery renovation doesn’t take 3 months). It definitely helps me stay up on washing dishes.

Once the scullery is finished and we’ve caught a breather from it, I’ll be able to move that little oven in the scullery so that I can cook while the kitchen gets a remodel. I don’t know the time frame of when that will start. One thing at a time, but the plan is already worked out in my head. 🙂

Have you ever lived in a house with a scullery?

Well, we’re back into renovating mode, this time with our scullery. I haven’t revealed our bedroom makeover, because it’s not quite finished. I actually hate moving on to another project before the previous one is finished. I like to finish first, but it took us a while to figure out exactly what kind of floor we were going to put in our bedroom. Can I just say, though, that I love having friends that can give you a good deal because you do lots of business with them? We got an amazing deal on some pine floors. I had a house with pine in it once before. It is soft but I love the dents and grooves that happen with pine. I like to call it character. Now we must wait for the wood to be planed. Floors and ceiling are on the horizon!

Back to the scullery.

Why in the world would I want to renovate a scullery? It’s simple, really. I have, like, no cabinet space for one. For another, I hate washing dishes and spend SO much time hand washing. The thought of a dishwasher has me envisioning more time with my kids and doing more things I like. I’m up for that. With a functioning scullery, it was like trudging through mud to get started, so one day, I decided that I was going to start packing up dishes I didn’t need and move everything out. A few days later, Jeremy started ripping out the shelves and some of the tile.

We were in it.

He said to me, “You know this isn’t a weekend project, right?” I laughed. Of course, I knew that, but the renovations weren’t going to start themselves, and I’m ready for a functioning scullery. As long as there’s progress happening, I’m ok with the length of time it takes.

It’s hard to get a good angle to capture the room. It’s a small space, but you can see at least what we started with, and now where we ended as of yesterday. I am loving the exposed brick and plan on leaving a wall of it. I’m also dreaming of subway tile, white cabinets, butcher block countertops, a dishwasher (of course), a double sink and a pantry. You can’t tell in the photos, but we took out the ceiling and it opened the room up so much. It’s messy right now, but my eyes are on the prize! Can’t wait!