Bay Area Home Improvement is a new column on Claycord.com.

This week on Bay Area Home Improvement, we’re talking about Semi-Custom -vs- Full-Custom Cabinetry.

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You can always review this and other videos on the Home Improvement Tab shown above.

Bay Area Home improvement is a new weekly column on Claycord providing you tips to help guide you along with your home projects. Kyle McClay, owner of American Kitchen Company in Concord, you may have seen on KRON4, will provide you with weekly tips on various subjects, complete with a short video. We will archive this and each edition on the Home Improvement tab above for anytime you wish to reference them.

Semi-Custom vs. Full-Custom Cabinetry

What’s the difference between custom cabinet and semi-custom cabinet.  95% of our jobs are semi-custom cabinetry. We can achieve a beautiful look without the extra expenditure of a custom cabinets.

In custom, the European finish is very popular right now, it’s a very hot trend.  And you are only going to achieve that look by going full custom.  The wood is a solid grade melamine plywood core.  It is dense and is coated with a high-end, ultra-exclusive conversion varnish.  Your kitchen comes to life, but again, you must go full custom to achieve that look.

Personally, I prefer semi-custom. For my own homes that I have remodeled myself, I go with semi-custom because if you put a dollar in, you will get that dollar back when you sell it.  Here’s why.

The wood is all the same cut as the full custom, except that the cuts have been outsourced. So, the wood quality is the same, the cuts are standardized, and you can still get all the cool features like mouldings, toe kicks and soft-closing drawers and hinges but for a very affordable price.

Source

http://claycord.com/2018/04/26/column-bay-area-home-improvement-with-kyle-mcclay-semi-custom-vs-full-custom-cabinetry/

Source

http://realtytimes.com/listings/item/1016918-how-you-can-find-the-best-bathroom-renovation-company

Tiny Kitchen Remodel, the Reveal of our RV Kitchen!

True confession, I’ve been a bad blogger.

With that said, I’m also a super excited blogger because we are finally sharing the reveal of our RV kitchen renovation with you, yay!

For those that are new here you can read more and our , and don’t forget to check out . This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience. View our full disclosure . 

You see, I’ve been struggling with keeping up with content and projects and emails, and orders, and well.. everything for so long that I’ve fallen crazy behind. You may already know this and if not, welcome to my reality, although I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way.

In an ideal world we would have been posting our projects consistently and in some sort of organized fashion, but that hasn’t happened. I dropped the ball, many times… Woops.

Here’s the thing, before we left on our RV trip I felt like I was doggy paddling just to stay above water. And this went on for at least a year. Every time I thought I was going to get ahead some crazy wave would crash and there I was, paddling even harder.

We had a plan but as we all know, life doesn’t always go according to plan. Gotta keep it interesting, right?

However, moving from 1800 square feet into less than 300 has taught me a lot, and it’s only been two months. I’m learning to slow down, be more present, and most importantly not worry about how everyone else seems to have it all together when I’m over here feelin’ like a hot mess.

It’s funny that without a permanent address and A LOT less stuff I somehow feel more as ease, a lot less anxious, and a lot more fulfilled.

That’s not to say I don’t look forward to settling down in a year or so, but for now I’m going to erase the prior expectations I had set up for us, and focus on moving forward with a clean slate. It’s strange how taking off that type of pressure can be so liberating and energizing, isn’t it?

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this…. Eric and I had this idea of how our RV renovation was going to go, and naturally that didn’t involve a massive water leak or generator issues, haha. We had also planned to share the projects we were working on along the way, to lead up to the final reveal of that specific space we had been working on. Well, that didn’t happen, so we’ve decided to say screw it and switch it up.

Today we’re going to share the current state of our RV kitchen renovation, and then link to the projects involved as they get posted later down the road.

RV Kitchen Renovation

We’ve been enjoying our tiny kitchen for two months now, but we still have a few projects on our to-do list. However, if I wait to share it until everything is absolutely perfect, you may never see it. ?

Here’s the before photo of our RV kitchen, just in case you need a refresher:

It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t our style, and every single person that owns a 2008 Tiffin Open Road 32La has this exact kitchen. We needed a space that felt like ours, ya know?

The plan was a rustic modern kitchen design that would also brighten up the space.

So the first thing we did was remove the cabinet doors so we could get started on the painting process, which you can read all about here.

From the beginning I knew I wanted two-toned cabinets, but was torn between painting the lowers black or gray. To be honest, I really wanted black but everyone kept telling me I was crazy to put black cabinets in such a small space. In most circumstances I would have done it anyway but for some reason I was more nervous this time around with this being our first real renovation project.

So we painted the upper kitchen cabinets white and the lower cabinets in a medium gray. Two weeks later we discovered a massive water leak in the ceiling due to cracks in our skylight. The upper cabinets had to come out so we could replace the ceiling panel, and that’s when I made the decision to paint the lower cabinets black.

And I’m sooooooo glad I did!

Moral of the story? Don’t be afraid to paint the cabinets (or anything for that matter) the color you feel is right in your gut. You’re the one that’s gotta live in the space anyway, so do what’s going to make you happy.

Besides, paint can always be re-painted. It may not always be the most fun task, but it isn’t permanent.

Here are a few more photos of our RV kitchen renovation:

If you follow us on Instagram you may have seen the mountain art I created on leftover reclaimed wood – the same kind we used for our rustic bathroom storage shelf.

We are hook obsessed over here. Seriously, mug hooks have come in super handy and I find myself wanting to use them for everything.

The backsplash was created from tongue and groove wood planks and the countertops were made out of oak wood flooring.

I really wanted a single basin sink but finding one in the dimensions we needed (that wasn’t over budget) turned out to be a much bigger task than I anticipated. Luckily I scored a stainless steel sink for just $20 on Ebay.

It may not be the biggest kitchen, but Eric and I spend a lot of time in here (mainly because the living room/office and kitchen are essentially one space), and we love it!

I’ll list the projects and sources below, but we’ll be sure to update the links as we add the projects to the blog. You can see a video with a bit more info on our kitchen counters below, which we shared on our Youtube channel a few months ago:

Using Wood Flooring for our Kitchen Counters:

So what do you think of our RV kitchen renovation? If nothing else I hope you feel inspired to create a space in your RV or sticks and bricks home that reflects your own personality and style.

Kitchen Renovation Tips:

I recently shared some kitchen reno tips over on Wayfair, along with some other bloggers, which you can check out here.

Kitchen Renovation Projects:

• Kitchen Extension Flip-up Counter – this is already installed but we haven’t posted about it yet.
• Re-Stained Stair Railing
• Installed New Cabinet Hardware
• Replaced Kitchen Sink
• Replaced Kitchen Faucet

Product/Decor Sources:

• Faucet – Amazon – Not sure if we recommend the one we purchased
• Sink – Ebay
• Wire/Rope Basket – HomeGoods

You can find the most recent photos of our kitchen in this Rustic Modern RV tour!

Are you planning to renovate the kitchen in your RV or have you already updated it? If so we would love to hear about it in the comments below!

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Looking for RV or travel inspiration? You can find all of our RV-related and don’t forget to check out , Decor Resources, and !

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Source

https://mountainmodernlife.com/rv-kitchen-renovation/

When you decide to embark on another round of home improvement, you likely envision a simple job with excellent results. You’ll decide what you want to do, buy the right equipment, maybe set aside a day or two to complete the work, and voila: a new and improved area of your is complete.

This is a contributed post and contains affiliate links. My website is my job, and helps to support our family. If you decide to buy something you see mentioned here, I would be so thankful if you clicked through my links so I can receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you! Please read my full disclosure.

However, if you have ever engaged with DIY home improvements before, you’ll likely be well aware of the fact that things never quite work out like that. Some DIY tasks may seem simple, but actually take a huge amount of time and effort to get right. So when you plan your next project, it’s important you keep in mind the potential enhanced timescale if you’re doing any of the following…

3 Home Improvement Tasks That Take Longer Than You Think

Painting

This applies to both internal and external painting, and both suffer from the same issue: preparation. The length of time it takes to actually paint a wall is relatively short, but all the work around it — the preparation, cleaning up, waiting for coats to dry — can be extremely time-consuming. If you’re looking for a quick finish, it’s best to outsource to a professional ; their experience will mean that they can zip through the prep work and thus finish the entire job in a record time.

Laying laminate flooring

Laminate flooring has been specifically designed to be easy to lay and, to an extent, it is. The boards do click together well, and actually arranging the planks in place is a very quick process. However, the time-consuming part of laying laminate flooring is actually cutting the planks to size; this can easily quadruple the time it takes you to lay the floor. When the planks are cut it’s a pretty easy process, but measuring, cutting, and checking plank length can turn a half-hour job until a couple of days worth of work.

Building a deck

The problems you’ll experience building a deck are, in some ways, similar to the ones you will experience when laying laminate flooring. Elements of the process are quick and simple, but all the related tasks can really drag it down. If someone were to hand you pieces of decking one at a time, cut to the right length, with the correct screws, then you could probably build a deck incredibly quickly. However, that’s not the case, so you’ll lose a huge amount of time to , preparing, leveling, and all the other tasks you need to actually assemble the deck for yourself.

How to cope

The easiest way to cope with the three tasks above is to outsource to a professional, who will be able to finish the process in good time thanks to years of experience. If outsourcing isn’t an option, then all you can do is practice good time management during the project, and set aside longer to complete the work than you think it will take. So if you think the job will take a day, set aside two and if you finish sooner, see it as a bonus.

This is a contributed post.

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Source

https://neededinthehome.com/3-home-improvement-tasks-that-take-longer-than-you-think/