kitchen (after)

Well, our kitchen is mostly done. We still have some things to do-like fix one of the counter tops, and the back splash. We also have to paint all the walls on the other side of the stove, but all of our stuff has been in there, and we still have to do one more coat of putty on the wall before I can paint in there. But here it is...








I'm pretty happy with it! :) And when it's all complete in a month or two (whenever we make it back to home depot to get back splash, since they don't have what we want here) I will do a real finished kitchen. :) But until then, you get the idea.

What do you think?

kitchen (before)

Here is the before of the kitchen-after the doors were taken off the cabinets, so don't mind the messy insides. Also, that window was a killer for light-so don't mind how sucky the pictures are on the one side...I had to lighten them so you could see what we were working with here. :)






 And here's a sneak peak of the new color, with our own little picaso helping us. :) Notice I only gave her a tiny paint brush. :) And somehow before I put the newspaper down, she managed to get it all over the floor. 

Now I know...

Why renovations make people crazy and on the brink of divorce.

No, Mike and I aren't going to get divorced, nor are we thinking about it. But if this project were to last longer than the week and a half that it has...like my sisters project has, I would be considering it. ;)

Mike and I are polar opposites. I do things one way and he does things completely different. Which isn't bad. Just makes for some interesting talking sometimes. Although sometimes his way works, and sometimes my way works.

The best part about us is that we talk through things. So that is pretty cool.

But now I know, that the next time we buy a house, it will have a nice kitchen already installed. It will also have some of the other things-like an updated bathroom, and stuff like that.

The things that we have had to do in this house. That I thought I would be a good home renovator with Mike, but I am not. I hate it.

I do however LOVE our new kitchen-the part that's finished anyways. :) I just hate the process.

Marlee, on the other hand is loving being Daddy's helper this weekend. This weekend we don't have any help, so she can be there with him. She is learning about measuring, with the tape measure, handing him screws  and trying to help him hammer.

She is so cute, at least that's what I think. Most of the time I think Mike does too, but sometimes she's in the way. And he gets short with her, and she doesn't like that. Mainly because I am the disciplinarian in our house, so when he gets snippy with her, she hates it.

I am hoping that our kitchen will be done, or at least mostly done today. Mike is building the half wall for the cabinets by the stove, so those should be complete today, which will mean I can put everything back in it's new place. The only thing we will have left to do is put the sheet rock on the other side of the wall-which will have to be later this week, since we couldn't fit it in our truck with all the trash in it, and then painting the other half of our kitchen.

So as soon as I have counter tops, I will be posting the before and after pictures. :) And then I am kicking those two out, and I will be busy putting everything away.

Are you doing fun stuff for the Labor Day weekend or are you working on last minute projects to be done before winter comes?  I can't believe we are into September now. And that winter will be sneaking in sooner than we would like.

letter

While tearing out cabinets, we have come upon some things we didn't anticipate...like a pipe, and some crazy wiring, as well as some silly plumbing. All of which can be a little daunting to us, but the pipe we figured out a way around, and we are hiring a plumber, after going back and forth 15 times. :) And thankfully Mike has a friend who is an electrician so we got to ask his advice over the phone.

But what we really didn't expect to find was a letter dated 4-01-1973. I didn't read it. I don't really feel like it's my place to, although maybe it would explain some of the crazy things whoever did our kitchen and some of the other things in our house, but I will probably just throw it away.

This letter does tell me one thing though, my suspicions were correct. Our kitchen has not been updated in a VERY long time!

As of right now, we have everything tore out, and now we are working on sanding some stuff, and we are going to finish the wall project from a long time ago, as well as some other things while it doesn't matter how much dust is flying. I am excited! About 3 or 4 of my projects that we have wanted to do/finish will be done this weekend.

So, I am sorry I haven't been around much. I promise I will be back to blogging and reading/commenting next week, after Mike goes back to work. I am counting on a new found routine. 2 weeks has been a long time it feels like to just be kinda in limbo...doing whatever, whenever. It has been nice to a point, but now I am ready to get back to normal. :)

Have a great weekend!

A whirlwind...

Life has been a whirlwind since we got back from camping. We unpacked a bunch of stuff that day and then the next day we found our camper, well Mike's parents camper, and our truck had been hit in front of our house. Thankfully it's on the mirror on our truck, and the camper wasn't hit too bad, but it sure does irk me! It's funny, now that school is starting again the traffic is getting bad on our street, and it seems like people are in general more crazy drivers around here during school. Maybe it's road rage. I am not sure. Although I think that whoever hit us was probably a drunk driver, because on the school side of our street no one parks, so it's not like the WHOLE road wasn't clear when they hit our truck.

Then we had to go to my hometown to help my Mom put up hay. So we went there on Sunday and got back this afternoon. It was nice to see everyone, but that wasn't in our plans at all. It was def. a last minute thing.

Now we are taking everything out of our kitchen cabinets, so that tomorrow we can go to another town that is a 2 hour drive to get new kitchen cabinets. Since we don't want to live in our house forever, we aren't doing expensive ones. We are just buying the already made cabinets from a home improvement store to put in. The only bummer is that I wanted to have a bar behind our stove, but I don't think that's going to happen, or at least not a wide one. :(

I am super tired, but am hoping we can get all this done before Mike has to go back to work on Monday. This is why we ended up not doing anything really fun over his vacation, since we knew we were going to be spending a lot of time and money re-doing our kitchen. I am hoping that he can enlist one or two of his friends to help, and then Marlee and myself can just be kicked out for a bit. :)

I did take a before picture, although Mike had taken most of the doors off, so I am excited to show you guys the before and after pictures. :)

A little transformation...

Remember this plain old wall. I had planned on doing a lot with it...but never got around to it. It has looked like this for the past 3 years that we have lived here.
But now...it looks like this. I will be adding some frames I think to it...but it will be a couple days or weeks before I get to it. I brought them all upstairs, but I want to get some new photos printed, which will be a little bit.

So what do you think?

Have you done any transformations in your home lately?

WW

I LOVE MY HUSBAND! He just has to "morter" one last row (that he laid out while this picture was taken) and then tomorrow he gets to grout it, and then the bathroom is almost complete! :)

So what do ya think? Obviously it will all need a good washing, and the pieces of cardboard picked up, but I am exstatic!

It's Monday, it's Monday,

I am in a much better mood! Mike's mom and our other friend came over yesterday, and they have almost all of the tile done on the floor. It looks awesome! They just have to do the other side that had all of the cuts, since Marlee was sleeping, and they didn't want to wake her. I am extatic! Soon that part of my house will be put back into order, and then I won't have to worry about dust any more or anything like that...Which is almost enough to make me giddy! :)

How was your weekend? Anything fun happen while I was sick? Thanks again for all of your kind words! I will post pictures of the tile as soon as it's complete...

Have a great day!

As promised...

Before: This is what our cabinets look like...they were white, and I have to do a few touch ups cause they stuck together, but I figured it would be easier with them hanging! :)

And After: I need to get white paint, and then the beam down the middle will be white, but this is what it looks like. I love the new look!

So what do ya think? I need to clear off the little table, but I'm talking about paint here :) not my dirty table! HE HE HE!

I have been waiting a long time...

For this: I don't know if you remember but the walls didn't used to have any texture, and they were a very dirty white. And now they are a green, and the tile is grey. It's not all the way finished, but my husband did a fantastic job! And I think he only has 2 or 3 more rows!

The next thing we have to do is put tile on the floor, then we can get the toilet back in there, and a sink! Then we will have a brand new guest bathroom and I am so excited! :)

Have a great day!

A little bit of everything all rolled up... :)

While Marlee was doing this....

I was trying to figure out a way that I could work on this project:

The wierd colored background is where the old tile used to be, and it is now just glue...We repainted the tub...looks nice eh!
In this next picture, look close, can you see the pee yellow old tile? It's behind the sink...it is what is keeping the sink on the wall...

I was going to texture and paint over the weekend but I decided that I didnt know how to rip out a sink, so I am waiting til Mike takes it out for me. I didn't want to have to call a plumber or fix the wall (think sledge hammer and an irritated mamma!)

So up there is where the old lovely wallpaper was....and donw below is a picture of the wall paper (after taken off the wall, and on the floor). It actually came off very easy...we sprayed it with a mixture of water and fabric softener. My friend and I worked on it for only about 20 minutes before we were finished.

Had I known it was going to come off that easy, I woulda taken it off and painted this bathroom so long ago!

Now seriously, isn't this hideous wall paper! (sorry if ya like it!)