Kitchen update

I took today and relaxed. HA! Well, relaxed to me is different from most people I think. Sophie invited her friend over and while they played I spent the day painting. My friend, Julia, introduced to me to gel stain and I love the stuff. I have had the same can since we moved in. That small can has painted the brass lamps in the hall and foyer, a mirror in the foyer, the cabinet in the hall bath, and now one side of the kitchen. There is still enough to cover the other side it is just late and I ran out of steam.

Before the paint

 

Eventually the cabinets will be recycled to the garage to be used for storage space out there. That is one day when I can afford to replace them and if I own the house For now I replaced the hardware and painted them a mahogony color. I think they look nice. I hope it is not too dark.

After the paint!

Put back together

I still need to paint the doors that were on the top cabinets. I don’t think I will put them back on though. I kind of like the open concept. Maybe I will add molding around the openings and along the top to make them look more like furniture. We’ll see what other trouble I can get myself into later! Best $13 I ever spent. Thanks Julia!

Yay for days off :)

I took a day off today. No special reason. I really just needed  a day to chill out and mentally regroup. I woke up and was able to make breakfast for Sophie, saw her out the door to school and then crawled back into my bed with a cup of coffee. It was nice to just lay there and listen to the birds outside. It was a beautiful morning! Also, I was able to go up to one of the high schools in Plano and have lunch with 2 of my amazing girls! I saw 4 other students and 1 former student that I still try to keep in touch with too so that was really cool actually made my day! I love spending time with them!!

Then, I came home and painted the wood above my fireplace. I am not happy with how I styled the mantle but I will play with that later. I think maybe my mirror is too low? I read one time that you should angle them down a little so maybe that is it. I was trying to hang it to reflect the natural light from the french doors in the dining room but it is catching the lights from my ceiling fan instead. Oops.

Before - when we first moved in

Don’t mind the lovely styling of this particular picture. The furniture wasn’t in yet and it was the week before Christmas. While I was busy cleaning and getting the house ready, Sophie and Taylor (a student/friend ) decorated our tree and Barb was painting the bathroom. Fun night!!

After – a fresh coat of paint

Maybe there is just too much stuff to look at on the mantle. Hmm. I’ll play with it this weekend. So hard to choose what to put up there. I don’t want all the clutter. Just because there is a huge mantle doesn’t mean I need to use it all!

 

 

I ended the night with a great dinner and silent auction for The Brook Ministry thanks to my friend Julia. Good food, great company and an awesome ministry! Sophie and I enjoyed seeing Pastor Steve again and being in the company of our church family. God is awesome and we are so richly blessed.

Housey house house.

So, there are so many things that I want to do in my house and I have serious house ADD and haven’t finished one room yet. I keep starting projects in a room and then think of something else and start it too. Rooms I have started on: Hall bathroom, extra room, Sophie’s room, hall, great room, my room. Rooms that have been “finished” = ZERO! NADA! ZILCH!  A very good friend once said “you can never really finish a house because when you do – you have to sell it” true wisdom. I sat down and started a list of things I would like to do. It  includes little things like tearing down the fireplace that takes up the corner and extends on to either side of the walls. It would be cool just to have it on that corner wall. Like I said – little things

The laundry room alcove thingy is right next to the french doors in my great room. I needed curtains to cover the french doors and that alcove kinda posed a problem. There are no doors on it and you can’t hang curtains above it because it butts up against the corner of the wall. Also, it would be weird trying to hang curtains above both the french doors and the laundry room.

BUT, Ikea came to the rescue. They have curtain rods that go around corners so I could hang it over both and it still looks cool! I <3 Ikea. I do have to say that these said curtain rods DO NOT come with screws. Not even Ikea type screws. No. Of course I didn’t look to see if they had them. I assumed they would have those nice alan wrenches they include in every piece that you buy. YES, every piece. I needed 8 rod holders so now I am the proud owner of 8 alan wrenches that only fit 1 little screwy type thingymabobber. Need one? So after we put up 4 rod holders we realized that the screws we bought were the wrong type. The package said “Due to all wall types being different we do not include screws and leave that to the buyer’s discretion.” O_o     So I used my discretion and bought the type for my wall. But, they were not up to par with what Ikea thought I would choose I guess. Kinda reminded me of when I was 8 and my mom said “You can choose ballet or piano.” Little sweet 8-year-old me: “OH! Piano!!” Mom: “Nope, ballet.” What??! So, after another trip to the hardware store we got them all up. I hung them high to give the illusion of grandeur in my little 70′s ranch home. I think they turned out quite nice!

Onto the kitchen! I painted the entire kitchen a nice Steamed Milk color and it really brightens the place up. Like I said earlier – I can’t replace the cabinets yet. I decided to take the doors off the upper cabinets and stain the cabinets a dark cherry or walnut. I plan on adding a little molding at the top of the cabinets and shelf bracket type things at the bottom so they will look like built in open shelving. I’ll post more as I get them done. For now the doors are off and the walls of the kitchen are painted. That was a lot of work for one weekend. This weekend I’ll paint the backs of the cabinets and stain the wood.

So far so good!! Can’t wait to work on it some more I am falling in love with my little house.