before : after

WARNING! there are a TON of pictures in this post!

we finally finished re-doing our kitchen cabinets and painting our main floor since we moved into our new house 3 months ago. with each of us working full time, that's not bad if you ask me!

BEFORE :

these photos were taken before we moved into the house. i saved all the photos from the online listing before it went offline when we bought it!

notice the awkward stainless steel hood vent.

problem #1 : no other appliances are stainless steel.

problem #2 : the vent leads nowhere. i know that these are just for looks these days anyway, but doesn't anyone else think it's just visually confusing?

problem #3 : they removed the over-the-range microwave to put this "upgrade" in.

problem #4 : we're american. we microwave things. it's a necessity.

terribly fancy still-life wallpaper

DURING :

step one was to remove the wallpaper....... i don't want to talk about it.

next was painting. the walls were a peachy-cream color and we painted them silver dollar by PPG. its a warm light gray

step two was to install the cabinet pulls. we got impatient and wanted to install them before we had even painted the cabinets yet. sue me.

hallelujah! step three was to install the microwave and new cabinet above

(pardon the low-quality instagram photos)

logan loves when i take pictures of him in his "grungies"

step four was to remove all the doors and drawers and spray them in the garage. this took us several weeks to get all done because we were using an annoying sprayer and only wanted to do it on good days when we could have the garage door open for air flow

we also left them sitting in the garage and had no doors on the cabinets for several weeks while we got up the gumption to finally finish the project.

step five was to mask off the entire kitchen and spray the cabinet casings. we were getting high as kites for two nights straight even with all the windows and doors open for air flow. lacquer is STRONG people!

FYI: i did do half of this giant project, by the way. i'm just always behind the camera in this relationship.

i liked this photo because of how incredibly messy the whole house was. the entire contents of the drawers and cabinets were on the table and in the living room and dust was EVERYWHERE

it's a good thing this stage only took us 2 days because if it had taken any longer i would've started to pull my hair out.

AFTER :

the opposite of the above photo

ps. i didn't style my kitchen for the after photos, sorry.

here is our table that we re-finished as well, along with these knockoff eames chairs i found! very excited when these came in the mail, i tell ya. unfortunately i only ordered one set of two because i was nervous about the quality and immediately after, they sold out. hopefully they come back in stock soon!

a close-up. those two drawers unfortunately can't have pulls because they wouldn't be able to open. didn't think about that until the rest were installed... we'll get used to it.

now we need to find or make a good kitchen island and a rug for under the table and i think we're set!

a how-to of sorts

we got this great antique table from logan's mom when we moved into our house. it's been passed down through a few generations and i was more than happy to be the next owner. logans mom had painted it black but we wanted to bring it back to its rustic glory and stain it to a dark wood.

so on comes my ultra-professional how-to for de-painting and staining an old wooden table:

step one: wait a long time to get your roots done, air-dry your hair, and put on your oldest tie-dyed shirt and jeans with the holes in the crotch

step two: use the sander your father-in-law got you and cover yourself from head to toe in black dust

step three: get the right grit of sandpaper from home depot the next day and realize it doesn't have to take 6 hours to sand paint off a table

step four: get down to the original bare wood and pat yourself on the back

step five: GET A TARP!

step six: slather on the darkest wood stain you can find at home depot without reading the directions first. and definitely say "no" when the home depot guy asks if you need any help.

step seven: read the directions after you're all done and realize you were supposed to be very scant with your staining and use a special technique because now you've drenched the wood and it'll never dry fully and no one will be able to sit at your table without getting brown stain on their clothes. oh and you were supposed to get a polyurethane something-or-other to go on top.

step eight: let your father-in-law save your bacon by giving you a clear coat to cover it up once it's dried for several days in the garage. and also he does this without even rolling his eyes or calling you dumb kids who never read directions.

my new chairs are supposed to come in the mail tomorrow so i'll post pictures of the new kitchen with the table and chairs in it. once we do everything wrong putting them together and then start over and finally read the instructions.

some confessions

1 : i like this little guy. most of the time. yeah i mean you, count chocula.

2 : i bought my sister photoshop but am giving it to her somewhat grudgingly because anything i can do, she can do better** (besides, of course, grow a mean pair of thunder thighs).

3 : i like one dog better than the other. i'm not admitting this out loud, however, so as not to give it the satisfaction of being blameable.

4 : i've baked chocolate chip cookies 4 times in the last two weeks. even though after eating just one i have a mad case of the food baby and gracious knows i won't stop there.

5 : there is dog hair all over my house. i'm 'bout to dust buster the devil right out of this place.

**no, but seriously. this woman's got talent in everything she tries... and no thunder thighs.

happy new year

i can't get this song out of my head.. i like the pretty harmony too

fluffing the nest

we moved into our new house 15 days ago and while heiroglyphs are interesting.... i don't exactly want them on my bathroom walls.

we had fun ripping down quite a bit of wallpaper and still have lots to go!

we also put new hardware on our kitchen cabinets..with the help of zorro, sniffing around and getting sawdust on his nose

1.5 projects down, too many to count more to go!

how 'bout them jazz?

logan is awesome and got box seats to the season opener game from work!

my new camera app, camera+, is my new favorite! the zoom isn't too shabby!

we had so much fun! great seats and a good view

that girl behind us doesn't look too excited about what that guy's saying to her...

oh, and we won! it was so close toward the end which was fun, and if you can't see the score there, it was 102-99!

logan's comment when all the confetti shot out of the cannons was "what are they doing? now they're going to have to clean ALL that up..." my practical-thinking husband.

next thing i know...

i have TWO DOGS!!

what happened here?!

logan is finally taking back ownership of his childhood dog, koda (right) since we finally have a permanent residence and a fenced backyard.

...and yes they have matching Martha Stewart Pets collars.... that's how mama van dyke do for christmas!

*don't mind the messy bedroom in the background