Kitchen update

We spent most of the morning on Saturday tweaking our cabinet plan and here’s the final revisions. I can’t wait for the transformation to take place although I’m not looking forward to being without a kitchen. But we’ll make do just fine.

This picture is an example of what I was trying to explain in the last post. The cabinet to the left of the refrigerator will have shelves in the blind corner and will be where we house cleaning supplies, brooms, etc. The hutch, on the left, will be our coffee/toaster station along with storage for dry goods in mason jars with storage in the drawers for other small appliances. But what to do above the hutch? Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This view illustrates the changes happening to the area where we now have cabinets. We’re opening up the wall so we’re losing some countertop space to the right foo the stove but the window is moving down so we’re making up for the lost space to the left of the stove. And the picture isn’t right as we’ve decided to go for symmetry over function but you get the idea!

 

 

 

 

 

The fact that our cabinets will now go to the ceiling has me giddy inside. That’s an extra foot and a half of storage space. And I am really excited to have more windows in the space. More light always makes things feel more open and spacious. And moving our refrigerator to the other wall allowed for far more countertop space as well.

The opening from the kitchen to our living spaces was moved and opened up as seen in the pictures below. Our square footage on our main level is not small but not huge either and we like having some separation from the kitchen to the living spaces. We are not the norm but to our defense we drew up the kitchen with the walls down and don’t even get me started on how little storage I had then. It just wasn’t going to work.

Overall the changes to the kitchen wall will make a huge impact on how our main level functions. Right now Alex pulls a chair into the kitchen so we can interact while I’m making dinner and now with the opening larger he’ll be able to play with Elizabeth in the living room and still be able to interact with me. I can’t wait!

Last final decisions were also made on the styling side…

-Door in the kitchen will be painted a fun blue color and be full glass for even more light

-Going with a one bowl sink so I can have a bridge faucet. We installed one at our second flip house and I didn’t want to leave it there. I love bridge faucets!

-White subway tile with pale grey grout for the backsplash

-Hefty polished nickel drawer pulls – Hickory Hardware Studio II

-Last and final decision will be for a light above the kitchen sink. When I have a few to choose from I’ll definitely be polling for opinions.

Seeing white

Yesterday morning we started really planning our kitchen remodel. I have to keep reminding myself that until the cabinets come down this isn’t a reality and yet it’s really fun to start making all the final decisions. We’re 99% sure demolition is a month or two away and if it’s any reassurance to my heart, we do have our new microwave and range sitting quietly in the garage awaiting their new home.

Until then, I’m dreaming in white. A white kitchen has been my dream for as long as I can remember with accents of pale robin’s egg blue. Classic with touches of beachy-Nantucket flair. I’m still gathering my thoughts but after our first design meeting over coffee, we’re that much closer to bringing my vision to reality. I can’t wait to see in white. We briefly considered doing grey or navy cabinetry but at the end of the day we want to do this once, as we’re hoping to live here for the long haul and I know I would tire of anything but white after awhile.

So, this morning we hashed out the layout one last time to make sure everything was in place so the plan could be forwarded on to our cabinet maker. There’s still some tweaking to do but we’re that much closer.

6 months ago when we started dreaming of our white kitchen we were certain we would be buying the off-white Adel cabinets from IKEA. Seriously I love IKEA cabinets and all their inner components. I love how this kitchen came together…gorgeous! In fact, we chose the same exact pulls for our cabinets. Now that our plan has changed slightly I even asked Alex if he would install the drawer components from IKEA in our new cabinets. I was denied but seriously their cabinet innards seem indestructible…something that my clumsy ways would find assuring.

Our budget for the kitchen is definitely not big and IKEA cabinets fit the cabinet budget perfectly. But being the wise people we are we sought out some second opinions as well. We checked with Alex’s cabinet specialist at a local lumberyard/cabinetry shop, Home Depot/Lowes semi-custom cabinetry, and with a cabinetmaker in a city south of us. Believe it or not we will be doing our entire kitchen for the price of semi-custom from Home Depot/Lowes. We knew what we thought their pricing would be, given we’ve utilized their services often with clients, but oh.my.goodness, it was really expensive. Triple our cabinet allowance expensive. Money we don’t have to spend on just cabinetry.

But there was a silver lining to our cabinet debacle. Alex is in a Christian men’s business group with other entrepreneurs/self-employed men and one of them happens to partner with a local cabinet shop. They offered him their friends and family discount which ended up being amazing and after a visit to their shop we were sold. So now we are able, blessed really, to have custom cabinets for our kitchen for just a little tiny bit more than IKEA pricing. Seriously, still pinching myself.

So with our cabinets now custom there are a few fun things we are able to accomplish that we would not have been able to with IKEA. One area we just changed is alongside an empty wall in our current kitchen. I love the idea of a built-in hutch with plate rails above for my mason jars and thankfully with our revised plan we are able to make something like that work. Full detail still to be developed but I’m ecstatic that there will be a place to show off their beauty filled with dry goods!

I can’t find a picture to do the idea justice but you can imagine shelves on the upper portion with a plate rail, an open counter area at counter height for our coffee maker/toaster, and drawers below. And the entire thing will look more like built in cabinetry. When we have a screen shot I’ll share;) Our current kitchen is neither big nor small but it is definitely lacking in storage. This will help things considerably as will removing our soffits, taking the cabinets to the ceiling, and adding some much needed storage including a place for mops/cleaning supplies. While I’m excited on how things are progressing we hit upon a design dilemma.

Here’s the render view of our kitchen:

I tend to like things visually symmetrical and if we line our cabinets up the above wall symmetrically we lose the ability to have a hinged door for the corner cabinet. Without the hinged door the upper cabinets to the right and the left of the sink will be almost identical in size but if we keep the hinged door and eliminate a blind corner (which would be ideal since everything always gets lost in those) the cabinets to the right of the sink will be smaller throwing off the symmetry. The render above illustrates the size difference of the top cabinets which allows for the hinged corner doors.

So here are my questions for you:

Honor symmetry or go for function?

Anyone have ideas for the dreaded corners?

And on another note, one bowl kitchen sink or two?

Write them on your heart

“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.”

Deuteronomy 11: 18-21 (ESV)

Right before Christmastime my husband and I began “re-decorating” our house. A new couch and chair, a new rug, and art on the wall. But as we kept redecorating the premise of creating a home that breathes Jesus into our souls was on my mind. Especially when raising our daughter.

At one of our monthly MOMS meetings (like MOPS), the speaker was talking about beauty and our home. One area she touched on was the entryway. Our house is a split level with a slightly different configuration of stairs…our stairs do not meet you head on when you enter like many splits, but we have our main door, garage access, and a hall closet all competing for square footage. So in our case there was very little that we could do to make our entryway inviting. That was until the verse above came on my heart.

And then I knew what we needed to do. Armed with a can of chalkboard paint, I talked my husband who is anti-chalkboard paint, to paint the wall in our entryway black. So we could do exactly what the verse above is calling us to. Putting in our minds the Word of God. Our church uses a system called “fighter verses” to memorize scripture. There’s even an app that is definitely worth the $3. So on our wall we write the fighter verse and as we go in and out our doors and up and down our stairs, we say it, usually aloud. And wouldn’t you know, more often than not that verse at the end of the week is in our heads and written on our hearts.

While this isn’t important to all of you I’m sure, the premise is still the same if there are other key things you want to be memorizing or inspired by. Not only do we love this new spot in our house but it adds some character to our 1960’s home. The black works perfectly with our color scheme and it adds an inviting touch to our entryway.

Have you used chalkboard paint in your home? Where?

Monday’s Musings

Did everyone have a great weekend?

Ours was one of the most interesting we’ve had in quite some time. No reason really, it’s just that interesting is about as well as I can describe it. Friday was spent recuperating from vacation; which really means Alex worked all day and night catching up and I unburied myself from 9 loads of laundry. In case you are wondering why there was so much…last week our washer broke and we had to wait a few days for the new one to arrive. We go through a lot of laundry.

And Saturday, well we wrote our own If you give a mouse a cookie book. If I wrote it the title would be If Alex gets an idea, then… We started out the morning staring at our 2 page long home to-do list wondering what on earth we could get done without having to step outside into the blustery 30 degree morning air. Top of our list, hang pictures. We’ve lived here almost a year and nary a picture is up. We have commitment issues.

Once we unearthed our photos, Alex realized we needed more. Not one to argue when he’s willing to spend some money decorating our house, I did what any good wife would. I encouraged him. And at 8:00 that night I wondered what I did; I encouraged a picture monster. Digging out our frames turned into hanging pictures. Hanging pictures turned into shopping for frames. Shopping for frames turned into a full day of Ikea, Home Goods, World Market and more. Thank goodness it was a good day for Elizabeth. She just crashed in the Ergo. Now we’re swimming in frames and have to figure out what to put in them (note: some of these below we owned and over half need to go back but we decided to buy and then sort.) I’m almost certain they will live on our walls art-less until we get it all figured out.

Call us crazy but to add to the mix we chose Saturday night to cut the swaddle cold turkey. Elizabeth has always been one to bust out of the swaddle but she has ninja reflexes and startles herself once her arms are out. That being said, the past few weeks she’s gotten out in the mornings and has stayed asleep for a few hours. So I figured “what the heck” and threw caution to the wind. Verdict: she did great and slept unswaddled from 7pm – 6am. Then we tried it again on Sunday for naps and she did great again. Looks like we’re saying goodbye to the swaddle!

Sunday. Tell me again why naps and church services are always simultaneous? Every Sunday we adapt. But this Sunday, everything was askew. Again, good thing she’s adaptable and rolled with it.  Her late nap had her waking at 6:30pm. Bedtime starts around 6:45. She was up until 9:00. I didn’t really notice that much though because I was shoving this deliciousness into my mouth which helped me forget the late bedtime and what might await us. I’m hoping next Sunday goes just as smoothly as its her dedication at the 9:00 service and our families will be here for it. Praying she doesn’t melt up front. I don’t think I have it in me to make more caramel corn to take the edge off:)

Seriously make this caramel corn. NOW. SO GOOD.

So there you have it, musings of our weekend. So was yours interesting?

DIY Ruffle Lampshade

Elizabeth’s room is almost finished. Finally. So many projects were slated for completion in the last few weeks of my pregnancy and then BAM…my water breaks early. So it’s taken some time to get them done but we’re in the home stretch.
When we compiled a vision for her room so many little details were missing. The bigger key components were there, but little items like the lamp were awaiting discovery. Not wanting to spend a lot on a lamp…(they’re expensive!)…I kept my eye out at our local goodwill. Seriously, great lamp shopping there! And I came home one day with a vintage charmer that I fully expected to spray paint and be done. But then the charm won us over. Well, it won Alex over first. And then I was faced with the task of finding a shade. Again, why are these things so expensive! And of course, anything with a little style was even more $$$. So DIY it was. I found the shade at IKEA for $2 that fit the lamp and so I used that. It was pink. Then I searched and found a simple tutorial online for a ruffled lampshade and knew it was easy enough for even my novice sewing skills. (but you don’t really need to machine sew this)
So enough rambling…here’s how you ruffle:)

Cut fabric into any size strip…mine were around 2” wide.

You can either hand sew or machine sew a straight stitch down the middle of the fabric. When you have all strips sewn you are on to step 3.

You can either sew the edges down or leave them be. I left them because I didn’t mind the unfinished look. Then clean up the edges. Then to make the ruffle pull one of the threads from the straight stitch while slowly pulling on the fabric. You will need to keep pulling the fabric down in order to keep ruffling. You can make the ruffle as tight or loose as you like.

Then use a glue gun to attach the ruffle to your lamp shade.

Isn’t it gorgeous…and easy peasy!

The Great Couch Debate

We’ve been on a couch hunt for as long as I can remember. Until recently, the quest was moving very slow and leisurely, and now, we mean business. We bought the couch we have now 4 years ago when we flipped our first house. At the time we got a great deal at a furniture store down in Shakopee and I know we didn’t spend more than $400 on it. Needless to say, this couch was not built to last. It is incredibly comfortable but not very supportive and the cushions are getting all wonky.

When we bought our house we knew that one of our first purchases would be to replace our sofa for something well-built, long-lasting, durable, and comfortable. Thus begins the hunt. There are a few things we know we want and then there are things that can be negotiated between the two of us.
After searching through every furniture store in our surrounding area (at least it felt that way) we have brought the search down to 3. That is, until any other contenders get added to the mix.

Here they are:

The Hawthorne

The Carleton

The Avanti

Two of the sofas are from Ethan Allen and one is from Room and Board. We have a budget in mind and have been saving for years, so we just want this to be a wise investment. Right now, one issue we are having is over sofa cushions. At Ethan Allen we can choose the construction of the cushion as we would like it; we’re leaning towards down wrapped foam. At Room and Board the cushion construction is 100% down-blend. All down means finicky cushions that need extra care and we do not want to have crinkly cushions from the front.

So if anyone has a Room and Board sofa…will you give your opinion on the all-down vs. foam/down? Also if you can think of anywhere else to look please let us know! We’ve looked so far at Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Macy’s, Room and Board and Ethan Allen. Are we missing some hidden gem?

Also which is your favorite? We would change the colors of the fabric above but the shape and look would remain the same.

I’m beginning to think the hunt has only just begun…

House inspiration

Although we didn’t get the house we thought we always wanted a few months ago, we’re content to wait a little longer for another gem to come around.  That being said, I’m still gathering inspiration! 

I am 99% sure that the house we will purchase next will either be a short sale or a foreclosure.  It will need work, hopefully not too much, and we will most likely do it a little at a time.  No giant flips for us for our own house!

Did you hear the word “flip”?  Well we are not flipping again but I’m drawing inspiration from the flip we did last year.  I loved so many things about that house.  The details really drew me in and I know if given the chance, we’d try to incorporate some of them.

Here’s some inspiration and I’ll tell you what I love along the way:


I loved this kitchen; the white cabinets, white subway tile backsplash and the dark wood floors.  I definitely could cook a meal here.  That being said, I also really love this kitchen, it’s exact opposite.  We’ll see how daring we are.



On to bathrooms.  The following is the Master bathroom that we created; it was soothing and absolutely gorgeous if I do say so myself.  I love the classic simplicity.  But then again I do have a more colorful side:)




The jazzed up selection below is very similar to the bathroom above, just with a punch of color.



Basically I like my classic style with a twist of spunky color.  I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of it.  Now to get the hubby on board with some color.

What inspires you for your home?  Do you like color or are you more neutral?