Real Life Everyday Kitchens

I'm sharing our kitchen today as part of Kelly's home tours. Make sure to hop on over to her blog to see all the other kitchens everyone has shared!

I have a love/hate relationship with our kitchen. In the 11 years we've been in our house we have quickly outgrown it and realized things we like and don't like (for our next house!). I dream of a walk in pantry, more counter & cabinet space, and huge center island (someday!). 

The first picture below is before we moved in and how our kitchen was the the first few years. 

Over the years we've removed wall paper, replaced the linoleum, re-faced the cabinets, installed new windows, tiled the backslash, and got a new dishwasher & microwave. And this is what it looks like today (except probably much messier!).  Oh and that old brown over you see on the left in the picture above, we spray painted it white so it doesn't stand out like a sore thumb, just didn't make the picture below. 

It definitely is not our dream kitchen, but it works for us right now! Most likely before we move in the next 3-5 years we will completely gut and re-do the whole kitchen. (We all know that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Craft Day with Sara

One of my best friends, Sara, and I decided instead of exchanging Christmas presents this year we we would spend the money on craft supplies and get together to have a craft day together! It was the best idea we’ve had! Quality time with one of my best girls and crafting; doesn’t get much better! We didn’t get together till a weekend in February, but it worked perfect because the busy-ness of the holidays and the craziness at my job in January was all over with! {note: we were at my sister’s house and she was in denial that Christmas was over and hadn’t got her decorations down yet…j/k she wasn’t in denial}

We had some fun snacks and alcohol free/calorie free margaritas and crafted for a good 6 hours!

Our first project was some burlap door hangers! Sara saw this at a friend’s house and then we looked over pinterest and thought it would be a good project to do together. I made an elephant for Avery’s party {which is now hanging in his room} and an “I” for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Sara made a few last name initials for gifts and an “I” also. I love how they turned out and want to do more!

Our other project was the paper wheels I had around at Avery’s party. And we finished up our day with a few random items.

That same weekend I was still in the crafting mode and did a simple project to add to our bathroom décor. I printed a few “printables” from Pinterest, matted them with some cute paper, and framed them for our bathroom! Love how they turned out!

Our next weekend together will hopefully be shopping! We had such a great time and I can see this becoming our new tradition!

Christmas Home Tour

Welcome to our home! Grab a cup of hot cocoa and check out our Christmas décor! I’m linking up with Kelly’s Korner Christmas Tour of Homes. Go check it out, lots of beautiful homes to tour!

This is the view from our kitchen into our living room. There is nothing more I love than  our home decorated for Christmas, the lights low, and the tree glowing!

A few years ago I purchased these giant bulbs to hang in our bay window! I hope to find some more on after Christmas sales to add next year!

I think this is my FAVORITE part of our Christmas decorations. I have saved up Christmas money & gift cards over 2-3 years to purchase this shelf. We don’t a fire place and I wanted something that would create a “mantel” look and also have a place to hang our stockings. It was so fun to hang our stockings this year and have the perfect place for them! Love the bright red & green! I found a free printable on Pinterest, added some red/white stripe paper, and viola had {almost} free Christmas art!

Across the living room I have a few black {ikea} shelves where I have some DIY Christmas decorations and few other favorites! The JOY is one of my most favorites, I found it at a craft show quite a few years ago. Isn’t that what this season is all about Joy in the birth of our Savior!

The back wall of our living room is our family gallery wall where we have the kids’ pictures. I decided to hang our Merry Christmas banner over the “B” in the middle this year, rather than the front door. And OF COURSE, the nativity! I love this set. I collected the pieces over the first few years of our marriage and I love it! On the right is a small snowman display I have along with a deco mesh wreath I made last weekend! Both Adelyn & Avery LOVE playing with the little people nativity set and Santa train underneath!

And our tree! I did more bright, fun red & green this year! The past few years I’ve done red & zebra. I left the black & white in there, but added more green. I love it and can’t wait to add to it over the years!

For the 3rd year we have a sweet little pink tree in Adelyn’s room. She even helped decorate it this year. She’s so proud of her tree and I will often catch her laying in her room by her tree either reading books or gently playing with her ornaments! Poor Avery doesn’t have his own tree yet. I hope to find one after Christmas and a few ornaments, as well, for next year!

This is something new I did this year. I took a ribbon and secured it behind each cabinet door. Now as we get Christmas cards from our loved ones I’ve been using clothes pins to display them on the ribbon. I love having them right in our view point and I know we will enjoy it throughout the season. In years past I used a wrought iron snowflake type thing to slip them in, but it was PACKED FULL! This is so much better so we can everyone’s card! I have 5 more cabinets in addition to these two, 3 of which are still waiting for cards!

Hope you enjoyed our little home tour! Merry Christmas to you & yours!

Nursery Reveal

I finally feel ready to say that I’m ready for Baby Boy to make his arrival. We didn’t quite get the early start that we did on Adelyn’s nursery, but it still came together and I’m happy with how it turned out!

We purchased a silent auction item last fall for a local painter to paint the nursery. I set it up in December and he wasn’t able to come paint until mid-January. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was starting to get nervous. Up until that time the nursery was still serving its prior purpose of a guest room. We chose a light gray for the walls from Sherwin Williams called “Amazing Gray”. On the paint sample it looked more tan, but on the walls it’s the perfect light gray!

You will see from these pictures that Baby Boy’s nursery has two doorways. You can either access his room via the hallway where our bedroom & Adelyn’s are {it’s a pocket door to the hallway} or there is also a doorway right off the kitchen. Not the most ideal option, but it was our only remaining bedroom.It is the largest bedroom of the three in our house though!

Kyle replaced all the baseboard & casing in the room from the original honey oak trim to a nice crisp white trim! He also replaced the closet doors. The old ones were 2 large doors that only allowed you to see half of the closet at a time. We purchased white bi-fold doors and are very happy with the result. Kyle and his Dad did a great job installing them!

I had a hard time finding/deciding on curtains. I ended up finding an orange panel curtain at Hobby Lobby for only $11.99 {after using the 40% off coupon}. The windows in his room are short and directly above the vent, so I knew I didn’t want floor length curtains. Now I am NOT a sewer AT ALL, but thankfully Kyle’s Mom is, so I had her cut the panel in half and hem it. Worked out great!

The dresser was mine growing up. My Mom gave it to us to use in the nursery. Kyle and I had perfect weather over Thanksgiving break to re-finish the dresser {using this tutorial here}. Check out the before picture {the only one I remembered to take}:

And here’s the beautiful after! I was very happy with how it turned out! And Baby Boy’s crib is on loan from my wonderful friend, Sara {they have 3 girls now and still just might need it again!}.

I chose the patterns for his bedding and the wonderful Holly at Modifiedtot made my vision come to life! She did a perfect job and was so easy to work with. She also made the changing pad cover to match the bumper.

I designed the prints in Publisher. The one above the dresser/changing station is a favorite praise song of mine and the the one above his crib is the verse Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart.”

The frames with orange & aqua were a Hobby Lobby find…I couldn’t believe how perfect they fit in with the nursery!

For the most part, that sums up the tour of baby boy’s nursery. Once we choose a name and get our maternity pictures back I have a few more things in mind I want to do. I’ll make sure to do an update post! Four days from today is this little boy’s due date!

New (to us) Swing Set

A few weeks ago we picked up a new swing set, but we didn’t pay a dime for it! A co worker of Kyle’s gave it to us! We are so thankful because we know these aren’t cheap! Kyle just had to go to their house, disassemble it, and bring it to our house and re-assemble!

I forgot to take a picture when he was done, but it also has a big yellow slide and a nice platform. We replaced the rings with a baby swing for Adelyn. It does need some sort of finish or stain on the wood, but hey for free, we can handle that!

While Daddy was busy working on the swing set, us girls went on a wagon ride…even Abby went along! Look closely at Abby…she’s sticking her tongue out!

Adelyn just loves her puppy! The older she gets I think she loves her more! And I think, for the most part, Abby loves Adelyn too! We walked in the house from daycare yesterday and Abby was so excited to see Adelyn she was jumping all over her and Adelyn just giggled!

We only made half way around the block before Abby jumped out of the wagon. Luckily she’s a good dog and stayed close for the rest of our walk!

Spring Organizing contd.

This weekend I picked up where I left off last Friday with organizing! Saturday morning I started in the front closet where we store coats, hats, mitten, and the vacuum! Check out the before and after pictures! I particularly like the labels!
After I got the front closet done I  went to the *dreaded* back closet! It wasn’t fun, but I think I conquered it! I took EVERYTHING out…shoes, tools, cleaning supplies, and the shelves. I put a quick coat of white paint on the shelves to brighten them up. I used baskets from the dollar store to keeps things separated and organized. We got rid of 6 pairs of shoes and put the rest on the bottom 2 shelves.

   This just makes me feel great!

The last closet I tackled was in the basement under the steps. This was a closet that we just stuck extra paint and other random stuff (like that weird wood cart on wheels…never used it and was from the previous owners). We were wasting that space that is now being used much better! I took everything out and cleaned the floor. Then I used 2-$1.99 12 x 48in counter top remnants from Menards and 4 brackets (less than $10!). Kyle had to help me with this closet, I’m not too good with the screw gun! Look at all that extra room we have now!

Spring Organizing

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a great Easter weekend! We’ve been busy! I had Good Friday off work and had lots on my “to-do” list! One thing included organizing a few spaces that people don’t always see, but weren’t always the most organized. I was quite inspired by a blog I “stumbled” across: Clover Lane.

So here is what I did! I started in the kitchen…the dreaded under the kitchen sink cupboard, which was mainly overtaken by years of accumulated plastic sacks! So I took EVERYTHING out and made a throw/recycle pile and a keep pile. And then neatly organized everything back in putting the cleaning products used most in the front.

  Next I did the cupboard in our bathroom. I’ve done this multiple times, but I’m always reluctant to throw all those extra lotions and body sprays. But I found that they are WAY too many years old and wasn’t going to risk ever using them!

   I ended up purging TONS of stuff from this cupboard! 

I also cleaned up a few things under the bathroom sink. I read on a blog to hit the dollar store to get baskets for organizing and that is just what I did and it looks great!

I think the biggest changed cabinet is this one in our living room. It is a built-in I use to keep our extra candles and linens. My sister commented that when you use baskets you can’t store as much stuff, but my response was that there was a lot of stuff in this cupboard that didn’t belong there and also items that needed to be thrown. (i.e. candles that had no wicks left!) I’m very happy with the result!

I have a list of more places I want to get done in the house, but didn’t quite get there on Friday! And I’m bummed because I forgot to take a picture of all the bags I threw out from just these few spaces, I think it was 4-5 medium sized garbage bags!

New Carpet!!!

The carpet layers showed up early Wednesday morning and were here till about 2pm. I was also home on Wednesday feeling a tad under the weather, no fun. I hid out in the basement so I didn’t spread my germs to the guys. Kyle worked just over lunch rush then came home and started to work putting the rooms back together!

Here are a few pictures, pre-furniture!

Guest Room

Den

Master  Bedroom – good job hun!

I know it doesn’t look like it, but they are all the same carpet! As you can see there are a couple different colors in the carpet. Depending on what direction you’re looking from and how you vacuum it, depends on how it looks. I would say the most true color is what you see in the guest room and master bedroom photos!

Abby doing a thorough review of the carpet!

One thing you can’t tell of the pictures is that it is SO soft and plush! That was part of my test when we were picking out what kind we wanted. We brought home samples and I walked on them bare foot to see which one I thought felt the best, and this one won!     

And finally, here is the final look w/furniture and all!

Guest Room

Den

Master Bedroom

The guest room is the one room we didn’t paint. The den got a whole new color, called cliff diving (dark tan) and the master bedroom got a fresh coat of the same color of light blue. I washed all the bedding, bed skirts, and curtains. Everything feels SO fresh and clean! LOVE IT!!! Kyle and I are both very happy with the result.  What do you think?