Kitchen Reveal

And that, my friends, is how you go about not posting for eight whole months!!

So what have y’all been up to for the last 245 days of this year? We took a few trips, rode out the dirty side of Hurricane Harvey(our first hurricane) south

Kitchen-is-a-Mess

Yeah, it’s been over a month again since I last posted! No reason except I’ve become very lazy when it comes to this blog. 😦

If you remember in my last post, we had recently bought a sailboat. Well, not much has happened

The House Makeover/Remodel Still Isn’t Finished…and Then We Bought a Boat!

Not much has happened on the house since I last blogged…way back in October! The holidays came and went, five pounds were gained and still haven’t left, we laid new flooring in the master bedroom and hallway, and I painted the hallway white to brighten it up.We still have one more bedroom, guest bathroom, and the kitchen area to lay new flooring. Since the holidays, Mr. and I have 

The Little Things that Make a Big Difference

I meant to share this post with you a while back as we were getting ready to put our last house on the market. But between finishing the updates, packing, and staging the house, time got away from me. Then the house received a contract within the first 24 hours of being on the market and we had to find a house to buy! And THEN there was the

New House…New To-Do List

At our last house, we had a seriously long to-do list of all the projects we wanted to do. Some we were able to accomplish, some not (we moved and ran out of time). I’m planning on being in this house long enough to

One Last Look: House Tour

Never, in my wildest dreams, did I think that when we moved into this house that we would be moving again so quickly! We closed on this house on January 11, 2013. Just three short years ago! And boy, does it look different!

I had a huge To-Do List of projects and am happy to say that we were able to finish most of them and also some that weren’t even on the list. So I thought I would share with you one more look at the before and after photos and what all we did to update the house.

Street View

• removed rocks and flowerbeds from around trees
• had sod installed around trees
• removed all the plants from flowerbeds by the house and planted tropical plants

before

after

Kitchen

• painted walls
• painted cabinets and installed new hardware
• painted trim and added baseboards
• painted the backdoor
• installed beadboard backsplash
• installed new flooring
• replaced countertops
• replaced sink and faucet
• installed new ceramic stovetop and range hood
• replaced the oven
• installed pendant lighting in place of can lights
• installed a new ceiling fan/light in breakfast area
• added the kitchen island that we upcycled from a small chest of drawers.

before

after

Dining RoomEntry Way

• painted walls
• painted under the chair rail
• spray painted the existing chandelier (Mr. sprayed painted the fixture and replaced the chain with a silver one)
• painted the inside of the front door and side panels
• installed blinds above front door
• added sun filter film to front door & side light windows

before

after

before

after

before

after

Living Room

• painted walls 
• installed a new ceiling fan

before

after

Guest Bathroom

• painted walls
• painted the vanity

before

after

Master Bedroom/Bath

• painted walls
• installed a new  fan/light

before

after

before

after

Laundry Room

• painted walls
• removed old cabinets
• removed metal shelving
• installed new cabinets
• installed drying rack
• installed hooks for broom/mop
• replaced light

before

after

before

after

Upstair Bedrooms 2 & 3

• painted walls
• installed a new ceiling fan/light in #2
• installed new chandelier in #3

before

after

before

after

Craft Room

• painted walls

before

after

Upstairs Bathroom

• painted walls
• painted tiles in tub area and walls
• painted tiles on floor
• replaced faucets
• painted cabinet
• replaced hardware
• took door off linen closet

before

after

Office Bedroom 4

• painted walls
• removed filthy paper fan from window
• installed new blinds

before

after

Closet under the Staircase

• painted walls
• replaced carpet with hardwood floors
• installed new shelf and bookcase
• added totes and a bin for storage and hooks for hanging items

before

after

What a difference a little paint, new kitchen floors, and countertops make! Mr. and I have learned alot these last three years! We now know we can install ceramic tile, hardwood flooring, and carpet, but couldn’t/wouldn’t do it for a living! I have a new found respect for those that do!!

I’ve enjoyed this house, and especially having the swimming pool, but I’m so excited to begin our next journey in our new house! I’ll be sharing pictures of it very soon!

Y’all have a great day & weekend!!

~

Change of Plans

We’re moving! Well, we hope to be very soon!

For the last several months, Mr. and I have been talking about buying a vacation home on Galveston Island and renting it out during peak vacation season. But then about two weeks ago, we decided to just jump all in and move to the water full-time! And I am ecstatic! Living in the suburbs of Houston is driving me crazy! 6.6 million people is a huge change from the one stoplight small town of 6.3 thousand people where we lived for 17 years before we started our moves in 2010.

But that means I have to finish all the projects I have going on with the current house. We want to get it on the market as soon as possible, and are thinking the first of December is doable. So I have approximately three weeks to get this place finished, decluttered, and staged! Therefore, a change of plans will need to take place when it comes to all the projects.

I’ve broken everything down into what I hope to get done each week. Yeah, I have to have lists/deadlines or I get distracted and never get anything finished!

Week One: Kitchen/Laundry Room/Dining Room

• Thankfully, we finished installing the kitchen & laundry room floors in September. I’m bummed that I won’t get to enjoy them for as long as I thought I would, but they have made such an impact to that area!  I hope the next homeowners will love them as much as I do.
• Install and paint baseboards in the kitchen & laundry room
• Paint the interior of the backdoor
• Install trim or cabinet doors where the microwave is
• Install or paint the chandelier in the dining room

Week Two: Front Bath/Master Bed, Bath & Closet

• Paint baseboards in the front bath
• Paint the walls in the master bed/bath/closet

Week Three: Upstairs

• Touch up paint on one wall in spare bedroom
• Paint ceiling in the gypsy room
• Replace faucets in bathroom

And DECLUTTER, DECLUTTER, DECLUTTER, AND STAGE, STAGE, STAGE!!!

I’ll be posting updates as the weeks go by, so be sure and check back!

Y’alll have a great day!

~

Kitchen Update: We Have Floors!!

I can’t believe we finally have new floors in the kitchen! We’ve came so far on this kitchen. You can read about the changes we’ve made here, here, and here. And if you’ve forgotten what it looked like when we first started…

And here it is today!

After bringing home sample after sample of flooring for months, we finally decided on porcelain tile. And I love it; although it about killed us!

It took me three days to hammer, I mean, remove the old ceramic tile! 300 square feet of tile in three days = one sore gal!

Here I was at 299 1/4 square feet to go…

Some spots would just pop up with very little effort, but for the most part, it was like this:

 

and this…

 

And when it would crack, the edges would shatter into hundreds of tiny shards of ceramic! I figured out real quick to cover the tiles I was working on, as I had to have Mr. use tweezers to get a tiny piece of ceramic out of my arm when he got home the first day! (I used one of his  old t-shirts to cover the tiles and then just threw it away when I was done.)  

Hank was a big help and supervised as I scraped the thin set off the floors once I got all the tiles up.

Then it was time to install; and time to watch a lot of YouTube videos! Like everything else we do, we were going in pretty blind and clueless. We borrowed a wet saw from Mr.’s cousin, but it was old and tired; so we, of course, had to buy a new one. $$ But let me tell you, this is one awesome saw! We were tile cutting wizards by the time we were done!

I wanted the floors to have a wood floor look, with different sizes of planks, so we cut the tile planks in random lengths. (no rhyme or reason) It made for extra time to lay the floor, but it was so worth it. Mr. did 99% of the floor, and he did such a great job!!

But here’s proof that I did 1% of laying the floor. 🙂

Here’s Mr. doing his Michael Jackson impression! (he may or may not have needed stitches! I don’t know…I didn’t look!) But I should have bejeweled his glove!

We had a couple of places where the thinset got carried away and made it’s way up the sides of the tile. I used a grout remover tool and scraped it down. I put a couple of pieces of painters tape on each side. That way if I slipped while scraping, it wouldn’t scratch the tile.

    

And once again, Hank is supervising me while I removed the grout haze.

My heart sunk at one point when I thought we had cracked the tile while moving the washer around in the laundry room! #OhCrapMoment #JustRealisticLookingTile

I’m so happy with our floor. It’s amazing how it changed the looks of the kitchen! And by doing it ourselves, we saved over $3,000! Even with buying a new wet saw.

One more before and after…

    

I’m so glad to be finished so I can finally get rid of all the dust in the house!

And another one bites the dust on The To-Do List! Yay!

• paint walls
• paint cabinets and install new hardware
• paint trim and baseboards
• install new backsplash
• install new flooring
• replace countertops
• new lighting in kitchen
• new fan/light in breakfast area

 

Y’all have a great day!

~

 

 

Upcycled Kitchen Island

Hey everyone! Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!

I’m back after a three month absence and have lots to share with you, and am so excited about the first project I have to show you!

If you read this post, you’ll remember this initially started out as a four drawer chest of drawers that somehow ended up looking like this after our move from Oklahoma to Houston!

Not wanting to give up on using this piece somewhere in our house, I moved it into the kitchen and laid the leftover piece of quartz from our countertops on top of it. I wanted to make sure there was enough room in the kitchen and to see if we would really use it enough to justify a kitchen island. There was and we did!

So I got to work! I removed the front piece between where the top and second drawer should be and the bottom trim piece. They didn’t fit the look I was going for.

    

I then had to fill in LOTS of scratches, dings, and holes with wood filler; even rebuilding a corner that had been knocked off on one of the drawers. Mr. added beadboard to the sides and back that was leftover from our backsplash we installed back in February. He also cut out a shelf to go above the top drawer.

I primed and painted the chest and the drawers with a white enamel and added hardware that matched our kitchen cabinets. I painted the outer sides of the drawers a fun color (same as the kitchen desk) and lined them and the shelf with the cute paper that I’m lining the bottom kitchen cabinets with. We had the edges of the quartz top smoothed & polished and glued it on using Liquid Nails.

But who knew that the little towel rods on the sides would be the hardest items to find! I wanted something that wasn’t big or that would stick out. We went to several stores with no luck! I searched online with no success! The closest I had found was a special order drawer pull at Home Depot for $20! That was what I had paid for the entire chest at the auction!! We finally found what I was looking for at Ikea. Two for $7.99! Score! They were perfect to hang my towels Mr. bought me in Galveston!

This gives me a place to store my plastic containers and lids, my crock with my cake decorating spatulas, a few of my cookbooks, and those cute whale measuring cups that my daughter gave to me at Christmas!

And one more look at the before and after.

    

Y’all have a great day!

~

We Finally Have Backsplash!!

After five months of living with this:

    

I have this!

It took me the entire five months to decide what I wanted. I bought tile after tile samples, brought them home, and held them up to the walls. I just didn’t get that “this is it” feeling. Then I saw what I wanted on Pinterest. And as soon as I saw it, I got that “this is it” feeling!! 🙂 A beadboard backsplash would go great with the coastal look I was bringing into the house!

And let me tell you, the price was fantastic!

2 – 4 x 8 beadboard = $40

2 – tubes Liquid Nail = $6

2 – 8′ pine trim = $24

1 – pkg. brads = $5

paint & primer = $0 (leftover from previous project)

caulk = $0 (leftover from previous project)

Even if we would have had to purchase paint, primer, and caulk, we could have installed the entire backsplash for around $120! Mr. was super excited about the price AND the fact that he got to buy a new cordless nail gun! 🙂

I found a great tip on how to cut out the holes for the outlets on ellaclaireinspired.com. A little tape and viola, the holes were marked! So much easier than using a tape measure, especially when you have three cutouts in one piece of board!

    

Mr. recently added the pendant lights over the sink and the desk, where the recessed lights were before. We used a conversion kit that takes literally minutes to install and what a difference it makes!

And how cute are these whale measuring cups that I got for Christmas from our daughter! Love, love, love them!

And everyone should have a quirky magnet collection on their fridge! 🙂 Ours are from places Mr. and I have visited and a couple are from our daughter and her roommate.

I am thrilled with the way the backsplash turned out!

And of course, I have to remind you of what we started with two years ago and how far we’ve come!

    

Y’all have a great day! Later gators!