Painting Our Cabinets White

For awhile I've been wanting to pain our cabinets white. I had planned to do it during Easter break, but chickened out. I finally decided to do it before I run out of time this summer. It's not done yet; I still have to paint the top cabinets, but here's a preview.

First, let me remind you what it looked like when my Oma and Opa owned it.

We've painted and moved the island and added our own taste.

And this is my inspiration for the kitchen. I already knew I wanted the blue, but I like the way this kitchen is pulled together.

Source: Flea Market Trixie

It's going to be a while before we can make our fridge and dishwasher match (although I'm thinking of trying appliance epoxy), and even longer before we can replace our counter tops with wood counter tops (but we may do some cheaper alternatives in the meantime like counter top paint or new formica), but we're making little steps.

Here's what it looked like before I painted...cell phone pics, sorry.

Finn the photo bomber.

An here's what it looks like after some paint...

So excited about what the final product will look like!

Updates and Progress

I have been putting off making a blog post because I have so many different posts I want to make and don't know where to start...so I haven't made any.

I want to post about ...
the big cake I made for graduation at our school...a silly little thing, but it was hard work, and I was proud of myself.
the hope chest I painted for our living room.
the work I've been doing in our kitchen.
the big crochet project I've been working on (I'm so excited about this, but it's a gift, so it has to wait).
the little painting projects I've been doing around the house.

and several other things that I can't even remember right now.

I've also wanted to post about the decision we made about our journey toward a baby, but I've been debating on how much to share. Those of you who know me know that that's a little strange for me because I share EVERYTHING. This news seems different though. I've really only told family and a few close friends, whereas normally I blab my mouth to everyone. Maybe it's because it's a big deal. Or maybe it's because I'm scared. Or maybe it's because I'm still hoping for a miracle between now and then. Or maybe it's because I don't want the added stress of people wondering how it's going.

But talking about it makes it seem less scary, and prayers from others can only help, right?

We've decided to do IVF. After some more tests (and surprisingly some pretty good results), the fertility specialist we are seeing recommended going straight to IVF, mainly because I had little to no success on clomid the first time and because my issues really wouldn't be helped by other procedures like IUI. This is exciting. The doctor thinks we have a 55-65% possibility of success per cycle (a normal couple has a 25% possibility of pregnancy per cycle without treatment). We're hoping and praying and, honestly, expecting to only have to do one cycle. The doctor was pretty hopeful. It also raises our chances of twins to like 20%. However, it does raise some ethical questions like whether or not we will freeze embryos for later use.

And, even with the discount this particular clinic offers for full time teachers, we won't be able to afford it until Steve gets his year end bonus...about May. So there are still nine more months to wait. And I will be going through all of it during the school year.

We are craving you prayers, for a miracle in the meantime or for success in the future, for peace of mind all around, and the finances to do all of this.

Living Room: Finally Put Together!

Boy, has it been a long time since I posted anything! But I finally have found time to share with everyone what our new living room looks like. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, read about it in this post.

Let me preface these pictures by saying that I used my Droid to take them, not my camera (the battery was dead) and it was already starting to get dark (my least favorite part about about winter). I really wish I had the before pictures to post also, but they're on my laptop (I'm using Steve's because I temporarily misplaced my cord).

I did find this picture which is not so much a "before" shot, more of an in progress shot, but you can see what the chimney used to look like (far right).

Woodstove. So thankful for this.

View from the left of the woodstove.



Computer desk.

Top of computer desk.

View from couch.

French doors between living room and dining room. They are usually open, but I wanted to show the snowflakes. :o)

Scrapbook paper wrapped canvas.

Christmas tree.

New recliner.

Love this coffee table. We bought it unfinished and painted the bottom and stained the top. It's the kind on hinges so the top lifts up to come closer to the couch.

Eventually I'll post pictures of the dining room too. I love the way that turned out, but it's not totally done yet.

Dining Room Update

The house is even more a shambles now than ever. We cleared most things out for the yard sale, and my grandparents have packed up more, but we aren't all that much closer to the official move. Now that much of the furniture and rugs are gone though, it's easier to see how big the house is now.

Check out the view from the dining room! This picture was taken at 7:30 tonight on a yucky, rainy day, but look how bright it still is!

Bunny!

Steve started taking the yucky flower border down.

It looks so much better without it. And look how bright it is, despite the hour and the gloomy weather.

The walls will be this color green in the end! I'm so excited. I feel like I can picture exactly how it will look, but I still can't wait to see how it ends up.

Heaven!

I think my favorite thing about this house is the fact that we have about eight lilac trees and those include three different varieties. Plus, there's a fourth variety next door at my parents'. Their smell is absolutely intoxicating! I've been waiting rather impatiently for them to bloom fully so that I could pick them. And now they're here. If only they lasted longer!

Being a Grownup

Is it weird that I kind of miss finals week? I miss that feeling of knowing that all the work is about to be over. And only having one or two tests a day or a few papers due (although I never had just a few) and watching movies in the lounge until late because there's nothing to get up early for. Or that one time when we watched movies outside between the Quads. Or going out to Piatza's at 2 AM and eating a HUGE slice of pizza. Or staying up late talking about random things. Or going for a walk with Steve (he doesn't go for walks anymore unless he has a specific destination).
 

But I'm a grown up now, so instead I'm waiting for Steve to come home from work (knowing it will probably be very late because it's inventory week), thinking about how much weight I'm gonna gain from all the food I've been eating (seriously, I can't seem to stop), and thinking about work tomorrow and trying to come up with new things to do to keep my students' attention. I'm also wondering how we're going to afford buying a house, how I'm going to fit all of the upcoming events into my schedule, if we're ever going to be able to start a family.



Yay for being a grown up.

Dining Room: Hutch Ideas

I am officially addicted to reading other people's blog. Just since last night, I think I have added maybe five new blogs to the list of blogs I follow. One of them, that I stumbled across last night, is Better After, a blog that highlights before and after shots from other people.While browsing this blog, I found some ideas for the hutch and buffet I talked about in this post.

 

This first one isn't my favorite, but the hutch is very similar to the one we have, so I'm filing it away in the "ideas" file. 

And this one I love, and think it's something that is totally doable for us, probably minus the lights and the paneled background. The color is much more like our table, and I think it would look great against the green walls that we plan to have.

In case you're interested, this is the color our dining room will  be, although it's a bit more vibrant in reality (excuse the random picture of Steve).

 

And this is our dining room table, without the leaves in it, as it looked in our first apartment. With it's three chairs that are actually bar stools cut down to size. Which reminds me, if anyone knows of some chairs for free or cheap, please let us know.

Dining Room

I guess it's been awhile since the last time I posted anything about my (our) plans for the house, but I saw some ideas today and wanted to see if anyone had opinions or suggestions.


I was thinking about the dining room (look here for an overview) and about how in the world we will fill it. I LOVE our dining room table, but other than that and the THREE, yes three, chairs we have that don't match it, I don't know what else to put in there. I wanted to buy a hutch, but at this point I feel like we'll never be able to afford one. My grandmother has a hutch/china cabinet and buffet that she's selling that I had written off as not my taste, but I took some time to look at it the other day and realized that I actually like the set, plus they're much more in our price range than new ones would be. You can see them in these pictures.

 

They're a lighter wood than our table, but maybe we could revamp them like this...

 

 Or would it look better just refinished in a darker color stain? And how hard would that be? Anybody know? It's like glossy and majorly shellacked. 

I also really liked this artwork from BHG.com

 

You could do it with scrapbook paper or wallpaper samples. 

While looking at that, I also found this idea for cheap artwork which I like for our laundry room (which is the next room "before" I'll be posting. 

 

Please share thoughts and ideas!

Before...Craft Room

We refer to this room currently as the "Little Room." We've been using it as a multi-purpose walk-in closet. This is the room I want to use as my craft room. See this post for all the details of what I want to do to it. 

View from the doorway to the left.

The cabinet under the window is already my craft cabinet. I thought I'd keep that there and pull in a chair in case I need to sit in front of the table.  I also plant to put the couch on the left hand wall, maybe with the tree mural behind it. 

View from the doorway to the right.

View from the window toward the door and the closet.

I think I'll put a TV in the closet so that I can sit on the couch and crochet and watch a movie. The thing on the back of the door is a shoe rack filled with yarn. When I reorganize everything, the yarn will be in color order.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated! Especially suggestions as to how to survive with a pink carpet and cover the love seat pictured here. Oma is leaving it for me, and I love its size, but can't stand the color or pattern!

Before...Dining Room

So I thought I'd give you all a preview of what we'll be doing in the next couple months (for explanation, see here). These pictures are of the "Pretty Room" which is largely unused right now. The room wraps around the kitchen. You can see that the current decorating style is definitely not me

This is the view from the one opening from the kitchen.

The door on the left is the front door. The other is a closet.

The picture quality isn't great here because it was so sunny. I love that!

The wall that the secretary is against is a shared wall with the kitchen. You can see how the room wraps around to the left.

View from the other opening into the kitchen. The glass door leads into the "Big Room."

View from the Big Room. You can see how the room wraps around the kitchen.

Our plan is to make this room into a dining room. I want to rip out the pink carpet and put in hardwood floor as soon as we can afford it. I want to paint this room green; the same green that we have in the basement now and had in our living room in the last apartment. I want to do the wall that the closet is in, or the wall that the secretary is on in white with the green swirls, like in the old apartment. The dining room table would go where the coffee table is now. I want to get some shelves, maybe a hutch eventually. Maybe something like this...


In the little area between the kitchen and the big room, we'll probably put our computer desk.

I'm so excited about all of this, but it's so hard to have all these ideas and not be able to do anything yet. So, instead, I share them on here...