Kitchen After-ish

My kitchen is by no means FINISHED. There's so many details needed to make it finished and only so much time and money. And, well, when One (that would be me) has an entire house (not to mention the kids, boyfriend and laundry pile) that needs love and attention... sometimes One (again, me) starts with the basics and fills in the details later. So without further ado... Here's the After-ish kitchen!

Where do I even start? Well, the basics: I stripped the wallpaper border, primered the whole thing and started over with wall color. If the red and brown look familiar, it's because they're the same colors I had in my apartment kitchen. What can I say? I love those colors!

• Walls: Crimson Sky
• Above enclosed lights and random wall: Dried Stem
• Under enclosed lights: Tahitian Treat

I have a little confession: I was darn nervous about the teal/turquoise [whatever] color. Even after I painted it, I was doubting myself. After a few days though, I was like, "Oohh yeah."

I have an entire list of projects that include things such as new flooring, curtains, rugs, painting cabinets... hanging stuff. The kitchen is not, by any means, done.


Laundry Room Before

Here's a little interesting fact about me: I have Project ADD. I can't work on just.one.thing at a time. It's also very hard for me to complete a project from start to finish in a few days. Any project I tackle is a month (or several) long process. In real time I'm working on my laundry room - don't worry, we'll get back to the kitchen - and The Spawn's bedroom ceiling. Let's start with the laundry room, shall we?

Here it is Before:

I'm sure you're wondering why I would ever EVER want to change this awesomeness. I mean, the brown with white sponge painting! And the birdhouse border! Um, yeah... the BOREDOM. Not to mention the lack of \usable space. It's awkward and clumsy to work in. I hate doing laundry to start with. If I'm going to be miserable, I should at least be miserable some where pretty, right?

Kitchen Before

You have my sincerest apologies for not having better Before pictures. I thought I had pictures from all four corners, turns out I only had two. Hopefully you can see how truly terrible the kitchen was before.

My kitchen is the "hub" of my house. It's one of the rooms that I spend the most time in, as well as having access to just about every room on the first floor by walking through a doorway. From my kitchen I have access to the laundry room/back entrance/patio, the bathroom/side entrance/basement/upstairs, and the dining room. This made the kitchen the ideal room to start a redo in.

I love the arrangement in my kitchen, although it did take a while to get used to and everything organized so I wasn't wandering all over the kitchen while I'm in there - although I do still have some work on that end of things. The kitchen is small, but not too small. It's cozy. But sometime down the road - I'm talking 10-15 years here, folks - I'd like to make it a little bigger (maybe with a center island??) and make the adjacent bathroom smaller.

Nerd Alert!

We pause this regularly scheduled program to bring a Nerd Alert!

A few weeks ago I stumbled onto the website fabric.com. [note: this is in no way a paid endorsement and is in fact my own experience and opinion posted of my own free will] I've been searching for affordable curtains for my kitchen and laundry room and finally gave up all hope and accepted the fact that I would need to the dreaded Sewing My Own Damn Stuff.

Maybe I should backtrack this story about ... oh, twenty five years ago when my mom was teaching me to sew. I hated it. As in I would CRY when I had to do it. It wasn't really that I hated actually doing it, it was that I had NO SKILL. Oddly enough, when I was 16 I had the opportunity to take an upholstery class for 9 months - and loved it! And I was good at it!

So back to now... I'm hoping that time has made me more patient and forgiving of myself because I just spent $30 on fabric, and my mom is loaning me her sewing machine and great-grandma's serger.

To say I was happy when my material arrived today would be a HUGE understatement. I almost hugged the UPS guy. Ahem. So here's what I bought: (left to right)

• Enough material to make curtains for the kitchen window, laundry room doorway and laundry machine nook - or the kitchen window, laundry room doorway and side entrance doorway. I haven't really decided yet how I'm going to play this out. It's hard to see in the photo, but this material has two shades of red in it with teal and lime green dots. Sounds crazy, but it's GORGEOUS!
• Material to cover The Spawn's desk chair. It's not upholstery material, just a high quality cotton. I'll spray it with a stain repellant to add to it's life expectancy. Given the quality of the material though, it should last for quite a few years.
• Three material swatches. The striped one has approved by The Diva for her bedroom curtains. The other two (same material) I think I liked for the downstairs bathroom, but now I'm wondering what I was thinking...
• Last is a cute autumn themed vinyl with felt backing. It was super cheap and hopefully I'll get a headstart on placemats and a table runner for next fall.

I can't stop fondling the material. I feel like a creepy fabricophile. I may need to put the laundry room on hold during the next KFW and make curtains. Or do Joe's desk chair. (There's a little girl inside of me right now screaming "Yes! Let's do the chair! Pease, pease, pease!")

Maybe I should work on cloning myself so I could get it all done...

My House

I love my house. For so many reasons... but the number one reason is that it's MINE. It doesn't belong to a man who will threaten to kick me out, who uses the "You have a roof over your head because of me" line whenever things don't go his way, or that I need permission to do/change every single thing. It's MINE. [We can talk about my relationship issues later.]

Owning my own house is both a joy and a burden. Mostly joy though since I accepted that I don't have time and can't afford to do all the things I want to do right.now. In fact, finishing a project from start to finish often takes months. I'm not kidding. It's been a hard pill for me to swallow, but over the last few months I've had to take a long hard look at what I want to do, what I have to do and the reality that there isn't enough time or enough of me to go around.

When I first moved into the house, I didn't think the interior decor was too bad. There were a few obvious rooms that I knew I would need to change, but for the most part the house was acceptable. Well, now that I've lived here for 6+ months... that isn't quite the truth. I'm desperately yearning to spread my personality through every room in the house. I'm yearning to see The CofC's personalities in their rooms.

To date, only the kitchen is semi-done. Kind of. I have started a bit on the laundry room as well, as I can't seem to stick with one thing all the way to completion. It's a struggle to rein myself in. In a few weeks I have a KFW (Kid Free Weekend) and plan on tackling painting the laundry room. In the meantime, I'll try to get around to posting my kitchen Before and Now (because we're not quite to the "After" bit) and the plans that I have for that room yet. After the laundry room, we'll be tackling The CofC's bedrooms. That should, quite nicely, take us clear through the summer.

Which means I'll STILL be eating in a flesh-colored dining room next winter...

Repurposing A Blog

This Blog has evolved over the years. I'd like to hope for the better.

It started as a diary, of sorts, a place for me to hang out. Over the years it's lost the "Dear Diary" factor for me as I find that I'd like to keep more and more of my life private. There are parts of that blog that I want to keep - the fun things that kept me going in some of my darkest days, the mementos of my children growing, the little pieces of my life that make me who I am, and mostly the projects I have tackled.

Which brings me around to what I want this blog to be now. I currently have three blogs: this one, a cooking blog, and a book blog. I'd like to combine them all into one - I am a busy girl, after all - but I don't really want to tackle that project at the moment. Getting this blog into shape is challenge enough. I have found, over the course of the last year, that I want a place to keep my projects and dreams. Those things that I tackle around the house that tap into my creativity.

So here goes. As I set to make this blog public, some of the old posts will reappear and some will disappear forever. Hopefully there will be lots of new stuff coming.

That's a Big Spider

I'm actually kind of embarassed to tell this story... but it's too funny not to share!

Part of The Diva's bedtime routine is for me to lay next to her and listen to a song on her CD player. One night a few weeks ago we were cuddling and I farted. A big, loud fart.

TD: Mama, did you hear that?
Me: Yeah, I farted.
TD: Nuh-uh. It was a farting spider.
Me: Really? You have farting spiders in your room?
TD: Big farting spiders.
Me: How big?
TD: Oh, about your size!

I hope my little diva keeps that sense of humor her whole life! (She's gonna need it.)

Papercuts

We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.

Pretty much sums up my life these days. If I'm not signing paperwork, I'm looking for paperwork or waiting for paperwork. Who knew there was so much paperwork involved in buying a house? Not me. Ugh. I'm told it's worse at closing.

Boxes are another thing that sum up my life too. I'm looking for them and then filling them.

And filling garbage bags too. I've lived in this in apartment for four years. That's the longest I've lived anywhere since I left home. Kind of funny considering that I'm moving back to my hometown and next door to the house I grew up in.

I'm incredibly anxious to get this move done. To be in my own home. I'm kind of sad too. This apartment is where I found myself after being lost for so many years. There's been a lot of happiness in this place. This is where I brought my baby girl home to.

The CofC are split about the move. The Spawn is resisting at this point, it's only by virtue of being able to spend time with Grandpa D and the promise of a lego room that I was able to get his stamp of approval on the place. The Diva was sold as soon as she heard "yard for a swingset" and "we can get a kitty". She asks every day when we're going to the new house.

We will, Baby Girl. Just as soon as I finish this damn paperwork...

Home Sweet Home

I'm buying a house!! Specifically: This house.

These are just a few of my favorite details in the house.

April Showers

Oops! Almost went without posting this month.

I am officially done with school for the semester. Whew! I made it! Unfortunately my program has been cut, so I need to commit to a different major. I was thinking of switching anyways... I'm just not sure what I what degree I need to do what I want. Maybe it's like my boss says: I don't need one. I'm smart enough and have the work ethic that make me an excellent OJT candidate. I wish I knew what I want to be when I grow up. I have time to think about it. In the meantime, I'm thinking of taking two classes next fall to speed things up a bit. If it's too much, I can withdraw (or more likely I'll suffer through it).

BB and I went to a wedding a few weeks ago. A friend took this picture of us on the dance floor. It's my new favorite. I just look so stinking happy!