A New House Means a New Kitchen

Hello everyone! It's been almost two months and we are finally getting settled and are feeling like this is our house. We are about 99% done unpacking what we need to and the rest can stay in storage for now. It's been a crazy year so far, and I think this whole family is ready to slow down a touch. You know, before the crazy of school starting and the double birthday/Christmas season in December starting.

Today I have some pictures of our new kitchen to share with you guys, and it's about time. I have been trying to get everything perfect before showing anyone, including friends and family, and I decided a few weeks ago that I need to get over that feeling. Honestly, it's going to take years to make this house even close to perfect in my head, and I want to wait that long to show people.

This is the main hub of the kitchen, which was done within the last five years according to the listing.

What an improvement from our last house, am I right? It's definitely not the finishes I would have chosen, but everything is nice and new. The cabinets aren't painted plywood and the counter-top isn't spray painted so it's really a win in anyone's book. Trust me, I can live with this for a long time before needing to do anything major to update it or change the finishes.

Directly across from the sink is the fridge and more counter space and storage, which was a huge problem for us in our first house. Guys, I can actually have the microwave, coffee machine and my mixer out at the same time!

And in the bottom left of the above picture you can see our gorgeous pocket door, that I am in love with. I honestly didn't even know about it until after we bought the house and were doing our final walk through. But, I am so happy that it's there! We had a pocket door separating the kitchen from the entrance in the last house and I always loved it. And the fact that it has glass is even better, because it doesn't make the dark cabinets turn the kitchen into a cave when it's shut.

Above is another angle of the fridge side of the kitchen from the our table, which is an eat-in area in the kitchen. It shows all the storage we have, which again has been amazing. I still get lost when looking for things though, hopefully that will pass soon!

And you can see the entire kitchen from the den, which is great for entertaining! We had friends and family over a few weeks ago and it was so nice to be able to be in the kitchen making food and drinks and still be able to talk to everyone. I am standing in the den in the below picture, and it's so easy to pass things over the railing too.

Well, that's it! That's our new and improved kitchen guys, what do you think? We already have ideas for future renovations for the kitchen, including knocking the peninsula and upper cabinets over it out and expanding the kitchen into and eliminating the eat in area. But that is way down the list of things that we need to do. This is the most functional room in the house, as well as the most updated.

But it's always nice to think of ways you would change your house to really make it your own.

Kerby

Cleaning out the Cabinets

Hello everyone, hope everyone had a great long weekend. I just love Family Day, it's a great excuse to be lazy. 

Today I want to share a little organizing that I did to a cabinet that had been driving me nuts. We have a very small set of upper cabinets above our range hood (over our stove), and because it wouldn't fit too much I decided it was a great place for my baking supplies. I love to bake but have just recently started again and let my cabinet go to shambles. Don't believe me? Take a look:

Spray Painted Countertops - 3 years Later

Happy Friday everyone, hope you guys are staying warm & cozy. It feels like winter has been here forever, and we've only had snow for about a week. I think this might be a long winter for me.

Today I thought I would share an update to a pretty popular post from 3 years ago, before my almost 2 year hiatus. You can check out the original post here (please remember this was before the blog had a name change). And the first update post here, where I talked about how just the spray paint was holding up. We ended up using a food grade epoxy and it was so much better.

But three years later, the poor counter top is starting to show it's age. There are a few spots that just look dirty all the time. Since you guys are my friends, I'll show you a few pictures:

These spots are actually soft to the touch, where the epoxy is starting to wear away. I cannot make them look any better, so I have started to strategically place cutting boards and my paper towel holder when people come over.

I would recommend to anyone wanting to do counter tops like this, make sure that it is a temporary solution. Our plan was supposed to be temporary, until we could afford to gut the kitchen and renovate it the way we wanted. But alas, other priorities popped up. Like Braxton joining our clan, and our basement (here, here, here, here and here).

Hope this update helps anyone looking to refinish their counters in a relatively inexpensive manner. Let me know if anyone has had any luck with other products or finishes!

Kerby

Linking to:
I Heart Naptime - Link Party Palooza #75 
Kathe with an E - You're Gonna Love It Tuesday 1/12/15 
Someday Crafts - Whatever Goes Wednesday #256 

kitchen countertop - a spray paint affair

Hello again!

Back in December I posted about the mini kitchen redo I did. If you missed the post, you can check it out here.

As a reminder, here is the before and after:

Quite the difference! Here is a closeup of the countertop before and after:

Doesn't that before and after just make you want to squeal?

Cause I know I did!

Kitchen After

Hello again! The stars seem to be aligning for me right now and my computer is going to let me show you guys the kitchen after pictures. They didn't seem to want to be uploaded the last few days.

So anyway, as I mentioned here I did a mini-reno of the kitchen. The yellow cabinets and brown counter top are history!

 A before and after picture, side by side:

A Post? Can't be! - Kitchen Before

What? No way! Yup....it's me.

Feels like it's been forever since I talked to you guys! With Christmas and the rush I just put the blog on the back burner. Hope you can forgive me!

Well right before Christmas I started to do a mini kitchen reno. I think it may have been a really bad time to start a project, but it was so worth it. I am going to show you the kitchen before pictures.

Viewer beware....I may have the ugliest kitchen in the whole world. Don't believe me? Take a look.