KKKKKKitchen

Drumroll please………

We have a working dishwasher!! And it works amazingly, especially compared to its 25 year old predecessor.

Hallelujah!

Also, I promised y’all a pic of our newly painted cabinets. So here is a midway picture so you can see the orangey/peach “before” (on the left) and the white “after” (on the right).

SOOOO much better!

The new paint on the cabinet and walls, plus the new(er) appliances, all seem to make the old crappy countertops seem worse than they did before. So this weekend will be spent checking out new ones at Home Depot.

Lastly, here is the little project that Sam and I collaborated on before we left for Thanksgiving:

What used to be a window before the addition was added to the back of our house

Ordered a wall stencil from Etsy + stencil adhesive from Hobby Lobby

We used the gray paint leftover from our bedroom and painted the back of the "window"

Sam cut some wood for shelves

Got some supplies from the dollar store (vases, fake fruit) + some spray paint

Knick Knacks up on the shelves - still have some projects to add

Notice the silver fake fruit and spray painted vases

This has been a fun project that I fully recommend for anyone looking to spice up some boring old shelves! I got most of my ideas off Pinterest (I think I need a 12 step program for my addiction to this website). If you haven’t tried it yet, you’re missing out. So far I have done small vases with coffee beans and tea lights the color of our walls, spray painted fake fruit, and spray painted vases white with yarn/rubber bands around them to leave clear streaks for candle light to come through. My next few projects (from Pinterest obvi) will be to “dye” vases or jars using mod podge and food coloring (seen here), and to wrap different colors of yarn or twine around old wine bottles (seen here) or beer bottles (seen here).

Also we have been looking for some cheap artwork for our bedroom and I think I’ve finally decided on something! We will use fabric (from Joann’s down the street) and cover different sized shoe box tops to look like canvases and arrange them in a fun pattern (seen here, and here)

 

I’ll keep you posted as the new projects occur! And now I have Christmas to decorate for as well. Happy Holidays Everyone!

Kitchen Nightmare

So, I haven’t posted in a while. Nothing huge going on with the house for the past month, until now…

We have finally completed painting our kitchen cabinets and walls (photos to come). The next step in our kitchen overhaul was a new dishwasher. I’ve been pining and pining for a new one pretty much since we moved in. Ours was black/white and made the dishes dirtier than when they went in…yuck! I figured we could get a new all white one off craigslist….no biggie, right?

Not so fast. I found a great deal on a 5 month old dishwasher on craigslist that retailed for $700, for only $175….jackpot! The guy came to deliver it and helped Sam pull out the old one (not so easy seeing as it had been in there for 20+ years) and then left. The next 3 days were very frustrating, I will spare you all the gory details…but they include corroded pipe fittings, mismatched connector parts etc. We (and by we, I mean Sam) FINALLY got everything hooked up correctly and….what do you know? The power to our dishwasher and disposal all of a sudden doesn’t work?!

Time to start flipping some breakers! This quick/easy little kitchen update has turned into a total nightmare. Just another day in the life of a 70-year-old-home-owner!

Bedroom Makeover

Hello Friends,

Sorry the blog has been on the back-burner for a while….my new job and Sam’s surgery rotation are eating up a lot of time and house projects were on hold. BUT we did have some extra time on Labor Day to finally give our bedroom a much needed makeover. If you don’t remember our bedroom was painted baby blue when we moved in…

Bedroom Before

So we got a new paint color for the walls and some new bedding and here is the final result:

I took these pictures at night, so it’s not really that dark in real life. But I’m loving the new colors – no more baby boy nursery feel!

It may be a while before we get to the next project, but stay tuned!

It’s been a while!

I apologize for my lack of posts in the past few weeks….I had a little thing called a board exam to take! And – drum roll please – I PASSED! What a relief. So now I can go back to focusing on my pretty little house. Here are a few things that have happened since I last updated.

We got a new front door. Doesn’t sound too exciting, but believe me it was. Still need to paint the new frame – and I’m thinkin’ about painting the door red. What do yall think?

Our door before

New door from the inside

New door from the outside

Next, I got a few pillows to spruce up the new porch swing – and Sam whipped up a couple mojitos from the orange mint in our garden that his mom gave us. Yum!

The master bartender at work

The perfect summer drink

 

And finally here’s a few food pics to end the post:

Creamy tomato basil pasta made with basil from our garden!

Salmon, avocado and corn tostadas.

 

Furniture has arrived!

Our patio furniture has finally arrived! We are excited for the weather to cool down and for our studying to be done so we can enjoy our awesome back patio!

And my cooking adventures continue. Here’s a pic of our mustard broiled salmon and new potato salad from Monday.

Last night was coconut-lime peanut chicken and rice – which I highly recommend! Recipe Here. Thanks to Payton for the recipe suggestion!

Dresser DIY

Just a short update about yesterday’s project because I didn’t have time to post. We had one mismatched dresser in our bedroom that didn’t go with the black bed. This poor dresser has been around honestly probably as long as I’ve been alive. My sister and I had matching wood dressers in our shared bedroom growing up and then each took one as we split up and went our separate ways. Needless to say this dresser has seen better days. It had random stains and nicks all over it. So I took it out back and assaulted it with a couple cans of black spray paint and added new knobs – now it’s got a new life, and hopefully will last us another 20 years….or at least 5.

Outdoor overhaul

On the project list for today: HERBS!

A little trip to home depot helped cross another thing off the to-do list. Bought two blue planters and some yummy smelling basil, rosemary and cilantro. Now there’s no more gaping planter-less holes in our deck!

The Rosemary smells amazing!

Can't wait to cook with this Basil

And Sam had a little contribution to our back deck as well…..he surprised me last night with this bad boy….

Grillin' Machine!

Now, we just need to pick up our patio furniture and we’ll be ready for a good ol’ backyard BBQ!

In other news – our porch swing has finally been hung! Pictures to come once my pillows arrive. Now if only the weather would dip below 97 degrees, we could actually get outside to enjoy all of our new outdoor amenities!