Thursday, February 15, 2018

Our DIY range hood cover

 I'm so pleased to have completed the biggest feature of our kitchen...with our kitchen being open to our living room I wanted it to look as good as it could and to suit the country home vibe of our church conversion home...for me a feature range hood was the right choice...it was something I could easily tackle on my own and therefore do very affordably...this range hood cost approx $100 to build...



I have yet to add the shelves to the left of the window to complete the bulk of the kitchen makeover...but they brackets are ordered....I have had to tackle this makeover in little bits because our budget is non existent to be honest...if there's a few bucks or some material I pluck away at something on my list...after a year I am happy to say I am really loving my kitchen, although it is not exactly what I would have selected overall it is looking really good and we are happy. 

This is the view from the stairs leading to the basement...

I still need to fill in the space above the cabinets to hide the venting and add crown moulding. The plan is still to paint the cabinets white and to change out the hardware...changing out the hardware is $$$ so that will wait till I can fill the holes and paint the cabinets this spring.
The range is 30" wide and the range hood now is 37.5" wide now. 

I used a piece of reclaimed lumber as an accent on this piece which ties it in perfectly to our island counter.

I stained it with minwax driftwood, then rubbed on classic grey, and accented with a little bit of ebony here and there and then I used minwax ultimate floor finish to seal it, in matte. 

Here was the plan...I wanted the taller cabinets flanking the range and a custom hood...the design changed a little before it came to be. 

Here is how it looks from underneath...I decided to save money and to make things easier and just keep the vent we had, it is a great hood and works well but it just wasn't the design I liked...so I simply left a 1" gap in the front to allow for use to access the buttons, it works just fine. 
I don't have a tutorial but I can explain how I made this cover, I built the sides first, I glued and nailed my design onto 1/2" plywood, then I connected them with wood both on the front and one piece on the back to act as the brace. 

I had to cut out a spot for the vent to slide over the venting.



I then took to my instagram stories to see if I should paint or stain, I had originally thought white but then I thought maybe stain... then painting became a good option...so after a lot of considering we decided to go with stain because if we didn't love it we, and I mean I could always paint it... but we love it stained so we are happy we tried that out, the people were right. 

The first step was to remove the cabinets I didn't want so that I could deal with and make the tile adjustments, the opening was 7.5" wider than originally there so I needed to cut out and replace about 8 tiles...that was not so fun but it had to be done. The cabinets we removed will be used in the laundry room and or the garage. 

On the Saturday morning, we removed the cabinets and the range hood

on the Sunday
I love the wider space above the range...the proportion feels better to me, the tiles were added and fixed and grouted, the cabinets were installed and the valance was re-installed.

Sunday evening...we managed to get the range hood back up...success

Just a reminder of how it looked before I made changes...its nice but it just wasn't me....
Before we touched it. 

More to come when the shelves go up and the painting is completed...

thanks for stopping by...