Kitchen Cabinet Update

Well THAT was more of a pain in my rump project than I expected.  When we had all the cabinet doors laying out on the driveway, one of our friendly new neighbors came by to check it out.  "I've been wanting to do that to mine", he said.  The deeper we got into the project, the more we kept yelling toward Friendly Neighbor's house, "DON'T DOOOO ITTTTTTT!"  I really thought I'd just be able to sand those dummy cabinets down and just start painting with my paint + primer in one.  Who's the dummy now?  The wood grain was too freakin' smooth, the paint just slid off.  FINE.  We go to the store to get a REAL primer. Happy? Spray primer on, and still have to paint 2 coats on.  I don't like how many steps there are here. And WAITING. Waiting really blows.  DRY! DRY! DRY!

However, they are done.  It took FOUR days but they are finished.  Want to see?  Of course you do!

Cabinets before:

Cabinets After (Covered in dust since we started the floors when this was taken...next post!):

Calm down, the wood we didn't paint won't be seen with our stove, fridge, and baseboards in there.

So we were going to go the all stainless steel look with appliances but since the microwave and stove were already white, and are perfectly fine, I can't bring myself to just replace them on aesthetics alone.  Paying close to $5k just to change everything to stainless?  That's just getting too crazy.  I can live with white appliances and dark cabinets.  I talked myself into it by Googling "white appliances with dark cabinets" to get a feel for how it might look and I didn't mind it. (Yeah, I Google everything.)  It kind of keeps it bright and will match all of the white trim.  I'm going with it.  I hope you are too. Oh you don't want to? Well there is a saying we have in our family:  "You can't see it from YOUR house."

I really think we could have painted these cabinets purple and it would have looked better than before.  Maybe you liked them before, but looking at them makes me do this:   : |     also, this: : /    
Those are faces, by the way, if you're confused or aren't familiar with DIY emoticons...

More dusty cabinets:

Instead of putting a tiled backsplash up there just yet, I'm trying this on for size.  There are damage-free hanging hooks on it just in case I think it sucks later.  On this amazing blog that I love, I saw this idea of putting a full length mirror horizontally behind the counter.  If you love to be (or aspire to be) super duper organized, this woman's blog will blow your mind.  I nearly drool when I see some of the things she does.  It just makes my brain very happy.

That bar area will be great for sweet food and drink buffets at parties, don't you think? ;)  I'm already picturing it with delicious snacks and cheese plates and bounties of fruit and crudites and a cocktail station and---... Droooooool.  I know I say "drool" a lot but I really do drool.  It must be my big teeth.

I really like the color and the way they turned out.  A couple of them may need a little touching up but that will be simple and I can do that later.  I thought these cabinets were a thorn in my side but stay tuned for the most labor intensive project yet: THE FLOORS.

Thanks for reading! :)

Home Improvement Progression

Another 12 hour day. I'm ready for more... except that my feet feel like I've been walking around Disneyland for two days straight. And I hate Disneyland. I know, now I've said too much. How many friends did I just lose? Anyways...

Ok painting, I've had enough of you. I love the actual painting with the roller, seeing the transformation immediately (over all of the COLORED ON walls). But the tedious detail work around corners and ceilings makes me want to punch myself in the forehead. (And I HAVE an edging tool!)

Speaking of things that make me want to punch something, let's talk about cabinets. Let's laugh about how I thought it was going to be a one-day job. Here it is 3 days in and those dummies still aren't done. BUT the end is in sight, they should be done tomorrow! GAH! Annnnnd they're going to look fabulous. I love the color.

All primed up:

They now already have the espresso paint on them but I forgot to snap a photo! We just need to give two more coats to the fronts and they will be finished! Oh you'll see, don't worry.

Oooooh guess what else I did (besides a million things?!) I painted Scotty's man cave! Did you ever see the Pepto Bismol pink room?! Let me show you!

Awww how sweet... But we could save it for a little gir------NO.  Also, you couldn't see all the wonderful drawings on the walls in this picture. I'm not kidding when I say kids drew on every single wall in this house. Even under the counter. And I'm pretty sure there were poop smears too. You could say it was chocolate but I guess poop. Back on track here... This is the man cave NOW:

Looks a little smeary but I promise it's just the lighting on my not yet completely dry paint. (I was excited OK!?) You can't really tell but the accent wall is a rich navy. It was really bright in the room so that wall looks almost black but then I saw it later this evening with the light on and it was such a gorgeous blue! I'm happy with the way it turned out because it was really smeared-looking when I put the first coat on. I actually planned on doing both of those walls but since I had to double up on coats I only could do one. It turned out just fine though because I think it would have made the already small room look even smaller and darker.

Also, the master bedroom is finished! I love the accent wall so much I could just squeal. It's Behr's "Intellectual" which tells you how awesome it is. Surely it will make us more intelligent when we sleep. That fan was already here (SCORE) but we cleaned it up and flipped the blades over to that pretty walnut color instead of the light pine color they were on the other side. I think our white headboard will look totally rad in here, especially since we sharpened up the ceiling paint with a bright white.

Remember the teal room? ME TOO.

Well that's now my office! I think I may want to brighten up this ceiling too. We will see how I feel about painting tomorrow. Meh.

Ah yes, the two toned living room.

And BAM!!! 

Just the paint change alone makes me feel so much more relaxed. The previous paint made me nervous.  Don't ask. Did you notice the fan update? 

Here's a view from the living room. You can see the spot over the beam where I was OVER IT. "Painting, you suck!" It looks fine like that, right?

OH! I can incorporate a "thrifting find" in here! So I knew I wanted to replace the dated entry light. (see below)

They are about $40-ish at home improvement stores. Well, that's just dumb so I had been keeping my eyes peeled for lighting fixtures.  Guess what I found at the Sacred Heart thrift store on HALF OFF day for $2?!!!

I got this puppy home and guess what? It MATCHED the other dome lights in the bedrooms and the hallway. 

 Here are the boys putting up my 

THRIFT FIND OF THE CENTURY: 

And the last thing I'll share tonight is something that really really makes me delighted like a little girl at Disneyland (remember, not this little girl, but maybe a normal one)...

My drab front door before (shown previously above)

To my FAB front door now!

It's not black (even though that's not a bad thing) and that's just the first coat. It's the same Intellectual as featured in the bedroom. I love multipurpose! My precious charcoal door...

Oooh welcome! Come inside! Doesn't my flooring look stupid? Want a cookie? A cocktail? 

Stay tuned for more updates. Thanks for reading! :)

We bought a house!

It happened. We bought our first home.  After all of this excruciating wait time (ok, it was only 2 months), we finally get our keys on Monday. Do you know what this means? (This means we are now POOR). This means I can start working myself to exhaustion each and every day until our home is to my liking. To keep me busy during escrow, I have collected and crafted items for the house (as well as scoured Pinterest until I could no longer stand to look at the computer).  Oh by the way, did I mention that we are poor? Right, all the more reason to get crafty and creative.  I really dislike paying full price when I don't have to.  I'll share with you some of my "life hacks" as I discover them I and hope it can somehow provide inspiration to renew some old junk or improve something in some way.

I LOVE before and after photos so I will attempt to put some here. Thanks for checking it out!