Coming up next…

Suprise, honey!  I decided what I want to do with this paycheck’s decorating budget. 

Memorial Day Workend

As has become our weekend habit since we moved into this house, we had a big project lined up for our long weekend.  I don’t have a lot of details to post, so I’ll just post some pictures for those who are interested.

By the way, in case you’re wondering – I’m blogging all of our house projects so I force myself to keep a written and photo journal of all the changes we’re making.  I’ve always regretted in the past when I didn’t have stuff documented. 

Enjoy!

Before — everyone together now….”EWWWW!!!!!”  Yep, it was a mess — a real, hot mess — when we moved in.  The bushes that were planted here originally were super ugly and the fact that they had been left to their own devices for months (years??) was not helping.

So, we tore out the ugly bushes (I understand they are being put back into service by my Dad’s neighbor who has acres and acres).  Ethan was such a helper – he was mimicking Troy’s sounds of pain as he attempted to dig out the gianormous holly monster bush.

This little guy about gave me a heart attack as I was trimming the bushes back.

And here’s the after…. (click the photos for larger versions)

Upgrading the cabinets

Before we moved into our new house, the kitchen (well actually the entire house) was a sea of white.  Builder.  Flat.  White.  Builder white just does not work for this color loving mama.  Right before we moved in, we went ahead and painted the downstairs, which included the kitchen.  Yay!  I recently added some drop cloth curtains for privacy on the sliding door.  But what I really thought the kitchen needed was some texture to break up that wall of white cabinets.  Hmmm….

Blinded by the white

As usual, I turned to houzz.com (careful, it’s addictive!!) for inspiration.

Before

What I finally decided it needed was some texture.  The wall of cabinets was just not working for me.  You can see from the inspiration picture that there are tons of cabinets.  We moved here from a tiny apartment with about 5 cabinets in it, so obviously we have not (yet) filled up said cabinets.  Now’s the perfect time to eliminate a few of them, eh?   Less difficult choices later about which cheese grater to nix.

So my brave hubby went with it and pulled down the doors and the little in-between bar for me (it just screwed in, so no demo required and we can always put it right back the way it was if we need to someday).  I stuck a basket up there (sorry forgot to take a pic) and wah-wah.  Still white and it looked like we had just taken cabinet doors off and stuck  a basket up there – that wouldn’t do!  I remembered seeing a redo once where someone had painted the back of their cabinet to give the illusion that it was just a wall shelf.  Aha!  We had lots of the wall color paint left.  So I sent hubby out to the Depot to pick up some amazing Kilz Oil-Based Primer.  The backs of the cabinets were the same material as the rest (is that melamine?), so I knew we needed to do something to make the paint stick.  Bonus: when you drip on the shelf of the cabinet, it wipes right off. 

So here’s the results of our 2 hours of labor on Sunday evening (yes, I’m a spontaenous DIY-er – bad Missy!).  I need more somethings on the top shelf, but you get the picture…

I love the way it breaks up the white an adds some color and much needed texture to the wall.  Not to mention I get to use my beloved baskets.  Yes, I have a basket fetish.

We also decided to do a small cabinet that could house my cookbooks.  I desperately needed a place to put them that wasn’t the counter (that drives me crazy when they slide all over the place).

So there you have it – our kitchen transformation….all for the bargain price of….. $40!!  Gotta love that.  Can’t wait to swap out that pot rack with the two pendant lights I scored at a decorator/builder sale!

The vertical blinds had to go!

Since I last posted, it’s been a busy few weeks!  We’re still swimming in boxes, but we’re making lots of progress.  I can’t wait to get a whole room done so I can show you.    It will take time, though.  I’m resisting the urge to want to get everything done at once!

One thing we had to do right after getting moved in was get the big sliding door in the kitchen covered up.  When we first got the house, we immediately took down the vertical blinds because I’m not a huge fan of them. Here’s a bit of a before picture, although it’s not specifically of the door/vertical blinds:

I want to do the same fabric on all of windows in the downstairs.  The floor plan really flows together, so I don’t really want change it up too much.  If you know me,  you might remember I’m a big fan of Pottery Barn.    To put it lightly.  Although, I’m not a big fan of their prices and I could care less about the label.  I just like the style, so if I can make my own version of a PB item, you bet I’m going to try it!  Here’s what I was looking for in window treatments for our downstairs.  I wanted something natural – I didn’t want a color and I wanted some sort of undyed panel.  Here’s what I found at PB that I just loooove.

What I don’t love, however, is the price!  At $75/panel for the 84″ length these are just not an option for our downstairs.  So, I put my thinking cap on and trolled the bloggy world for ideas.  I ran across this fabulous lady’s blog. AHA!  What an amazing idea.  So we traipsed on down to Home Depot last weekend and picked up one of these.  Yes, they are painting drop cloths.  Can you believe it?  Note that you must get these at Home Depot – the ones at Lowes have a seam right down the middle – ick.  The size we got was almost exactly the right width to cover half of the door and plenty of length to spare for me to hem it.

After cutting the cloth in half, I used the hemmed end of it (these come pre-hemmed – I didn’t see any reason to change it! No sewing, yay!) to add my grommets.  I picked up some inexpensive grommets from Joann’s (don’t forget to take coupons – duh, I forgot and could have saved myself about $10 on the 2 packages – will do next time).

These grommets are great because they don't require any special tools to set them - they just snap in.

We had another grommeted curtain, so I used it as a template for spacing of the grommets

The grommet sizes were a little small, though

They come with this handy template for cutting the holes

Now cut out the holes. I found it easiest to use my super sharp (old) scrapbooking scissors for precision

Put the back half of the grommet under the hole - it was easiest to use a hard surface under it

Snap the top half in - I didn't have to use any tools or anything!

Voila!

Close up!

So there you have it.  $40 (would have been $30 if I’d remembered my coupons) for the kitchen instead of $150…can’t beat that!!

Next up…making this little fella look more like out craftsman style house demands – oil rubbed bronze!!  Anybody know a good place to get replacement shades for the bulbs?  I’d rather do cloth shades than those frosted glass ones…