Kitchen Remodel for $350!

After living in our house a year, we finally got around to adding some color to our brown, brown, and more BROWN kitchen. 

It was a time consuming project, I'm not going to lie. But, to tell you the truth, I really thought it would be a lot harder than it was!

When we first moved into our house, I told my husband that I would like to just paint the cabinets and that I could do it for a couple hundred bucks. Everything was new, why rip it out. Besides, this isn't our forever home, since we're military. We just need to make it nicer and easier to sell in 4 years. (Three, now) He wasn't really digging that idea. I humored him and we went to Home Depot and priced out what he would liked done to the kitchen... it would cost a few THOUSAND dollars... like probably 8k at least. Yea, not happening.

Eventually, he came my way. As usually! We set out to redo our kitchen after my daughters second birthday in early April. It took us about two weeks to finish, because we were working during my husbands weekends. So all-in-all, about 4-5 days of work. LONG days of work. Totally worth it though!

We started out by taking all of the doors off the cabinets. We labeled the doors, while doing so with sticky notes. But, by the end half of them had fallen off. I tried to keep the sticky notes with the doors, still, but my husband had stopped trying, so that was fun...

Start out by finding yourself a cute little helper!

At this point in the game, I was starting to become a little overwhelmed by all the doors.

Side note: I painted the fronts first, I would recommend painting the backs first. Because I had to touch up the fronts on some of these, I don't care about the backs as much as the fronts...

I painted the doors with three coats of paint on the fronts and two on the backs. Afterwards, I did three coats of polyurethane.   We did the same thing for the cabinets.

In this picture, you can see the light fixture. We had discussed replacing it, as well. But, for now, I just painted it white. I actually like it like that. But, if this was our forever home, I'm sure we'd replace it and the counters. Which are actually really nice corian counters. I just don't like the color.

One thing I absolutely hated about these cabinets was the lack of a knob or handle! Especially on the long drawer in the island. I was always bending or breaking my nails on that one. So, we drilled holes into all the cabinets and drawers and added knobs.

After reattaching the doors, we had to wait a while for our back splash to arrive. We ordered it from Lowes, and I just love it! I decided I wanted a blue and white themed because of my hutch in the kitchen and the chalk board frame, both of which are a blue color. It all pulls together, nicely!

While we waited, we painted our walls a nice stone grey.

Once the tile arrived we started marking out the tile mounters and getting them ready to place the tiles. My husband had to leave for a work meeting and boy scouts with our son on this day, so I ended up doing most of this myself. I tell you what, I never would have thought I was capable of laying tile before this project!

Before grout.

Now, here's for the fun part, the REVEAL! Now, keep in mind.. for these first few pictures, we moved the old stove over to the MIL suite and moved that stove over to our side. For some reason the stove over there was nicer and it just happened to match our stuff. The last picture is the complete package!

Here is again, before!

And after!

Notice the light fixture is now painted white. Blends in and out of sight.

 Still need to spray paint that light fixture. And I have added a few coat hooks under the wall vent to hang our aprons on.

So, this isn't the BEST picture, but here it is with the other stove moved in. I've added a few little changes here and there, as far as decorations go.

 I love my kitchen a whole lot more, now!


Here is the break down of what everything cost us:

White paint- $20
grey paint- $46 (two cans)
Poly- $4
Knobs- $39
Back Splash- $150
Grout- $29
Tile Mounter- $40
Brushes- $15
Tape- $10
_________
Total: $ 353

And I still have paint and poly left over for future projects!

What do you think?

New Dining Room Buffet and Bulletin Board.

I know I promised an update on our kitchen remodel, but that blog is going to take a lot of time to write, and I just haven't gotten around to it, yet. I have started it... so, maybe soon. I am LOVING my kitchen remodel, though and can't wait to share it!

My MIL was in town earlier this month, so that has contributed a bit to my delays in blogging, but we've just been busy around here. Landon and I just wrapped up our first year of homeschooling! (First Grade) I can't believe how fast that went. The first thing he said when he realized we were done was, "When can I start second grade work?!" He is definitely my kid! He was also very sad when we finished our solar system studies. I wasn't planning on starting school back up until August, (besides a few fun games and science projects here and there) But, I may have to start sooner than I planned. He just can't wait and is asking me daily if he can start his new work! I love his enthusiasm!

Well, anyway, back to the point of this post. I have been looking for MONTHS for the RIGHT dresser to use as a buffet in my dining room and I finally found one! 

I found this dresser at the Salvation Army and it weighs a TON! Oh boy, I bet the neighbors were laughing at my husband and I while we tried getting this beast out of the van, across the driveway, up two steps, and through the front door! 

 I decided to sand the top and restain it.  I choose a light sage like color because my curtains are a sage. I also spray painted all of the hardware.

At the time of these pictures, I didn't have knobs for the doors. The original ones were broken off so I was looking for replacements, when my SIL mentioned using ribbon or something.

This is my dining room, now (Excuse the cell phone picture, please) I used some doubled up twine and knotted it in the back.

I really love this buffet and it has a ton of storage. It's still mostly empty. So far all I have in it is place mats and coloring stuff for the kids. But, I am sure it'll be filled up soon enough!

The bulletin board on top of the buffet will have pictures on it, soon. Hung up with mini cloth pins. I just haven't gotten to it, yet, as I just finished it. 

 I took an old frame apart that I bought a few years ago at a thrift store, and painted the frame black. I also decided to add a "B" for our last name. After that I took the old cardboard backing and covered it in burlap fabric and randomly placed twine strings across the surface. I stapled them on the back. With a regular stapler, and then I hot glued them once I was done with it all. Just to make sure. Pushed the cardboard back in and put two nails in place to hold the backing in. I then added picture hooks to the top. Very easy day project that I love!

Emmelyn is Now Two!

A lot has happened in the past month. We have been super busy, so I have been slacking in the blog world, I apologize for that. 

On April 9th, Emmelyn turned two years old! Hard to believe, but it has come and gone already! 

She had a great birthday party on the 6th with a few friends. I tried really hard to make the menu for her party clean, and I succeeded in doing so... except for the PBJ sandwiches. Even her cake! That was the hardest part... I made three test cakes in the month leading up to her birthday before deciding on my  banana muffin recipe baked as a cake. I made a strawberry cream cheese frosting for it, and called it a day. My family loved it! Especially the birthday girl, who loves bananas and strawberries! 

The Cake!

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting:

Three blocks of soften cream cheese

1 cup of fresh strawberries, cleaned and stems removed

Pure maple syrup, to taste

Blend up your strawberries then add your cream cheese and maple syrup in. I added the syrup in a TBS at a time until I liked the taste and consistency of the frosting. I probably used about 3 TBS. It may will depend on your strawberries and their tartness.

I forgot to take a picture of the food set up... Oops! But the menu consisted of:

(All I can remember off the top of my head)

Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches for the kids

Chili

Veggie tray
Salsa roll-ups

Fruit Kabobs (huge hit!)

Tortilla chips

Hummus

Guacamole

No Bake PB Chocolate Balls

Homemade Strawberry Lemonade 

 (What was left of the lemonade)

When Emmelyn woke up in the morning she was thrilled to see all of the balloons!

For the party, I set up a wall for a fun "photo booth," and it was so much fun! All of our guests seemed to enjoy this part and it really fit in with her "dress up party" theme. I had a lot of costumes and such out for the kids to wear, but we also had a playset and bounce house in the back yard and it was such a beautiful day out, no one was inside much. 

 A great start to her party. ;)

 Probably my favorite.

                Sometimes one fork isn't enough!                 Working on her second piece of cake.

Here is a close up of her hairband for anyone interested. I made this a week or so before her party! I love it!

Since her birthday fell on a Tuesday, we celebrated on Saturday. On Monday, we explored the National Harbor in D.C., including the Children's Museum for their 1/2 price Military day. They had a real pig's lung on display for us to touch and play with, what a great surprise! We took a picnic lunch with us and ate it on the Harbor. Afterwards, we found Ben & Jerry's and the four of us shared a banana split! Sometimes you just have to indulge a little.

On Tuesday, we went to the National Zoo in D.C., we were pretty rushed though and didn't get to see the whole thing because Emmelyn had a well baby check up. But, we still had a great time! 

All-in-all it was a great birthday week for my angel bug! 

(My birthday banner letters came from here. I just cut out triangles to place behind the letters and used brads to hold them together)

Stay tuned, we have been refinishing our kitchen (why we've been so busy) and I will be writing a blog post about that, soon!

DIY Growth Chart!

Well, I finally did it! I finally got around to making a growth chart. I've only been meaning to since before my daughter was born. Probably even conceived. Oh well, better than never. It's a good thing I've stayed on top of both of their baby books, so that I can easily fill in the growth chart! 

The best part about this project... it was 100% free! The previous owners of our house had left some wood in the shed, so I didn't need to buy any! And I just used paint and stain we had on hand.

 Plain old boring 6' board that has been sanded. I stained my board and let it dry. While it dried, I printed out my numbers and carefully cut them out so that I could trace them.

I carefully marked out the foot marks and then the inches and hand painted them on in white and grey.

As my marks dried I worked on tracing the numbers along the foot marks and then filled them in with a blue paint.

I am considering adding my children's hand prints to it. It was in my initial plans, but my daughter was napping when this was finished and I wanted to hang it up and see the finished look!