House on the Rock

This weekend we took a much needed break from doing things around the house (especially since we have a two week vacation coming up that we plan on getting all our unfinished projects done), and took our friend to the House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI.

For those of you that are not from Wisconsin or do not currently live in or around Wisconsin, the House on the Rock really means nothing to you. So let me explain. This is a house that was built on and in a cliff in Southeastern WI by Alex Jordan, JR. It's a Japanese style house with a large collections of gardens and out buildings and just plain crazy stuff. A lot of people think that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, it was not. It is just located near Taliesin, FLW's house and studio, thus the confusion of many people. The house is full of crazy and colorful items. Most of which were made by Jordan himself. There is a new section of the house that explains the history of everything, but we didn't spend a lot of time there. I mean we weren't there for a history lesson, we were there for the craziness.

Here is an example of what I mean. It's a large musical instrument playing "thing". The house if full of things like this. Rooms of instruments that look like they play themselves. It has a section that look like old timey streets and shop fronts. There is the infinity room that juts out into the landscape. Then there is this.....

A massive whale fighting an octopus.  Crazy, crazy stuff.  It's really hard to explain to people, you kinda just have to go see it for yourself.  My friend, K, was really excited to go and was lost for words when we first started through the house.  She said that everything we had told her about this place couldn't prepare her for what she was seeing.  It's that crazy.

Here J and I are posing for a nice Christmas photo.  And of course he can't just take a regular photo, he has to make it crazy.  Don't worry, we got a good one as well.  Though, he keeps telling me this is going to be the picture on our Christmas cards.  

And here I am in front of what they call the "World's largest indoor carousel" I'm not sure if it is, but it is pretty crazy. The animals are really beautiful and it doesn't include one horse. I tried to get a picture of it, but I think between my fatigue and the confusion of my camera, I just couldn't get a descent picture.

This is one of my favorite carousel animals. The llama. It's so cute and even has eyelashes.  This one isn't on the carousel, so I was able to get a good picture.  Look at how cute he is.

And then we finished our trip with some homemade fudge from the gift shoppe and some lunch back in Madison.  It was a fun and exhausting trip.  But I'm glad we went.  We had so much fun showing off one of the most crazy things Wisconsin has to offer.

But now it's back to the grind.  One more week of work for us and then two weeks off.  It sounds nice, but I know we'll be working hard.  Now I'm off, have a great Monday.   

Laundry Room

We are taking a little break from working on the kitchen to work on a room that very much needs attention, the laundry room.  The laundry room is located in our basement in the second bathroom.  It's the only part of the basement that is unfinished and it was painted this wonderful pink color.  Okay, that was sarcasm.  I hated this room.  I hated the color, I hated how it was so unfinished, I hated all the network of copper pipe everywhere.  I just knew we had to do something.

Here's a little close up of the pink color.  It was so awful that I couldn't even get a good picture of it.  It reminded me of pepto bismol every time I had to do laundry.  

The doors are unpainted, there is copper pipes everywhere, the sink is stained and old.  I am not a fan of laundry as it is and this room didn't make it any easier.   It was just a sad, sad room.

 
So I busted out some of the paint the previous owner left us.  I added some white paint to make it a little bit lighter and went to town painting the walls blue.  The bathroom has blue tile, so I thought blue walls in here would look nice, and the paint was free!  The walls look purple in these pictures, but they are a light blue. 

I painted what I could reach with everything still in place and I've been waiting for a month or two now to have our pretty new utility sink installed to finish up.  But what to do with that plumbing?  So, J's dad came over and suggested that we re-plumb the room using pex so that we could get rid of the network of pipes.  It's a lot larger project then what we were expecting to do, but I guess we should probably just get it out of the way and get it done.  And the best part, J's dad can do plumbing (it's part of his job with the county) and J's uncle has all the tools and knowledge of pex.  Win!  We didn't have to hire a plumber to do the job.   

So here's what we plan to do in the laundry room.

• Replace the copper pipes with pex
• By replacing the pipes we can rerun a lot of them and clean up the space
• Replace the utility sink with a new one with a vanity
• Finish painting the walls
• Texture the walls (hopefully will make them look less like cement basement walls)
• Put in flooring (probably just vinyl)
• Paint the doors
• Figure out what to do with the ceiling
• Maybe figure out a way to hid the litter box and still have Toonces use it 
• Put up wall storage/shelves

I'll show you tomorrow what we accomplished in the laundry room.  It's not done, but it's coming along nicely.

Rambling from a crazy person

So I planned on posting pictures of our laundry room progress today.  But I can't seem to find any of the pictures I've taken.  I'm hoping they are still on the camera or I'm not going to have any before pictures.  Which isn't as fun.  So you'll just have to settle with some random rambling from me, a crazy person.

We put up our Christmas tree this past weekend.  I was super excited because we didn't get a chance to do it last year, you know with the moving and everything.

I don't have any pictures of the tree yet, but it's pretty.  Just take my word for it.

What I do have is a picture of Yoda being Yoda.  She's not supposed to be up on the couch (unless she's invited, because lets face it I love cuddling with that little potato).  So while we were busy assembling and decorating the tree, she climbed up there and made herself comfortable on a pile of pillows, in a location she could watch us from, or course.  What a little shit.  But because she's so cute an because we were a little busy, we just let her stay there.  I know, way to go with the discipline.  Then I put the Santa hat on her, and because she is very laid back and passive, she just left it there.  Seriously, for hours.  She just watched us with the Santa hat on.  Maybe she just knew how adorable she looked.

I'm not done with the decorating, but we did come to the realization that we don't have any outside power outlets, so pretty outdoor lights are out of the question until we can have some installed next summer.  Sad face.  May I can put some in the windows on the inside.  Hmmmm, I think I know my plan of attack when I get home tonight.

I also need to replace my wreath.  I'm just going to go get a nice real evergreen wreath and dress it up a bit, maybe with some berries and bows.  Or even some glitter.  Who knows.  It will be replacing my coffee filter wreath that met it's end this weekend.  I'm not sure what happened, but I suspect sabotage.  I don't want to go into it, the pains to fresh right now, ;-)

I also want to make some of these Layered Ribbon Trees.  I think they are sooooooooo cute.  I found them over at Sparkle Girl.  She has a bunch of cute ideas that I would love to try and make for the house.  I have a feeling I will be pinning a great deal of her ideas to pinterest in the future.       

I mean look at these cute trees.  I think I might make a red one, a silver one, and a gold one.  That will tie in nicely with the tree (if you haven't guessed already, that's our Christmas color theme).

I also would like to make a little tree out of tiny ornaments or even beads.  But, I can't go crazy since, we don't have a lot of places to put these little guys right now.  *hint, hint.  maybe we should get going on making the sofa table and other accent table in the living room.*

Hopefully I can get my act together by tomorrow and have some fun pictures to show everyone.  We really did get a lot done over our four day weekend, I'm not making that up, scouts honor. 

Well I'm off for now, happy crafting, decorating, etc, etc.
  

Thanksgiving's over, Christmas full speed ahead

Well Thanksgiving is over and now we're all waiting for Christmas to come. I'm excited about Christmas this year because we both took 2 weeks off, so hopefully we'll get a few things done around the house and the rest of the time we can spend with our friends and family.

I don't have any pictures of the things we accomplished over the weekend. We were able to get a lot done (even if I beaded almost non-stop).  Here's a hint of what we worked on; laundry room, kitchen, bedroom, Christmas decor, family room, my studio, appliance hunting.  Yup, we did get a lot done.

And the best part, I made a pie.  A dutch top apple pie.  This was my first pie I ever made on my own with no one to help.  Okay, J helped.  But his help consisted of him eating half the stuff between pie making tasks.  And did I succeed at pie making?  You better believe it.  This baby was delicious.  I can't wait to make some more. 
 

That's really all I have for today.  A picture of a pie.  I'm hoping to get a few good pictures of the things we accomplished this weekend, because we really did get a lot done.  Now I just need to finish up my beading project in the next couple weeks and I can fully focus on home stuff.  Like maybe painting my studio or maybe the upstairs bathroom! :-)

Happy Monday!

New Appliances

The other night we went and looked at new appliances.  Now we weren't seriously looking, we just happen to be there and decided to take a peak at what they had.

bestbuy.com

We already know which brand we're looking at and even which line we want (maybe).  But we've been going back and forth to where to put the fridge and what kind we want. 

I would love a French door fridge, but I know they are kinda pricey and I've heard that they can have problems with the ice dispensers.  But look at that baby.  She's a beaut ain't she.  She's a Frigidaire Gallery.  She's smudge proof stainless steel.  And she's on sale (yes, she's a she), for a fantastic price.  But I've heard they can have problems with the ice makers. So do we roll the dice and take the chance of getting a fridge that the ice dispenser that might not work?  I'd be pretty sad (and angry) if I had to have ice trays.  I don't know.  We'll have to talk about it a little more.

We were just going to go with the side by side, because that's what we have now, but I love the room in this girl.  And did I mention she's beautiful.  The only complaint I've found is the ice maker, and I've read that almost all french door fridges have that problem.  So maybe we'll just go with a side by side.  I think we might go up to the appliance store this week sometime to look again and maybe ask some questions and get some more detailed answers. 

Then after a lengthy decision about a refrigerator, we'll have to make the same decisions over a dishwasher and a stove (the new one's going to be gas, there is no question about that).  But we need that dishwasher soon.  I feel ours might be on it's last leg.  Oh god, all these decisions are making me crazy.  But the sooner we decide on what we want, the sooner we can cross that off our list of things to do, YAY!  :-)      

House Update

morguefile.com

Unfortunately I don't have a whole bunch to update on house progress.  This weekend was full of yard work.  You know all that yard work you do before winter comes.  We raked the leaves (for the third time), cleaned the gutters, put all the flower pots away, planted garlic, put the snow tires on the cars, etc, etc.  And J did homework all day on Saturday.  So we didn't get too much done. 

Oh I did frost the bathroom window finally.  Now everyone that drives by can't see into our bathroom.  So I did get a project done. :-) 

Exhausted Kitty

But the good news is that next weekend we might actually get some stuff done.  J's uncle might come out and help us with re-plumbing our laundry room.  And the best part about his uncle coming to help, is he has a pickup truck, a big pickup truck.  So we can make one run to Menards and pick up all the stuff we couldn't fit into our car.  That means I can start the headboard, and put up the bead board in the kitchen, and we can finish drywalling the studio, and, well you get the point.

Now hopefully I will have the time to get some of these projects done.  I have a custom order for 10 beaded bookmarks that need to be done by mid December.  Oh my.  So I will probably be working on that for the next few weeks and the other projects will have to wait.  But at least I'll have the materials.  Now lets just hope I'm not too exhausted with this order and the upcoming holidays to be able to get house things done.  :-) 

Once our bedroom and the kitchen are done we can focus other rooms in the house.  Like the extra bedroom that has bright blue and purple walls (a teenager lived in this room previous) and the bathroom.  

So this is the list of things we would like to accomplish before the new year.  It's sort of long and probably won't all get done, but we're hoping to knock out as many of these things as possible.  Wish us luck.  


List of Things We Want to Accomplish Before The End of the Year

• Fix bathroom faucet
• Re-plumb the laundry room
• Install new fancy utility sink
• Paint laundry room
• Put in floor in laundry room
• Finish putting up trim in the kitchen
• Patch wall and ceiling in kitchen
• Finish the bookcase in kitchen
• Finish the cabinets in kitchen
• Move refrigerator
• Build/buy pantry
• Make roman shades for bedroom
• Make headboard

*My spell check wasn't working, and I'm terrible with spelling, so if you see any mistakes, kindly ignore them. :-)

Slat Board

Last weekend we made a little visit to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  We love going there.  We got all of our outside lights for under $50 (that's 5 lights), plenty of carpet for the studio, and a ton of other things.  And the best thing is they are located only 5 min up the road from us.  Dangerous.

And last trip we picked up some of this

I'f you don't know what it is, it's called slat board.  You see it in a lot of buisnesses, people put it up in garages and workshops.  It's like pegboard, but more heavy duty.  And we picked it up for $20 for a 4x8 sheet.  And if you're not in the know, we priced this as $44 at the local hardware store.  We got 4 sheets.

Now I own a small two door coupe.  I had no idea how J planned on getting this home, but where there is a will there is a way.

He brought the battery powered circular saw and cut it into 2x8 sections in the parking lot (he asked the manager of the ReStore before doing it).  Then we loaded them in my little car, tied down the hatch (we forgot the straps), and drove the 5 min home.  Thank goodness we live so close.  I wouldn't want to drive far like this.

J plans on putting them up in the garage next spring.  He's so excited about having slat board.  Who knew something like this would be so exciting.  Boys.  :-)

   
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.  It's supposed to be nice here, probably the last nice weekend until spring.  Maybe Yoda will get some more leaf time. 

Another Kitchen Update

Good god, am I ever going to be done with the kitchen updates. Someday.

So I showed you a picture of our kitchen the other day and today I'll show you some of the other little things we've done.

We took out the shelves out on the side of the cabinets and plan on putting in a bookshelf for all my cook books.  We're about half done with it.  Right now Nacho thinks it's a little cat shelf.

We put up this ridiculous pantry.  It's not permanent, it's just until we get our built in one made.  Then it's going to go in the garage or basement.  But it beats keeping our food in a box.

  
This cabinet needs to be repaired and the door put back on.  Right now you can see our plastic glass collection.  We need to hide that stuff away.

We put up my wonderful pan rack.  Swoon.  And now I can look at my pretty pans all the time.  Even though I'm coking so much that this rack is usually empty.

And then this is the little counter/stand/shelves thing that J built.  He made this all on his own without plans.  I love it.  Right now I have old cabinet doors on top, but we're going to get a counter top that matches the rest of the kitchen.  And Yoda loves to hang out on her blankie in the sun.

So that's some of the stuff we've been working in.  It seems like we have so much to do still, but the big stuff is out of the way.  Hopefully the smaller stuff will be easy peasy!

Wordless Wednesday

Collage Wall

Lets deviate from kitchen updates for just a little bit today! 

Now I know that these are called Gallery Walls, but I just don't get it.  I've never been in a gallery that has had the art displayed this way.  Why are they called this?  I normally refer to the collection of picture frames on the wall as our collage.  I mean it is a mixture of picture frames and little wall chachka.  But I digress, I'm here to show our my gallery wall, not discuss why it's called that.    

Now don't get me wrong, I love this idea of hanging pictures together with a mixture of little things that make us smile.  I've been waiting to do this for a very long time, long before we bought the house.  So I was elated when we found a house that had a large wall begging for a large amount of art.

Here is my first attempt, and it wasn't even completed.  J had me take it down because it was to random for him.  He didn't like the large gaps and he didn't like the placement. That's an engineer for you.  I told him I wasn't done, that I had a lot more frames to add and more wall things.  But he didn't budge, and that's an only child for you  ;-)

So down those came. Then I patched and repainted. And I've been staring at a blank wall for months now. It was driving me insane. I just couldn't stand it any more. So this is what we've working on for the last couple days. Yes, you heard right, it took us days to finish this project. I put J in charge since his engineer mind would not be happy if there was not some sort of symmetry. He put up and took down the templates a few times. Then I suggested that we just start putting up a few frames we knew we would be happy with. Well that seemed to work and after a few hours we had accomplished this.

Sorry for the bad cell phone picture, but I was in a hurry last night.  I actually had to take some frames from other rooms to satisfy his picture frame arrangement demands.  I even took two small frames I planned on using for my beading, but it made him happy, which in turn made me happy. We're keeping an eye out for some small frames for the lower left hand side.  And maybe some more chachka.

But I'm not done yet.  I need some pictures in those there frames.  So after a quick download to the Walgreen's photo site, a few changes so everything would be black and white, a few clicks, and a quick run up the street, I had this.

Looks pretty good if you ask my (okay it's hard to tell because of the glare).  All of the pictures we've taken.  One of Nacho attacking the camera, one of Toonces with bubbles on her head, one of Yoda as "goat pug".  And a few of us on our many trips around the world (yeah you read that right).  It's the perfect collection of our lives.  And because it's so easy to get pictures printed out, we can change them out when ever we want.

Now I do have two frames that need mat board still, the store was out of this size.  But I think we might be close to being done with this project.

Now just to get that side table built.  Then this wall will be complete, for now.  Oh wait, J wants to add sconces to this wall as well.  Well someday it will be done.  :-)

Kitchen Update

 

This is how we feel most of the time. 

But we are making a ton of progress on our kitchen.  I am tempted to say we are nearing the end of the road.  We only have a few things (okay, by few I mean a LOT) left to do and we will have a fully functional, updated kitchen.  Can I get a woot, woot?

Here is a little reminder of what our kitchen use to look like. 

A crappy picture of our crappy kitchen.  Well it really wasn't crappy, it was just dated and had a lot of unused space.

And here is a picture of it now.

Looks a hell of a lot better doesn't it?  I mean we still have some work to do, but what a difference.

What we did

• Sanded and stained the cabinets a dark walnut color using gel stain (this stuff is fantastic)
• Painted the walls Latte (from Sherman Williams)
• Painted the ceiling 
• Replaced the "parquet" flooring with a new groutable vinyl
• Took out the corner china cabinet and folding breakfast bar
• Built a free standing counter and storage shelves
• Painted the inside of the cabinets a dark grey color
• Replaced the old knobs with brushed stainless ones
• Put up a temporary pantry
• Replaced the plate rail with a subtle trim
• Replaced the crown

What we still need to do

• Finish staining the cabinets
• Replace the tile backsplash
• Finish the bookshelf
• Replace the lights (new light over the sink and recessed lights)
• Paint the inside of the cabinets
• Build a built in pantry
• Move the refrigerator
• Paint the trim
• Replace the outlet covers
• Crown molding
• Get new appliances
• Put up bead-board

Wordless Wednesday

Ideas for fall decorating

I was going to share some pictures of our progress in the kitchen, but my pictures turned out horrible last night.  I hope I can get better ones soon because I can't wait for you guys to see what we've done.  So instead of that I thought I would share some of my favorite ideas for fall decorating.  I can't wait to get the house done enough that decorating is a priority.

A few of my favorite pumpkin ideas.

Lauren Conrad

I love the lace pumpkin.  This is so pretty and so easy to do.  I think I saw this on the BHG website, but I can't remember.  There is a link above to the blog I got this picture from.

God is Able

I also love how cute these pumpkins are.  Such a simple idea to etch little flowers in them and they are suitable decor for all fall.  Love it.  I again think I saw these on the BHG website, but the link above takes you to the blog that I pinned from.     

Sassy Bella Melange

And last but not least is this little guy.  I love this one because it reminds me of Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas.  And the pop of color with the flowers is fun. I think next year I might try something like this for the sofa table or something. Now I know it's sort or late for Halloween decorations (since Halloween is next Monday), but I love these ideas so much I thought I would share. And I just wanted to say that I'm very much enjoying Pinterest because it allows me to keep all these great ideas (as well as others) in one place. If you haven't checked it out, you should. It's a great tool for the creative; now I don't have to have 100s of pictures saved on my desktop.  And you can check out (and follow if you so desire) my pins HERE (nothing like a little self promotion).

Tile Dilemma

Well, you've probably wondered where I've been lately, or not, I'm not sure.  But I've been hard at work the last few weeks, sort of.

Well the beginning of the month was slow because I got the FLU!!  Oh it was so much fun.  The most beautiful week of the month, and I was stuck on the couch "resting."  Blah.  The flu is really not that fun to get and I don't really recommend it to anyone.  It took me almost a week to get back into the swing of things.  And well I hate being unproductive, it's just not in my nature.
But since then (and maybe even a little bit while I was sick), I have gotten a lot of things done.  We've made tons of progress in our kitchen.  I'll get some pictures posted tomorrow of what we've done and what we still have to do.  But I promise you, it's a big change.

On of the things we're still deciding on is the backsplash.  I want to do something that is timeless, J wants to do glass tile.  Now don't get me wrong, I love me some glass tile, but I'm starting to think that maybe glass tile isn't the way to go.  I just don't want it to look dated.  And I really don't want to regret it a few years down the line.  I don't want to be regretful about something that cost us so much money.  I mean the price of glass tile is crazy high, like $25+ a square foot.  But J keeps telling me it will be okay.  We'll see.

Here are a few of our tile choices (you'll have to click on the pictures for a larger view).  We're going to the tile store (or maybe a few of them) this weekend or the next, so we might change our minds once we see them.

Here is the first one that J picked out. I like this one because it's a mix of both stone and glass.  And I love the colors.  It's a little on the high side of what I wanted to spend, $24/sq ft, but I guess I could look the other way since we saved so much redoing the cabinets.
We also want a non-square tile, so the little 1x2 in tiles are great.  I do have to admit this is a good choice.

Here is one of my choices. 
It's a hex tile, so the shape is interesting and I do love how hex tile looks in kitchen and bathrooms.
It's not glass or stone, it's ceramic.  So the price is definitely right, $5.60/sq ft.
I also like the caramel color, but J doesn't like the uniform color.  We wants a mix of different shades, that's why he likes the glass and stone mix.  So I guess not.

  I also like the idea of stainless steal tiles (or recycled aluminum tiles).  We actually discussed this when we first started talking about redoing the backsplash.  The stainless was J's idea, but now he doesn't seem to be on-board.  What's a girl to do?
These run about $20/8 pack so they middle of the road on pricing (but I did find them for cheaper on Amazon).
I think I loved the idea of a stainless tile because I love the old copper tile.  I just swoon every time I see it.  When we were house shopping we looked at a few that had the original copper tile and I was sold.  The stainless is just and updated version of the copper.  But alas, I don't think I can get J back on board for this selection.  I guess we keep looking.

 Here is another one I like.  It's light, it's pretty, and it has a simple mosaic feel.  I'm not sure if we have enough room between the cabinets and the countertop to pull off the different sized tiles.  But it is pretty.
This one runs around $12/sq foot.  So again, it's sort of middle of the road on price.
I haven't run this one past J yet, so I don't know how he'll feel about it.  I'd also love to see this one in person, the pictures don't seem to really express all the colors and lines.  So who knows maybe I'll hate this one in person.

 Here's another one that I really like.  I don't ever see us putting this in, but I sure love it.  The colors are fantastic and I love that it's made of shells.  It would be even better if I found out it was eco friendly, but I'm not sure about that.
It's in the high end of the price range coming in at $23.50/sq ft, so that would mean a lot of money dished out for our backsplash.  But it's interesting, it's a subway tile, and it's a mosaic of colors.  It really does fit a lot of our tile criteria.  But alas, this one isn't really one we're considering.  A girl can dream.

So that's pretty much where we stand on the tile situation.  We are no where closer to picking something we both like, that won't become dated.  I hope we can find something soon, or I'm going to go crazy.  I can't look at our beautiful new cabinets and blue marbled ceramic tile any longer.  I love the color blue, but I think the previous owners took the idea a little too far.

Stay tuned for some fancy new pictures of our kitchen.  It's lookin' pretty!

Wordless Wednesday

Upgraded Dry Erase Board

Just a quick post today. We didn't get as much done as we had hoped this weekend because J's dad hurt his back and wasn't able to come help us. Oh well, there is always next weekend.  We did manage to get the garage and sun room cleaned up.  They aren't perfect, but they're a lot better then what they were.

And I finally got a dry erase calendar for the kitchen.  I've been wanting to get one for quite sometime, but just never remembered when I was at the store.  So this last week I was determined to pick one up.  I was sick of writing our weekly menu on a piece of notebook paper and sticking it up on the fridge.  Yes I make out a weekly menu, it helps me determine what I need from the grocery store as well as saves us from the whole, "what do you want for dinner?", "I don't know, what do you want?" dilemma.
   

So I ran to Target, yes I love that store, and picked up a simple dry erase calendar.  It's even magnetic (can't wait to make some fun magnets for it). 

See nothing fancy, just a simple no fuss dry erase board.  They had nicer ones, but were a little expensive for my taste.  This one is 16x 20 (standard picture frame size) and was about $13.  I have been waiting for one to show up at the thrift store, but alas, I grew tired of waiting.

I then headed over to Hobby Lobby because open back frames were 50% off.  But even at 50% off, I would be paying around $30 for a frame.  And this was supposed to be a cheap project, under 20 bucks.  So up to the thrift store I went.  And low and behold there was a great 16x20 frame sitting there.  It was a pretty nice frame and had a professionally matted pig print in it (yes I still have the print, no I'm not sure if I'll use it).  And best of all, it was $6.99.  God I love the thrift store.  Normally I paint my frames I get from the thrift store, but not this one.  It's a really nice frame.

And here it is.  I love how simple (and cheap) this project was, but how useful it is.  I need to make some cute magnets to go with it and a DIY pen and eraser holder, but so far it's been really useful.  I can put our appointments, band gigs, art shows, etc up there as well as things that need to get done around the house (like patching the large hole that is in the wall were we took out the built in china hutch).  Simple, useful, cheap, the perfect DIY project.  

And I'm off to work on our next DIY project.  Well if I can drag myself away from the computer.  Between StumbleUpon and Pinterest, I'm having difficulties.  They are both so great for finding new ideas and projects to work on.  Well the first step is to admit you have a problem, right?!? :-)      

Kitchen Update

Phew, it's been a while since I last updated this (and my other blog).  But we've been busy with the kitchen since last time.

Here is what we have so far.

Not bad, right?  The upper cabinets are done (sort of, more on that later), the floor is finished, and the walls and ceiling are painted. Looks pretty good if you ask me.  And there is even a little pug admiring how nice everything looks.

Here's what is it looked like when we first bought the house.

I told you it was a big difference.  The cheap floor is gone, the cabinet is gone, the cabinets are stained darker, the walls are not blue, the doorway is larger, and the hole is gone.  It's looking good so far.

But there is plenty that still needs to be done.

For one, this!  The cabinets are the original built in place ones, so when we took down the one blocking the view from the kitchen to the living room, we were left with this.  We saved some of the original wood, so we will be able to patch and it, we just haven't gotten around to it yet.  I'm hoping that project is coming soon.

We would also like to get matching appliances.  The current refrigerator is a bit to big for the space and the stove is a bit to small for the space.  So we're looking at moving the fridge to the other wall (perfect triangle set up for the kitchen) and then getting a larger, gas, stove.  We discovered that there is already a gas line in the kitchen, so that saves us the hassle of having to have one installed, yay.  So if anyone in the Madison area is looking to buy some appliances, let me know, we have a fridge, stove, and dishwasher we're looking to get rid of.  ;-)

We also have a little bit of trim left to put up.  Crown molding as well as trim between the wood wall color.  As I said before our cabinets are the built in place kind, so they go all the way to the ceiling.  So I took down the trim meant for our plate collection (I know what will we do with all of our plates), and painted (and textured) the upper half to look like the walls.  You would never know that there is oak under the paint when looking at them.  So we're going to add half round between the two to make it look a little more finished.  I can't wait to do that, maybe this weekend.  And get that crown molding in.

And as you can see the bottom cabinets still need to be sanded and stained as well as the side of the upper cabinets.  But I am so much more happy with the kitchen now then I was when we first moved in.  I never hated the kitchen, but now it's becoming something I love.  And as soon as we get a gas stove, you won't be able to get me out of the kitchen. 

Kitchen Remodel - Ceiling

Our Kitchen remodel is coming along. It's slow going, but it's still moving ahead, which is the important part. I have the upper cabinets all stained and ready for poly. This took a little bit longer then planned, but it was a learning process. I think I've got down gel staining and I've ready to take on the rest of the cabinets. That's this weeks project.

Over the weekend though, I finally got around to painting the kitchen ceiling.  Now it's pretty hard to see in this picture, but our kitchen was blue (big surprise there since 90% of the rooms in the house were blue).  Now I'm all for a painted ceiling, but I'm trying to brighten up the kitchen as much as possible.  We don't get a ton of light in the kitchen, so it needs all the help it can get.

So cue the white ceiling.  I know, I know, a boring white ceiling, but I think it will definitely work.  This is after coat one of the white.  It needed two coats to cover up the blue.  It's still wet in this picture, so that's what all the reflective glossiness (is that a word) is.  And another reason why it got a make over.  I seems like flat paint and gloss paints were the previous owners preference.  Now both have their place, but I'm just not a fan of a room painted in gloss.  It's just too much.

 Ahh, that's much better.  A nice crisp white ceiling (again, it's still wet).  I might change it up a bit when we start putting in the crown molding, go with a nice warm color to contrast with the white molding, but for now it really brightens up the room.  There is plenty more that needs to be done, but it's smaller things that can be done over the course of the next few weeks.   

I can't wait for it to be done.  It already looks so different in there, so much more updated, so much more our style.  I'll continue with the latte color on the walls and white trim.  Then it's back-splash time.  Glass tile, stainless tile, or ceramic tile?!?!  Decisions, decisions.  Oh and then new lighting.  I can't wait for new lighting.  :-)