January 23, 2012

I kinda like it.

So I just kept going with my first paint choices and I’m glad I did…I kinda like it. No, I don’t love it, but I really like it. And in all honesty I think it will grow on me. This is a change. A big, bright change. So time will only tell. But one thing I do know for sure is that I am LOVING my kitchen being a kitchen and only a kitchen.

This weekend I even started decorating the walls in the kids rooms.
And even started working on my sons comforter. Can you guess what I’m making?
I even started making a little something for my bunny-button loving girl.
Oh and I almost forgot to mention that I finally finished organizing my sewing room! Oh I am thrilled! Don’t worry, lots of house pictures soon to come.

So any fun projects for you this weekend?

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January 17, 2012

Shabby Apple giveaway winner and repainting the kitchen.

The Shabby Apple giveaway winner is…

Adventures of Shaw who said…
My favorite Shabby Apple Dress is Le Coeur. We are going on our honeymoon to France in April and I want all of them.

Congrats! And how exciting to be going to France for your honeymoon. That dress couldn’t be any more perfect for the trip!

So this weekend I decided to repaint our kitchen. I know, I said I was going to take a little break from working on the house once our other rooms were finished, but this room desperately needed a new paint job. And really I just couldn’t wait, even though I promised the hubby I would.

Instead of repainting everthing the existing colors I decided to go with something new. Most of the time I can pick out the perfect color in minutes, but I was just having a tough time with all those blues. So I took a couple of fans home to help me decide. Gosh, all of those colors are dangerous for a color loving girl! I thought about going red for a minute or two but decided to go with big country blue for the cabinets and true blue for the walls. It took hours to remove all of the doors, hinges and hardware so late that night I started painting. It wasn’t until I finished painting the built-ins (on the left) that I realized the color I had chosen was way to bright for me. Like WAY too bright. Trust me, these pictures make the color look great, but they don’t really show the true color. But I had gotten too far to turn back…plus the paint store was closed and I’m an impatient kinda girl when it comes to such things. So I decided to go with it and make it work somehow. Last night I finished painting all of the cabinets. I wish I could say that I love it and that all of the time spent painting was worth it, but I can’t…not yet. Hopefully after I paint the walls and trim today I will like the color and it tones down the brightness on the cabinets a little.

Oh geez, sometimes my love for color can really get me into trouble! And in case your wondering, the hubby loves the color.

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January 24, 2011

The day we had to steal the ice shanty heater to heat our house.

As I watched the weather report this morning they said it was a chilly -28′ outside. And that is without the windchill, thank goodness the wind is not blowing this morning. Hearing him say that, immediately brought back memories of our first winter living here.

At the time our house only had a bedroom, bathroom and a semi-finished hallway, which is where we had our make ship kitchen. The kitchen was completely gutted to the bare studs and there was a huge hole in the floor. Sadly the hole in the floor went to our foundation, which in all reality, is the ground. It’s not cement but pure sand. Unfortunately, the kitchen was the only way to enter and exit our house at the time, so we were unable to close the kitchen off from the the part of the house we were living in. So we got by. We put up a warm and oh so cute door made of clear plastic. And it was held on by some even cuter staples. I’m telling you would die if you saw it. Here are the only pictures I could find to show ya the kitchen at the time. Everything was the same as you see in the pictures, except we had replaced the windows and door, and those holes that you see in the floor, were actually cut into ONE BIG HOLE. There was no insulation in the walls, just the bare studs staring back at us. Don’t worry, I had a cute little rug as you walked into the house that totally dressed things up. Oh ya, and we had a wooden spool (with a cute tablecloth on top) with half broken chairs in here too. Occasionally we would sit in here and dream of what it could be and other times we just sat in here together while I cried the whole time, wondering why we bought this place.




Ok, now that you get the picture, on with my story.

It was 6 years ago and a frigid winter day much like today. I came home from work at immediately noticed the house was freezing. It was a balmy 43′ inside. HMM, immediately I thought the furnace wasn’t working. I went and checked things out, but it was working. So not knowing what else to do, I did what I did most nights and grabbed my book and went into the clean, newly redone bathroom and wrapped myself up in a blanket, huddled again the baseboard heat and read a book. When the hubby got home, he found me in tears just sitting there. Desperately wanting to make me feel better, he told me that there was nothing he could do.(Insert more tears here!) Way to make a girl feel better, right? It was just too cold outside, and the house didn’t have enough baseboard heat to keep the temp up, and of course the lack of insulation didn’t help at all. So, my ever so cleaver hubby, came up with a solution and…
we had no other option but to steal the propane heater from his brothers ice shanty. So off to the pond we went get some heat. When we got home and hung that little propane heater in the kitchen, it was heavenly. Ok, not really, but it was no longer 43′ inside. The smell was not so good, but we had heat. And it was so funny at the time, that we couldn’t help but laugh. All those tears quickly turned into laughs. We continued to use the ice shanty heater for the rest of the winter and continued to live with our kitchen looking like it did for a year and a half. Funny how when I think back to this time, my house is a palace now! And thankfully our kitchen looks like this now.

So today I am appreciating this little home of ours again. We may be crammed and desperately trying to get out of each others way, but at least we are toasty warm! And thankfully these memories of mine make me appreciate just what we have! Because, “it could be worse!”

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Filed Under: house, our kitchen, renovations, winter
November 8, 2010

Our kitchen {then and now}

Thank you for all of your kind words about our house. It really means a lot to me. When I started this blog I was never going to show pictures of our house or tell you all exactly how we live, until recently when I have become obsessed with all of the remodeling blogs out there. I love reading others stories and seeing their before and after pictures. I have realized that we are not alone in our love for old homes and wanting to restore them.
So, here is more of our story…
Like I have said before, we live in only half of our house right now. The other half has been stripped to the bare studs (saving that for another post) and is just sitting vacant. So right now our house consists of two bedrooms, one bathroom, a hallway, and the kitchen. Since our kitchen is the biggest room (about 18′X18′) that is where we spend all of our time. Our kitchen is not just our kitchen, it also doubles as our living room, dining room, office, craft room, playroom and even a guest bedroom with Grammy dares to spend the night.

So here we go. Brace yourselves for the “then” pictures, they are REALLY BAD! When looking back at them I still can’t believe we bought this old house. I still laugh when I think about the realtor that showed us the house. The whole time she was trying to talk us out of buying this place. Most days, I think we should have listened to her.

Our kitchen,

then and now…


Yup, the baby was sleeping and I was not going to wake her up. Plus, there is no other place to keep her swing. The white drawers are filled with all my fabric and craft supplies. On top of the drawers is our office. If you look closely where the calender is hanging up , that is actually the doorway to go into the other side of our house. When the other side is completely finished that wall will be coming down, but for now it keeps our house clean and dust free.

Yup, we have a couch in our kitchen. Well, actually that is our living room.

Of course we tore down all of the walls, ceilings, horse hair plaster, blown-in insulation and the 3 layers of flooring. Ok, so EVERYTHING went except some of the main studs.

Behind the refrigerator is a hallway to the bathroom and the stairway to our bedrooms. You can kinda see the kids toys are kept in a hallway (their playroom). Yes, I do love color, can’t you tell?

We used to have a completely glassed in porch off the back of the house but it was so rotted and lead infested that we had to tare it down. Someday we will put another glassed in room out there. You can see the old cast iron sink that we kept, and that is all we kept from this picture. Under the sink the floor was completely rotted. Some of the main beams and floor joists were rotted as well.

Ok, this was the bathroom, YUCK-O-ROO! It was actually located right behind the kitchen sink. I guess that is how they did it in the old days for plumbing reasons. And as you can guess, the floor in the bathroom was completely rotted out too.

Believe it or not, we actually kept the old cast iron tub too. The inside was actually in pristine shape but the outside, well you can see. My father took the tub for us, sandblasted it, repainted it and now it looks brand new.

I love this picture! You can see, we were so happy to have bought this place. What the heck were we thinking?!?!

Unfortunately,, we had to keep the large beam in the middle of the ceiling. My husband built the island from scratch. Behind the doors is some major storage. This is also where we eat all of our meals. My husband and I sit on stools while the kids sit on the other side of the counter. Just recently though the baby has been joining us for meals. So I sit on the floor and feed her in her exersaucer. We don’t have room for another highchair. So there I sit on the cold floor feeding the baby. It could be worse.

There is the old sink. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? I love how we did the windows. It is great cooking dinner at night while being able to watch the kids play outside.

AWW yes, I fell in love with these built ins the moment I saw them. I saw the potential they had. Look at all the storage and they are so old. They have drawers, shelves and even the old pull out flour bins. They are soo cool. I worked on that old built in forever. I spent hours stripping, sanding, priming and repainting it, but it was so worth it. The inside was in good shape and all it needed was some primer and a few coats of paint. We found new cabinets to match the bead board on the old built in. I still wanted to keep the look and feel of an older country home.
The little wooden shelf was covered with linoleum. What a great surprise when I tore it off and found such beautiful wood underneath. Unfortunately, we had to keep a beam that separated the built in and the new cabinets. I’m still thinking I might paint it blue to blend in more. I also would like to repaint the walls a shade lighter blue. I would like to have a little more of a contrast between the walls and cabinets. But for now it will do. The colors look so different in each light.


So, there you have it, our little kitchen that doubles as a whole house. It never looks this quiet and clean though. Picture it,books and toys all over the floor. The baby rolling all over the place crying because she needs to be nursed. This momma is busy getting dinner ready while the two oldest are fighting over toys. One rides their little bike around and around in circles while the other one is chasing them. And since we are being real here, this momma is yelling because they almost ran over the baby. Yes, that is what this kitchen looks like…EVERYDAY!

linking up to:

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