Flowers are Blooming

My craftiness comes and goes depending on my mood, inspirations, and time. Last week I had parent teacher conferences, which was BUSY, but then I had an extra day off on Friday. I was very productive on Friday - painting, laundry, cleaning, and CRAFTING. I've been eyeing a few different flower tutorials lately and decided to just give them a try. Not bad for my first try!

Felt flower with clear, round buttons in the middle.

Fabric flowers with a pin on the back.

While making the felt flower, I thought, "This is so easy I could make a tutorial for it." But then I thought, "No, I'll just give credit to the person I got the idea from and save myself the time." So here is the link to the felt flower tutorial. And here is the link to the fabric roses.

(click on the word "link" to find the website)

I'm seriously thinking of hosting a craft night at my house for those who are interested in making things like this or have another simple craft to share. I'll be in touch...

Hooking Up

It just so happens that my least favorite place in the house is in my new favorite room (the remodeled kitchen). I have never liked the entrance to our house from the garage. You step directly into the kitchen - it's cramped and usually covered with shoes and in the winter, coats, hats, and boots. Our long term plan is to maybe build a small entry room in the garage and step up to the kitchen, but I still wanted a fix for now. When I saw this idea on another blog, I knew it would work in our house too.

So here is my least favorite place in the house as it usually looks. The shelf works well, but it doesn't really go with the new white cabinets. I also don't like that Rebecca can't hang up her own coat and backpack or get them down after Dan or I has hung them up.

So here is the new design. I bought two pieces of molding - same profile, but one is is taller that the other. I also got new hooks that would match our new cabinet hardware. The larger molding went on the top with the double hooks and the other molding went on the bottom with the smaller hooks.

You will still need to be careful to not trip over the shoes, but there is more room to hang up coats and Rebecca is excited to be able to reach her own coat and backpack. I do want to find a hanging basket of some sort for extra hats and gloves since there is no longer a shelf. I'm also excited to decorate the wall with a little art work over the top - either some white picture frames or vinyl wall words. So now this is no longer my least favorite place in the house :)

(Feeling the need to give credit where credit is due. Here is the blog I got the idea from, which was a link from this blog that I visit often.)

Spicing it Up

In an attempt to keep my new kitchen organized I bought this spice rack for $10 to put in the cabinet above the microwave.

When I brought it home I showed it to Dan and said, "I bought this to organize my spices, but if you build me one just like it, I will return it." I knew that would get him because I have yet to find anyone as motivated to save money as my husband. So today we worked together to make our own spice rack out of a 2x4. How great is that? And Dan successfully save us $8. Every little bit helps with this major kitchen redo.

(Yes, mom, I still need to alphabetize my spices :)

The New Counter Top

The new counter tops are in! There's not a whole lot to say about them except they look FABULOUS!

Before:

During:

After!:

And a close up of the beautiful sink and faucet.

As you can see, there are still cabinet doors to finish, but I'm making progress and the drawers are done and in.

Hey Good Lookin'

Whatcha Got Cooking?

That's right, the appliances are here. And for the stove to answer that question, my go-to favorite, Sloppy Joe. It's going to take me a while to learn the heat settings on the gas stove, but I love it already. I really love the the full top grill. It makes setting pots down and moving them around so easy. The oven bakes wonderfully as well.

And for the microwave to answer that question, NOTHING! Because the microwave doesn't work. I guess we just thought we could install the microwave, plug it in, and it would work. But that's not what happened. We installed it, plugged it in, and it did not work. A new one is being delivered on Monday.

The fridge is my new best friend. I LOVE not having to bend over to get in the fridge. I also love that the drawers and shelves are clear and I can SEE everything. No more lost leftovers shoved to the back and found weeks later.

I'm sure our dish washer is a little jealous that he does not have a shiny stainless steal finish, but he has a few more good years left before we need to think about replacing him. We also got word today that the counter top is coming on the 27th!

Flooring!

Yes the flooring is in and looking great! I had a snow day on Tuesday of this week and was able to finish all the painting that I wanted to do before the flooring was laid. This is my "I...can't...breathe..." picture. The kitchen and dining room were a complete mess! So right after I took this picture I cleaned up everything and could finally breathe better.

We bought laminate flooring from Lowes. We liked the durability of laminate and the easy of installation. I was pretty picky about the look and feel of it and felt we got a pretty good "almost wood" look. Dan and I laid to first few panels on Wednesday night and he insisted that I include a picture of myself. Believe it or not, this is the best we had :)

Thursday Dan and Scott finished the floor by the time I got home from school! We took out the stove and will be eating microwave meals until Monday when the NEW APPLIANCES!!! come. The old fridge is still in the middle of the dining room on cardboard, but oh well.

Look how great the white quarter round looks at the base of the freshly painted cabinets! I love that look!

As you can see there are still no cabinet doors or drawers. These are in a pile in the basement waiting to be painted and I plan on getting to them soon. I don't mind the "no doors" look too much and it's easy to get things, but the not having drawers is a big pain. Those are the things you use every day. So drawers will get painted first!

The "new" cabinet

I posted earlier about our need to make the cabinet above the stove smaller to make room for the new microwave. Dan's solution was to simply cut the old cabinet down to the right side. I wasn't crazy about this idea, but told him if he made it perfect, I would be fine with it. Well here it is - nearly perfect.

Above is the cabinet cut in half, glued back together and wood touched up with wood putty. Below are the doors that are cut in half and glued back together with a new wood insert.

Doors with wood putty to fill in the cracks.

And the "new" cabinet in place above the stove with a new outlet for the microwave. The doors still need to be painted and installed (that may take a while).