kitchen

Ikea Kitchen Renovation – The Final Budget Rundown

February 12, 2013 By Jena 39 Comments

I’m going to spoil the ending of this post. Our final cost for the kitchen was just below $8,500.

This was for a complete kitchen remodel that included everything but the floors. Previous owners had installed laminate which we decided to keep for the time being. We replaced everything else – cabinets, counters, appliances, backsplash, and added some custom trim. All was DIY’d!

Ikea Lidingo Cabinets – $2,700

Kashmir White Granite Counters – $1,400

Appliances (range, fridge, dishwasher, hood) – $3,000

Tile Shop Hampton Carrara Marble Backsplash – $300

Restoration Hardware Cabinet Pulls/Knobs – $200

Restoration Hardware Heath Flushmount – $200

Trim – ~$100 (I don’t remember exactly…might be overestimating)

Kingston Brass Faucet – $200

Huuuge 32″ Kraus Sink – $300

GE 0.7 cu ft Microwave that tucks away perfectly in the micro cabinet – $75

Final Rundown:

Ikea Lidingo Cabinets – $2,700
Kashmir White Granite Counters – $1,400
Appliances (range, fridge, dishwasher, hood) – $3,000
Tile Shop Hampton Carrara Marble Backsplash – $300
Restoration Hardware Cabinet Pulls/Knobs – $200
Restoration Hardware Heath Flushmount – $200
Custom Trim – ~$100 (I don’t remember exactly…might be overestimating)
Kingston Brass Faucet – $200
32″ Kraus Sink – $300
GE 0.7 cu ft Microwave – $75

Grand Total – $8,475

Also, I just want to let you guys know I’m now on Twitter and Instagram! Or rather, I’m trying to figure out Twitter and Instagram :). Come over and say hi!

Linking up to: Funky Junk Interiors, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, The DIY Show Off, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Home Stories A2Z, Thrifty Decor Chick

Filed Under: Decorating, DIY Tagged With: appliances, backsplash, Ikea cabinets, kashmir white, kitchen 39 Comments

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On Soffits and Crown

November 19, 2012 By Jena 3 Comments

You know that crown molding in the kitchen I’ve been talking about for…well…about a year? It’s finally done. I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again – the finishing touches are sometimes the hardest things to finish because the room looks pretty good, and there are worse spaces in the house that need fixin that end up distracting me.

The crown really finishes off the Ikea Lidingo cabinets and further gives them a more customized look.

I showed previously how we used some of the Ikea trim that went with our Lidingo cabinets to make it appear that the cabinets came to the edge of the soffit. I did this because in all the high end kitchens I’ve seen, the soffit is built to the depth of the cabinet. Since our soffit was already there, and I happen to like the look of soffit above the cabinets, we fit the cabinets to the soffit. If you’re doing a kitchen reno and have an old soffit, consider keeping it and dressing it up! It can end up looking nicer in the end if done right and saves you lots of time (or money) for demo and drywall repair.

The crown wasn’t terribly difficult to put up. We used the miter and caulk method. Some are opposed to this method and say coping is superior, and while that may be true, I’ve been really pleased with how our dining room crown molding turned out. My parents used this method for their crown molding which has been in place for many many years and have yet to have any caulk cracking issues.

One big upgrade to the process this time around was the addition of a compound miter saw and a nail gun. While not required (you can use an inexpensive miter box and hammer), they sure do make it easier and more precise.

I’m far from an expert in installing crown molding, and you can Google much better how to guides than I could write, but I’ll give you one tip I haven’t seen illustrated before. Use test pieces! They don’t take long to make and can help save you from wasting huge long runs of molding because you may have gotten your angles mixed up. I bring the test pieces for a particular cut with me when I go to make the cut, so I position it the same as the piece I’m cutting (i.e., flipped over) to make sure the saw is set up properly. I labeled all of them either inside or outside as well as wrote down the angles to set the compound miter saw for the next time I’m cutting crown (saves me from having to look it up)

Back when I compared paint colors that go with the Lidingo finish, I found that Benjamin Moore Simply White was the best match for latex paint, so I got a quart of that in Aura satin finish for the soffit and crown. It’s great paint and goes on really smoothly. It isn’t quite as good as some of the self leveling acrylic trim paints out there right now (although it’s really close), it is probably the best of the regular acrylic latex paints I’ve tried. It is a very shiny satin finish, so if you are considering Aura for any trim projects, I think semi-gloss might be too glossy and show every little imperfection and brush stroke. The satin finish is a good match to the Lidingo finish.

Even though I had tested the Benjamin Moore Simply White on a leftover scrap of the Ikea Lidingo trim, I was still worried it might not match perfectly once it was up. My worries were all for nothing since I can’t tell a bit of difference. The visual line of the trim connecting to the soffit provides just enough break that any difference in color is negligible.

Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: Ikea cabinets, kitchen, painting 3 Comments

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Kitchen Light Fixture

July 30, 2012 By Jena 3 Comments

Hey all! I’ve been on a little blog break, but back in full swing again. I’ve missed you all terribly and glad to be back with a quick post on our kitchen light fixture. You might be thinking, “wait, you’re still working on your kitchen?” Yes, yes we are. The last finishing touches are sometimes the hardest because I have a habit of moving on to other projects before I’m completely done with my old projects. But we’re trying to finish up, really we are. This flush mount light fixture is the newest addition to our kitchen.

Here’s what we were dealing with before. Both of these light fixtures had to go.

The new flush mount light is from Restoration Hardware (scored during their 20% off sale). It was a little tricky to install because it has those four vertical bars, and if you are anything like me you want them squared off to something, and they weren’t…or rather, they aren’t.

I guess I should say this would have been tricky to install if I went back and fixed it so that the vertical bars were squared off to something, and since I didn’t realize until after I got the light up, and I was in a bit of a hurry, I didn’t fix it right away. Right now they are a little crooked if you look straight on at the light when you enter the kitchen. Just add fixing this to my to-do list of 8456 other things :)

We originally wanted to do recessed lighting, but after looking more closely at our ceilings, we realized there is a bunch of duct work running up between our floor joists that would be in the way of the lights. We might have been able to make recessed lighting work, but we didn’t want it that badly, so we took the easier route and just replaced the old fixture.

We debated over going with oil rubbed bronze to match all of our other light fixtures or satin nickel to match all of the stainless and cabinet hardware in the kitchen. There’s no right answer, but we decided on ORB to go with our drum pendant over the kitchen table.

We also moved this smaller fixture that is right in front of the soffit with the help of my dad.

moving a kitchen light fixture

We moved the fixture to be under the soffit and replaced it with a single recessed light. The main reason for doing this was so we can install crown molding around the soffit, but I also just think it looks better in the new spot. It just kind of blends in which is the look we were going for.

Next up for the kitchen? Crown!

Linking up to: Funky Junk Interiors, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, The DIY Show Off, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Home Stories A2Z

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Making the Peninsula Trim – Part 2 (All Finished!)

May 8, 2012 By Jena 15 Comments

Check out Making the Peninsula Trim – Part 1 for the beginning of this here story.

Here’s where we left off. We had finished the rails and stiles.

custom trim for ikea lidingo cabinets

Next up was laying out where they would go. This was actually kind of hard because our floors are not anywhere close to level. Since the counters are level and the floors are not level, it took a little bit of trial and error to figure out how to hide this. Are we the only ones who spend half of our renovating energy just trying to hide imperfections? Yes? No?

Anyway, we decided that we’d make the trim square to the counter, then the shoe molding around the floor could cover up the gap. It was about an inch difference in height between the wall and the end of the peninsula.

We used one of the large panels from Ikea for the back of the panel then screwed the rails and stiles in from behind.

We attached the baseboard to this too, but forgot to take a pic pre-spray paint. I’m blaming our wonderfully unlevel existing floors from the previous owners for making me forget.

So once we had the rails, stiles, and baseboards screwed onto the panel, we spray painted with Rustoleum Primer then Rustoleum Blossom White (see my previous post about white paints to match Ikea cabinets).

We spray painted and attached the corbels after painting the panel, then attached the whole panel to the cabinets by screwing through the cabinets into the panel from behind.

I would have preferred to use white shoe molding, but previous owners had used pre-finished oak all around the rest of the baseboards, so we stuck with that to be consistent.

We tried to make the molding look consistent style wise with the Ikea Lidingo doors. The router bit we used was not an exact match, but giving it some detail rather than leaving the edges square made it coordinate a lot better.

I think it really dresses up the kitchen and gives a much more custom look. It’s the first thing you see when you come through our front door.

I’m not sure I’ve ever shown our layout like this, but when you walk in the front door you can see part of our kitchen, and I really like that this part is what you see.

And by the way, see that blue clock? It’s hiding a huge ugly silver phone jack. And it was not in fact 8:35 when I took these pictures, but really I’m just too, er, lazy to change the battery. We have the stove, microwave, and hood with digital clocks. This one is purely there to hide the phone jack :). One day maybe we’ll get some art for that wall.

I found the corbels from Architectural Depot. They were a little more than I wanted to spend at about $23 a pop, but the detail was exactly what I was looking for. They are actually made from Urethane, which according to them is about the density of pine. I had to shave off about 1/8 inch from the back of the corbels to keep them from sticking out past the counters. I did this using our compound miter saw and it cut very cleanly. No picture (bad blogger). Part 1 my dad did most of the work, so I was picture snappy. This part, part 2, I did most of it myself, and I still blame my floors for making me forget pictures :)

I think the trim really makes the kitchen.

Details:

Molding – made from scratch (see Part 1 for the details)
Molding Paint Color – Rustoleum Blossom White
Cabinets – Ikea Lidingo
Corbels – Architectural Depot

Still left to do:

Recessed lighting
Crown molding

Almost there! You can see all of my kitchen posts here and here.

Linking up to: Funky Junk Interiors, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, The DIY Show Off, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Home Stories A2Z

Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: Ikea cabinets, kitchen 15 Comments

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Making the Peninsula Trim – Part One

April 3, 2012 By Jena 2 Comments

We’re making custom trim around the peninsula of our Ikea cabinets, and the goal was to make a trim that coordinated with the Lidingo doors. You can see a little mock up here at the end which we are going to run all along the back too. That end piece was just a test piece, so the final product will look more seamless.

I first thought about doing board and batten, but the plain squared edges of board and batten didn’t seem to go with the Lidingo doors at all. I think it would have looked mismatched. Then we thought about making raised panel wainscoting that would be almost identical to the raised panel Lidingo doors, but this would have been a long, time consuming project, so instead we went with a flat panel look. The rails and stiles have a decorative routed edge that I think ties in better to the Lidingo doors than a plain squared board and batten would.

So far we’ve gone from this.

how to make wainscoting

To this.

We originally planned on getting the wood from Home Depot or Lowe’s, but after sampling some poplar and pine it was too soft. The area around the peninsula gets a lot of traffic and I didn’t want the corners and edges to get all beat up. I could easily scratch the softer wood with my fingernail, so I thought it would be better to go with a stronger wood like maple.

The big box stores by us don’t carry maple boards (I’m not sure if any do, but the ones by us don’t seem to), so a couple weeks ago I went to Vienna Hardwood with my dad to pick out some maple.They had lots of maple. Phone pics, excuse the quality.

This is a neat store and they seem to carry just about every type of wood you can imagine from the basics to exotics.

My dad is handy with woodworking and offered to help with making the trim. It was fun for me because I haven’t ever done something like this before so I got to see how all of the tools worked.

If some of these tools like like antique versions of ones you see today, well that’s because they are. Well, maybe not antique, but they’ve been around awhile. The table saw and band saw were my grandfather’s and are very old. My dad remembered my grandfather having these tools when he was young and my first thought was they had, like, power tools back then? Ha. Apparently so.

First step was to cut the large boards down to length with the compound miter saw (could use a table saw too). We made them a little long at first.

Then cut to width with the band saw (cut a little wide)

Run along the jointer to make sure they are nice and straight.

Cut exactly to the right width using the table saw.

Split piece down the middle with the band saw.

Use the thickness planer to smooth out the pieces and make exactly the same thickness.

We drew up a plan to figure out the measurements for the length of the rails and stiles.

The stiles (vertical pieces) will be covered by baseboards at the bottom, so they didn’t need to be precisely the same height, just tall enough to be covered by the baseboard. We used the compound miter saw to cut the stiles. (I helped a bit!)

We used the table saw to get the rails (horizontal pieces) all exactly the right length.

Cope the ends using a router.

Route the edges.

Voila!

Next up will be giving these a light sanding, attaching these to the peninsula panel, priming, and painting.

Update: Continue to Part 2: Making of the Peninsula Trim (All Finished!)

Linking up to: Funky Junk Interiors, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, The DIY Show Off, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Home Stories A2Z,

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White Paints to Match Ikea Cabinets

March 28, 2012 By Jena 6 Comments

You guys know I’m a bit paint color obsessed since I have a whole separate blog about paint color and all. If there was every any doubt, this post will confirm it :). The differences in white paints might seem small to some, but they seem huge to me! It was hard to capture the exact color differences of the different white paints with my trusty little point and shoot, but this is my best shot.

I posted a little while ago that we were working on some custom trim to go around the peninsula. You can see the little mock up we did propped up against the end of the peninsula. We’re going to do trim like this all the way around.

ikea lidingo cabinet peninsula trim installation

We’re starting from scratch. Way from scratch. This is one of the pieces of wood we started with. My dad is handy with woodworking, so he helped…or rather, he did it and I watched and took pictures :).

I’ll be back later with a how to on how we’re making this into trim. For now, I’ve been testing white paint colors that match the Ikea Lidingo cabinet doors and have found a couple that are really close.

I think we’re going to try spray painting the peninsula trim to give it a super smooth finish, but spray paint colors are really limited. Anything labeled just “white” was waaaay too white. Blindingly white. Many brands have Antique White which is too yellow. I tried the ever popular Rustoleum Heirloom white and that was just a tad too yellow still (but a great color if you’re looking for a creamy white spray paint).

I was about to give up on finding a white spray paint that would match, but the other day when I was shopping for fabric supplies for my no sew roman shade I saw a little case in the back of Joanne Fabrics with spray paints. I glanced through, and lo and behold there was one white spray paint I hadn’t seen before – Rustoleum Blossom White! I didn’t get my hopes up, but I came home and sprayed half of a leftover piece of Lidingo trim, and it was a pretty good match. Score!

Here it is without the line. I think that’s about as close as I’m going to be able to find for a spray paint match (and I’d say it’s pretty darn close). Ignore the slightly messy drippy paint line. This was just a test piece so I wasn’t too worried about making it perfect

We’re also adding crown molding above the cabinets and will paint the soffit to match, so I needed a latex paint too. We have painted all of the trim in our house Sherwin Williams Alabaster, so I gave that a shot since I had some on hand.

Here it is without the lines. You can see the color difference better here. Too dark.

I went to Sherwin Williams to try color matching, but after taking a look at the Proclassic Trim Paint in Extra White right next to my trim sample I took with me, they suggested I just give the Extra White a try (which is just the untinted white right off the shelf) because it looked very similar. I brought it home and tested it on top of my scrap Lidingo trim piece, and it was pretty close, but not perfect.

Here it is without the line. Just a tad too bright with a hair too much gray.

I thought about taking it back to get it tinted, but…

I had a reader, Jen, ask me about paint colors to match Ikea cabinets, and we got to chatting and she mentioned she saw a post on Ikea Fans about white colors to match the Lidingo cabinets, and some of them suggested Benjamin Moore Simply White. I bought a quart and the color was almost exact, so I think this is the one we’re going with to paint the soffit and crown. Thanks Jen for the suggestion!

Here you can see it without the black line. You can barely tell where it starts, unlike the Alabaster and Extra White above. It is slightly warmer than the Ikea white, but since this is only going to be up at the ceiling, I don’t think it will be noticeable.

Remember to stop over at my other blog Involving Color on Monday, April 2 with your paint colors for another Paint Color Party!

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Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: Ikea cabinets, kitchen, painting 6 Comments

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Adding a bit of whimsy to the kitchen

March 23, 2012 By Jena 7 Comments

Since our kitchen is mostly neutral with kashmir white counters, white cabinets, and a marble backsplash, I’m adding in color with accessories. I started with my no sew roman shade from a mini blind and just got these fun canisters.

I love that they add a bit of whimsy to the kitchen, and you can see them when you first walk in the door. So in a way the set the tone for the whole house. Hi everyone, we’re a little green, and a little fun, and we like to look nice, but it’s what’s inside that counts. See, just like us.

They coordinate nicely with the roman shade.

Since I don’t bake all that often, but we do make rice with about half of our meals, I filled them up with our favorite types of rice. I always found it a pain to go digging through our big bulk bags to get rice, so the canisters are not only pretty, but they simplify our dinner prep. Score. The big one is white jasmine rice, the medium is brown jasmine rice, and the small is brown basmati rice. I really should have put a brown rice in the big one, because that would be healthier to encourage us to eat more of it, but white jasmine rice is just so good it deserves the big spot.

So fun.

We DIYed the entire kitchen, so this was a little treat and a bit of a splurge for being almost done. I searched high and low for fun green canisters and ended up finding these lovely polka dotted beauties on Amazon.

It was between these, and the striped version.

I really wanted to get two dots and one striped, but no option for that :(. I do love my dotted ones though! And when I was writing this post and I went back to Amazon to find the links, I found this matching striped and polka dotted bowl. I want!

There’s actually a whole line of these Terramoto striped and polka dotted kitchen pieces. I never realized how much I like green dots and stripes. Learned something new.

And, I announced the other day I’ll be hosting another paint color party on Involving Color on the first Monday of the month, and I wanted to let all of you know as well! Hope to see you over there on April 2nd!

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How to Install a Marble Tile Backsplash

March 12, 2012 By Jena 17 Comments

I’m back to share all the details of how we installed the backsplash! In case you missed it, here’s how the backsplash is looking these days all finished.

And just to compare, here’s where we started, way back when. Dark and drab.

Then we got new appliances, installed Ikea cabinets, and put in some Kashmir White granite. Big improvement.

installing an ikea lidingo kitchen

And now the backsplash. Improving on the big improvement.

There’s still some things left to finish (peninsula trim, crown molding, lighting), but this really helps the kitchen seem more complete.

We stared and stared at the samples, and finally decided to go with the Hampton Carrara Satin 3×6 subway tiles. The grout is Unsanded Whisper Gray, but we didn’t decide this until after we laid the tile. More on that later.

I went all over the place looking at marble tile, from Home Depot and Lowe’s to what seems like every local tile shop. The local shops had some beautiful tile and some were great prices, but the one thing I didn’t like was that all the shops I talked with, you have to special order it and there are no returns. You order a little bit extra to account for irregularities and if you mess up cutting, so if you have any left over you have to eat the cost. The Tile Shop lets you return tile as long as it’s a full box, so that really sold me.

We ended up ordering 40% more than our square footage. Why? Because I’m a tad tile crazy. The sales person was very nice and in fact very enabling of my tile craziness. I was worried we’d end up with a bunch of tiles that had all sorts of irregularities and colors I didn’t like, so he said we could just order a bunch extra and return the boxes we didn’t use. Sounds good to me.

The tile came in and was not, in fact, irregular or oddly speckled or anything like that. I still liked having the choice of tiles. First thing I did was start choosing the tiles I liked and laying out a pattern. I wanted it to look natural and varied, but in an orderly way. See, tile crazy.

I really liked this tutorial from The DIY Show Off on how they installed their marble backsplash, so like them I used OmniGrip to set the tile.

Start from the outside, or more visible side, and then go in. You want to end the tile on the least visible part of your backsplash.

Spread the Omni Grip on the wall with the flat end of the trowel, then scour it with the pointy end. Then push your tiles on, wiggle them around a bit, and use spacers between tiles. We used 1/16 inch spacers. We ended our tile where the cabinets ended. I used a level to make sure they were nice and straight.

Use a wet saw to make any cuts, and just cut really slowly. Pushing the tiles along the saw too quickly causes more chipping. The great thing about marble is that even if there is some chipping, you can sand it out. Marble is a “soft” stone, so it doesn’t take much to sand it.

This is what an edge looks like after cut.

This one isn’t too bad in terms of chipping, but original edge of the tile had a slight bevel, so I wanted my cut edges to match the bevel on the other three sides and be nice and smooth. I wrapped some 220 grit sandpaper around an old sanding sponge that had lost its sandiness (good way to reuse those sanding sponges!), and lightly sanded the edge until it looked more like the original beveled edge. It doesn’t have to be perfect since once you grout, you won’t notice the edges that much, but again, I’m tile crazy so I did this to all my cut edges.

It was only about 20 seconds of sanding which I think is worth it to give it a more finished look.

Get all your tile set, and admire your work.

Let it dry 24-48 hours before removing the spacers.

Seal the tile with a good stone sealer since marble will pick up the grout color and stain. We used TileLab Surface Guard Sealer.

I’d recommend making some sample boards of grouts you are considering. This is what you can do with all your scrap pieces of tile (you’ll end up with a bunch). You can also test out your sealer to make sure it works.

This is bright white grout that my parents had on hand and let us test it out to see how white looked.

This is the sample board I made for the Whisper Gray from the Tile Shop. Let the grout dry 24-48 hours before deciding because grout looks A LOT darker when it is wet.

We liked how the gray blended better with the tile and thought the white looked a little too stark against the tiles, so Whisper Gray it was.

Mix up your grout and use a grout float to spread it on the tile. I used a mud pan rather than a bucket. It’s easier to work with. I mixed up a small amount of grout at a time, just enough to use within 20 minutes or so.

You’re supposed to use a 45 degree angle to spread and a 90 degree angle to scrape off any excess. I’ll admit I never got the hang of the angles and just kind of spread and scraped it off using whatever angle seemed to work best :).

Don’t grout the space between the tile and the counter or the tile and the cabinets. You will want to caulk this to allow for any slight shifting or movement in your floors and walls. If you grout these seams they can crack.

Use a sponge to wipe any excess off the tiles. You can use the corner of the sponge to clean go over the grout lines so they are smooth and clean. With marble, you want to get it cleaned off as much as possible because you can’t use any acidic grout haze removers on marble. I used clean water from the sink rather than a bucket for the sponge to help with this.

Don’t worry if it looks dark after applying. It will lighten up considerably when it fully dries.

Caulk between the counters and tile and the cabinets and tile. We got the matching Unsanded Whisper Gray caulk. I taped off where I caulked so it would be a nice thin line that resembled grout.

Seal your grout. I used the same Tile Lab sealer that I used to seal the marble since it is also recommended for grout sealing.

Enjoy your new backsplash!

Also, make sure to go over to Involving Color today to link up your paint colors. Can’t wait to see you all over there!

Linking up to: Funky Junk Interiors, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, The DIY Show Off, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Home Stories A2Z, Somewhat Simple, Thrifty Decor Chick

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We Have Grout!

March 7, 2012 By Jena 6 Comments

I finished up the backsplash last weekend! The last I had shown it was pre-grout. One big item now checked off the kitchen to do list.

You might remember this is where we left off.

The tiles are the Hampton Carrara Satin 3×6 subway tiles from the Tile Shop and the grout is Whisper Gray, also from the Tile Shop.

Can you find the outlet? From a distance it almost looks like a white tile. We moved the outlets to blend in better with the brick pattern.

I have to say that grouting was so much more fun than laying the tile.

I’m amazed at what a difference it makes. The grout color is a light gray that I think blends in with the tiles. It is darker than some tiles, lighter than others, and some you can barely tell where the grout starts.

I’ll be back later with a full step-by-step!

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Easy Stainless Steel Cleaning Tip

March 2, 2012 By Jena 25 Comments

When we purchased our stainless steel appliances, it didn’t occur to us to get the kind that hide fingerprints and smudges. They might be stainless, but they sure are smudgefull. By a stroke of luck, we got a fridge that has this feature, and it is wonderful. Every other stainless steel item in our kitchen is the traditional stainless steel that shows everything.

Quickly after we bought the appliances I realized soap and water and all of my other cleaning products just left a streaky mess.

Except one.

I have had this can of Pledge for, well, years. I don’t really use it much on furniture, but it works amazingly well on stainless steel (and do you see the pretty backsplash there in the background? hopefully grouting this weekend!)

We keep accumulating more and more stainless steel around the kitchen that in turn love to accumulate fingerprints, waterspots, and all manner of streaks. A quick wipe with Pledge and a paper towel cleans up all of this.

The dishwasher is the worst offender. Talk about showing drips. Oy. I now realize I didn’t clean the front of our old white one nearly enough. I Pledge this guy a lot.

It also works nicely if I want to pretty up our new massive stainless steel sink. It hasn’t gotten its “patina” yet (i.e. all scratched up, except on the bottom just a little bit), so the sides in particular really show water spots. I’ll do a quick swipe in the sink when I’m cleaning the other appliances, but I don’t really go out of my way to shine it. We do actually use our kitchen, so that would just be silly :).