Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Tool Talk Tuesday featuring Katie Clemons/Making this Home

Today's Tool Talk features a new BLAHg pal that I met through Twitter! Katie Clemons (@makingthishome) is living in Berlin with her German hubby in a TEEEEENY apartment, but making it feel big and fab through her wonderful design skills! After seeing how they transformed a 36 square foot kitchen, I knew they had to have used some serious DIY skills and that they'd be perfect for today's Tuesday Tool Talk! So, without further ado, here's Katie!

When we moved to Berlin, Germany, our kitchen was a pretty frustrating place to be. It was a 36 square foot, walled-in space that was miserable to say the least. So we pulled out our favorite tools and decided to remodel.

Here's our favorite tear-down tool:

Our interior walls were solid drywall. Each brick we cut out weighed 50 pounds. No tool can cut out walls and get rid of unwanted construction jobs better than a saws-all once you know exactly where every electric wire and pipe is in your wall.

When it comes to building a space back up, I really like table saws. We used one for cutting all of the sheets of wood we needed to build our cabinets. Unfortunately, our apartment is so small at 480 square feet that I had to hang out the window to hold the wood while my husband cut. When we weren't cutting with the table saw, it became just a table. Here's my husband sanding a cabinet on our unplugged table saw:

Electric sanders. Those would be another favorite tool. In Germany, the law requires us to stop using power tools at certain times of day. We got six hours of legal power tool time each day. All noise was illegal on Sundays. I never knew how much I would love my sander until the days I couldn't use it.

So put those tools together along with a hundred others and slowly, we turned our kitchen into this:

Didn't they do an INCREDIBLE job?!?!?! I'm so impressed with how they turned the lemon of a small kitchen into one killer lemonade!!! Many people who assume that this is the kind of job only a professional would attempt, but they did their homework, got the appropriate provisions, and went to work. I'm certain that every time they use their small, but beautiful, kitchen they feel a huge sense of pride! To learn more about this kitchen transformation, please visit Katie at www.makingthishome.com!

Great job, Katie! I look forward to seeing how you transform the rest of the house!!! And thanks again, for participating in Tool Talk Tuesday!



8 comments:

Melissa @ The Inspired Room said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Melissa @ The Inspired Room said...

Whoops, didn't mean to delete my comment! Eeek....

You know I love Katie's apartment! It was fun to hear the tales behind the tools!

Happy day to you both!

Anonymous said...

This is one of my favorite kitchen renovations! Taking out that wall made a night and day difference in that kitchen! And they made fantastic choices for cabinets, and counter materials.

Beautiful (And I wish I had a table saw! Shoot.)

Katie @ makingthishome.com said...

Thanks for the nice writeup, JJ. You're so sweet. Your Tuesday project really made me think in a different way, and I look forward to future Tuesdays! Lemon to lemonade--I like that.
Katie

Remodeling Guy said...

Wow! I'm very impressed with the beautiful kitchen! And I agree that a table-saw table makes a great surface for any kind of work, I love mine so much I could use it for a dinner table it my wife would let me!

Never seen solid gypsum walls before!

The Rambler said...

WOW!

Thank you for visiting me on my SITS day! :)

xoxo~Rambler @ My Rambling Thoughts

Lindsay @ Makely said...

Crazy that they have certain non-quiet hours in Germany! I wish they had that here.

Onlinehandyman said...

Yes, she certainly did do a beautiful job! I never saw walls like that before though.