EXTREME KITCHEN RENOVATION EP 4 | Custom French Doors & Restoring 90-Year-Old Windows

A month and a half into our

kitchen

renovation

and we are already entering what I like to call the pretty stage, this week we are designing our

custom

French

doors

to provide access to the pool area and

restoring

our 1930s

windows

, so after decades of being painted to close them. finally open hello guys welcome back to

kitchen

renovation

episode 4 for now so you guys have seen in episode one we did all the design work. I worked on the must-have elements we wanted for the renovation if we were going to tackle it. and then we start the demo and structural phases, my contractor's guys have been amazing, they are working incredibly fast on a very tight schedule before this baby arrives, so they have made great progress, we added the skylights, which was a big need that I wanted this space really invites all the natural light to address all the plumbing, all the electrical, they've put insulation in the walls, in the ceiling and they've done drywall.

We're officially reaching the pretty phase, so we've had a bit. of downtime with the guys and trades coming in and out working on projects here and there while we wait for cabinets and

custom

items, so this week is going to be an exciting week because I'm finally going to do a DIY. take it slow and safe, but I'm looking forward to seeing this process seeing them use levers and for me to be able to do all the fun things and I have to take it slow, it's been difficult okay, it's been very exciting to watch this process move forward. quickly, but I really want to dive into a DIY project this week and that is refinishing our old

windows

.

Our windows are older, but when we moved in, they had painted most of the windows closed and I have never seen that in a house. that you buy, I've only seen it done in apartment buildings, uh, where, as you know, they paint the walls and things like that every time a tenant moves in. I have rarely seen that in a house and it has been something that has bothered me at all times. the house, but specifically in the kitchen where I would love to open these windows and let some fresh air in or if you're cooking in here and you know maybe it's gotten a little smoky, you know you can open the windows so we can always have We've resorted to opening the

doors

when we've been cooking a lot, so when I was designing the new kitchen floor plan and layout, I really took into consideration where our existing windows and doors were to figure out how I could incorporate them. the design which ones we could keep and which ones had to go, so in the design I was able to keep one of the windows that was in our kitchen, there were two, one here, one here, we had to close one because you have to put your cabinet somewhere , so I opted to close this one because this side of the house doesn't get any sunlight, that's okay, it's basically just a walk to the side of our house, so I wasn't going to lose too much, so I opted to get rid of this one.

We kept the door that led to the patio in the front, um, so it was perfect. I mean, we needed a door here anyway and we also kept the Box windows over the sink that they used to have. a door here that led to the pool, so we were, we closed it so we could get two double French doors into the space where the windows were Hello Hello, how are you? I am good how are you? Pleased to meet you. A pleasure. meet you so that's the idea so not the lights on the side but double these and then you want the panel on the bottom yeah instead of the four looking like a line of four I would just like to make match like this just so it can be seen. well with the house just the two, okay, the same type of panel, but not as high, you know, I want them very close to the ground, I want as many windows as possible, as many lights as possible, that is the opening that you will have. seven 7 and A2 opening yes I need 80 almost 80 yes I want skinny French doors so two will open this way two will open that way so four doors to so no side light four panels , okay, so you want two units. four two units four panels you can make your own structure powerfully Above this yes, I love flash so interior exterior yes, so you have a little transition but no because if you see it above here then you will have then it will be that we like the idea, we like the idea, this is your war over, you won't add, yeah, so I think you should come down here, yeah, and maybe you can add another one when you make your frying pan and your bad weather, it will appear around an 84 80, your doors will be 7 5 and A4, so 5 and half are pretty much the same, yeah, so that's going to look good, yeah, so you have 78 on St like this one here, yeah, so I'm thinking we'll probably go with this one.

I love that window, that's what I was going to tell you, I love it and then we'll go with the 4 here and then yeah. Basically, this is the same height, 24 inches down. I'll do the P on my rail and my panel and from there up it will be glass, so it will mimic that window, almost that would be beautiful and you can do that. The same type of profile, yes, yes, we can. What door do you want to open? You want this and this to open or you want this and this or you want this and this first.

You mean the correct one in both. them, the right one and the left one, so you want the far one, okay? What is it? What is real? I mean, what's the St? They're custom, I mean, because this, if you open this one, it will open in this one if you open it. the sides, yes, so these are exactly to be able to open the sides and keep the Clos centers correct, yes M, so I thought since we are doing the renovation, we can go ahead and restore the windows to open, still They will be painted white because they will match. the rest of the house, but we can polish them to make them look better and make them functional, polish all the hardware and hinges.

Does this even have hinges? They are definitely hinged, so they definitely open at one point. There are three windows. here, but only the outer two are open, so the first step is to glue them together, so I have to cut the paint off once we take them out. I think the restoration process will be pretty simple since we are just painting them. I want them to look really good and I've already restored 42 windows in the cabin, so I've had some practice

restoring

old windows and I think they'll be easier, so let's start with my first thought.

It was to use it as a box cutter like an xacto. Like a knife, you know, to cut paint, but I also have this one that has little teeth like that and it's super flat. This thing is very useful and I'm thinking this is going to save my arms a lot I don't want to damage the windows that's what I don't want to do I feel like it's going to work fine now that it's going to work I'm going to be too protected because of the baby. I'm going to put on a big mask just so I don't breathe anything.

I have one of these large respirator masks because I feel like it's better. It will protect me. Are you enjoying doing it? That's because you haven't done that in a while because he knows that he knows that it's like my therapy. I cut it all off, but it's only moving a little bit, it's not really giving way to the opening. I want to be careful, you know? So I'm I'm not trying to do anything crazy oh she's open much better ooh we have a lot of work to do I think this kitchen used to be yellow or like a beige yellow like the cabinet was ooh I don't like that they nailed it closed they had everything the intention to paint it and close it I see a nail how sad that's sad okay so Romeo and I were talking about it these over the sink I always wanted to open that is so nice like having a breeze there I started talking about these windows, they don't have hinges , which I didn't know before, so they don't open naturally anymore.

I wonder if we go ahead and convert them to be hinged and open and stuff. I feel like there might be some pieces missing so I'm going to have to put a piece in so they close together you know and they close really well or we were just talking about that because it's weird that you also have a door here and that Open is that I strange work on these first and then determine which one later I'm going to use this Citrus gel stripper to remove the paint from the windows. I've had a lot of success with this one and this particular stripper doesn't have strong fumes so it's safer to use especially if you're doing indoor projects and I'm just going to use a brush to paint all over the stripper and then over the top. top of the stripper, I'm going to put a little.

I wrap PL itic so it stays active as long as possible to really get through multiple layers of paint, so the stripper has been here for a couple of hours and I already tested a small patch to see if it was coming off. up and that's it, I'm going to use a scraper and maybe possibly a wire brush if I need to like in the corners and things to remove all this paint, we're just going to start over, we're just going to Start over with new paint until get to the wood so we can have a really clean, clean finish.

I'm excited to see the progress on the doors to come, we are still waiting for the glass. but at least we'll see what the shape will be like, so now that's it. I don't know if that's it. I'm dead, I'm dead, it's beautiful. I told him we're just waiting. the glass at this point the glass yeah, how long do you know how long it's going to take? maybe if not today tomorrow, so I can probably deliver it on Friday, if not Monday, the latest. Wow, I know you guys need speed, right? He did it for you. they built this beautiful one, they look nice, they actually look beautiful, I mean it looks like that window that we were inspired by, yeah, beautiful, that's what it's going to look like from the inside because they're going to open up, yeah.

I'm standing on the outside and you're on the inside, so when you go out to the pool like this, it's going to be literally awesome and that's what we do with that wood over there, how we get it and then yeah, that's amazing, oh , that looks amazing, wow, that's amazing, right? It's nice the next day after you remove it, so it's dry now it's not sticky anymore. I know you can use it like mineral spirits, you know, something like that to kind of remove the rest of the goo, but I didn't want to use that, so I let it dry now this is what it's gotten, it's gotten most of it off. part of the paint, now we can sand and it's not much. of work, you know, now we're perfecting it, not bad, the windows were definitely easier than the actual box because I feel like it's been painted so many times that it was just layers and layers and layers, but it was very cracked all the time.

I walk to the wooden places where I had to remove everything, you know, like you, sometimes you just have to start over with a new slate, you know, otherwise it would be uneven and not perfect, we are on the right track, so I'm I'm going to sand it going up from 60 grit, so I'm going to start with 60 grit and then go up to probably 100 120 and then to something finer like 220 and it gives us a really nice smoothness. surface without any of the circles left in the sanding if you've ever done that oh oh my gosh guys I'm surprised this thing isn't permanently attached to my face at this point.

I've used this whether things are Stinky or not, it didn't really matter when I set out to restore just this box window, it's essentially three windows and I thought, oh this is going to be a piece of cake, oh my gosh, days, days, This is the fifth day of working on this. The project began practically in the afternoons. I thought a simple restoration project turned into a glass replacement. I have holes here. Learn from our mistakes now twice because you really don't want to go near the glass. Glass with sandpaper. Now I say. that and it's kind of obvious but you don't really do it because it scratches the glass and it looks bad so there were a couple of panes on two of the windows that just had scratched glass and it just wasn't perfect at Lowe's.

You can have them cut glass or plastic sheets if you need it for any reason. You can have glass cut exactly to size, so all the pain I needed cost me $20, it's not a hard fix, it just takes a lot of time and while we were restoring these windows the glazing was cracking, literally all glazing must be replaced. I lowered these windows down to the wood, there is still some paint left on the wood profile. on the front and that's just because I didn't want to damage the profile, this is very smooth, the paint is straightened out instead of reapplying another coat of stripper, which I would have done if we had removed the paint and wanted to stain. these, the wood is so pretty, it's like it's a man, it almost hurts my heart to paint it, but it won't match any of the other windows in the house and there will be as many wood details as stained wood in the kitchen since these really they need to stay the way they were the goal since we were painting it anyway was to get it really smooth Smo and get it down as much as we could and get rid of any chipped paint things like that so this is like really really smooth and I've been replacing the glass and we're going to replace the glazing and then they are ready to paint.

I also removedall the hardware and when painting it with this metallic pure gold color. which I have uh is the closest I can get to Brass, you know, a really good color that I really like, it's not super gold and shiny and I've also been using all the previous push points for these windows. I was able to pull them all out to create a really tight space. seal and a clean finish on the exterior of the windows. We will use glazing. This one is white, so you don't have to paint it if your windows are white, but we'll paint these windows anyway.

We're going to wait 3 days and the guys will paint all the windows so you just want to start from scratch and I always like my glazing or hammering or whatever project I do to have really clean straight lines so I always also use some masking tape. painter and I'm going to place the painter's tape exactly where I want the glaze to stop. Happ, there you go, how beautiful these stores are. They are exactly what I wanted in terms of elongated lights, that's another name. That's what they call glass panels. These are all called lights and I wanted them to be elongated like that window.

All the windows in our house are a little different to fit the space they're in, but that one was like the prettiest to me, so when we were designing it I wanted it to be 13 tall, so tall and thin, and then we put the panel on the bottom to match the rest of the doors in the house and you know, it made the house feel really cohesive, they already started priming the doors as well just to protect them while we get to the painting stage and now the view of the pool from the kitchen is getting to that indoor-outdoor feel that I really wanted for this space. to life I couldn't be happier it's really impressive I have a little more perfecting work to do on these windows but we've made great progress they open they're glazed they have new glass you know me I'm like I'm a perfectionist when it comes to those details and I think I can spend a little more time on them to make them much better, but I already painted all the hardware, it's ready to go after they are painted.

I'm not. "I'm sure if they're going to bring in the cabinet tree first and then paint or paint and then bring in the cabinet tree. I don't know their method, I don't know how they're going to do it, but either way we." We are making some serious progress, this makes me very happy, so now when we put the curtains back up we will only have curtains on the outside, the little café curtains, so we can perfect them and cut them to size because I already made the curtains for the space I hope you enjoyed this episode about our kitchen renovation.

If you missed any of the episodes, I'll leave them all linked. There's a whole series so you can catch up on everything we've done so far. above we're going to dive into all the cabinets so you'll start to see them come to life and soon bring the cabinets. I feel like this space will really start to feel like a kitchen. of just an empty room and don't forget to subscribe if you are not already subscribed to my channel, just press the subscribe button and the notification bell so you know that when I upload new videos I will see them in two Sundays, bye.

Guys, next up on our kitchen renovation. I asked to select to be very uniform, yes, yes, it's not a mesh, you know, I was trying to be different here, so we're in the Mill store to see the progress on the cabinets. I'm so excited that you know she knows.