Kitchen Progress-It's coming together!

We are just about done with the kitchen update - boy am I excited!! Hopefully the next post about the kitchen will be the BIG reveal. According to our time line (that I worked so hard on) we should have finished Monday April 18th. Clearly I was wrong. At first I was a little disappointed but now I am okay with it taking a little longer for a few reasons: a) Justin did most of the work all by himself, b) we are only able to work once we get home from work, c) we have a life, d) Justin is being a perfectionist.

Let me give you an example of what our evenings have looked like while we have been working on the kitchen. Normally when we get home form work we rest for about 10 minutes, play with Jack, and make a plan as to what we wanted to get done in the kitchen. Justin starts doing whatever was on the list for the kitchen and I start dinner. I don't want everyone to think that I just sit and watch TV while Justin is working hard painting our cabinets. Okay, let me be honest... the first week I WAS sitting in front of the TV while Justin was working.

Here are a few pictures of the progress we have made.

This is where it starts looking like a real kitchen!

We are now to the point of putting up the cabinet doors which has really motivated us. We should be done with the cabinets in just a few more days but will need to touch up the walls and paint the baseboards and door frames before everything is completely finished.

Going out with a Twist

I hope that the title of this post is not offensive to anyone. If it is I apologize. It was just so witty I couldn't resist! Yesterday was my last day working at MC. I will be starting a new job on Monday and I will tell more about that next week. This post we will be about the events that made up my last day at work.

The day started out like any other day. I got up, did my normal morning routine, and went to work. Being that it was my last day, I had a long list of things I needed to get done before turning in my key. I got to work and starting checking things off my to-do list. There was talk around the office of bad weather coming our way, but some thought it would pass over us. I had no idea about the potential bad weather because Justin and I had been painting out kitchen cabinets in the evening and not paying much attention to the local news. Read about that here and here.

Around 1o:30 or so the tornado sirens starting going off, so everyone in the office went down to the basement, thinking it would last for a little while then back to work we would go. When we first got down there everyone was greeting each other and watching the weather and looking out the windows. Yes, it was raining, dark, and windy, but when you are around a lot of people I think scary situations are not so bad because you are distracted. For a while it was just dark and rainy. I thought for sure that within the hour we would be back to work. I was wrong. Around 11:30 or so the sirens starting going off again and then the power went out. This is a sweet friend Daniel Mortimor who took this picture of us to celebrate my last day at MC. It s blurry because well it was pitch black in the room.

While we were all waiting to see what had happened we got word that a tornado had touched down across the interstate less than a mile from MC. I believe we were down in the basement for about an hour and a half or so before were told we could go back to our offices. The problem with that was we still didn't have power. I went up to the third floor and tired to finish my to-do list. Most of the stuff I need to do was on the computer but without power, well, it was impossible.

We all thought that since we didn't have power that they would be spending us home soon or that the power would come back. I finished what I could and them we just sat around the office talking and answering the phone (at this point our cell phones would not send or receive calls or text messages but the landlines were still working). I will refrain from being negative about the fact that we were made to stay all most all day without power. Being that it was my last day, I packed up my desk and around 2:30 I turned in my key and left! Needless to say, it was a very eventful last day at MC!

When I got home I got on the computer and searched for video of the tornado. This is what I found. I had no idea this was going on just a mile away from where I was. It is very scary and just goes to justify my reasoning for being afraid of bad weather. I am blessed to say that Justin and I did not have any damage and never went without power.

Dreaming of Paris

When Justin and I signed up for the mission trip to Paris I didn't now what to expect. I was completely blown away by the whole experience, to read about the mission work we did click here.

This post will be about the beauty of Paris and some fun pictures that our group took throughout the week. I am going to let the pics tell the story. I might have to make this two different post because we took a lot of pictures. I will do my best to include everything but not make it too long.

At the airport playing Banana Grams

Sacre Coeur

View of Eiffel Tower from the top of Sacre Coeur

The most delicious cookies you will ever put into your mouth.

Arc De Triomphe

In the Louvre

The Louvre

The Seine River

Notre Dame Cathedral

In the Notre Dame Cathedral

Notre Dame Cathedral at night

Eating more delicious pastries

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

Eating the best Nutella and Banana crepe!!

Top of the Eiffel Tower

Shamrock shakes: Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream with Sprite

More crepes!!

There are many more pictures that I could not include for that fact that this would be the longest post ever. We had a great time in Paris and hope you enjoy looking at the pictures too.

Happy Birthday MOM!!

Happy Birthday to the BEST Mom Ever!!

I could go on and on about how great my mom is, and if you know her you would agree. Instead of going on and on about how great she is, I will just share a few reason why I love her and why I am proud to be her daughter.

1. She is a Light for Christ.
2. She puts up with me and my two brothers.
3. She is always up for a party.
4. She taught me to be hospitable.
5. She can make almost anything into something fun.
6. She is a great at delegating
7. She is a great shopping partner.
8. She can has pink motorcycle boots.
9. She can make a house a home.
10. She is my Mom!!

Bonus: 11. She puts up with my husband Justin!

Happy Birthday MOM!!!

In Progess--Kitchen Update

It has been two weeks since we started updating our kitchen. Let me rephrase that: it has been two long weeks since we started updating our kitchen. It is a slow process since we only work after 4:30, when we get home from our regular jobs. We are still not done, but we are so much closer. Here is a reminder of what our kitchen looked like before we started doing anything to it.


Our progress...
It is no secret how much I hate wall paper. I know that back in the 80's it was the hottest thing in home decorating. I hear that it might be coming back, I really hope not! Either way, we will not be putting wall paper in our house any time soon. I am sure wall paper can look great when its in a modern color and the print is not overwhelming. The first thing we did to our kitchen was remove the ugly wall paper border. It was not a long process (thank goodness) but it did take us a day to get it all off and to clean the walls. Here is an "in progress" picture of us removing the border. I know that this might sound a little crazy but I think our kitchen looks bigger without the wall paper.




The next step we took toward our new kitchen was painting the walls. This is by far the easiest part. We taped off the cabinets in a matter of minutes and started primed the walls, the trim around the doors and the baseboards. We then painted the walls a light blue-ish grey color called "Breezy" and that was it. I didn't get any pictures of our walls painted because we had a little trouble with our memory card. But take my word for it, it looks good.

After the walls had some time to dry and we had a good night sleep, we started the daunting task of painting the cabinets. Before we even poured the first drop of paint we had a well thought out plan as to how we wanted this process to look. However, that was quickly thrown out the window when we stated painting. The first step was to removed all the doors, hinges, and knobs. This was the easy part until our drill battery died and we had to do it by had. Think about it, each door had 10 screws and we had 20 doors. So I am thinking we unscrewed about 150 screws by hand. I was not a very happy camper while doing it and was thinking how easy it would have been if we would have just charged the dumb battery. There is a picture of all the hinges, screws, and knobs. The angle this picture was taken does not show how big the pile really was, just take my word for it. The pile includes; 20 hinges, over 200 screws, and 28 knobs.

This is Justin using the drill when the battery was working

Once, we had removed all the hinges and knobs, we cleaned the doors and the framework of the cabinets. We laid all the cabinets on the floor and wiped them down with a warm damp sponge. Needless to say our house has been over run with our kitchen. More on that later.


At this point in the project we were super excited!!! Notice how I said "were" that's because as of right now we are further along in having a freshly painted kitchen, but still not done. I think the project will still only take us 21 days but we have thrown the schedule out the window. Our kitchen is looking great and will do my best to get another update posted really soon.

Getting a Face Lift

Justin and I have been wanting to paint our kitchen cabinets ever since we moved into our house over two years ago. When we bought the house everything in the kitchen was original to the house. We did negotiate with the seller and got some money to update all the appliances. The new stainless steel appliances really helped us live with the kitchen for the past two years. However, it is now time to lighten up the kitchen and make it more us. As of right now we are only going to paint the walls and the cabinets. We do not have any plans to change out the countertops or backsplash. We are going to live with the fresh new kitchen for a while before doing any other updating (to the kitchen that is).

This is what our kitchen looked like when we closed on the house.

This is what it looked like when we updated the appliances.

We had a memory card error so we lost some of the better pictures of our kitchen, so this picture will have to do.

Side story: Justin picked out all of our appliances by himself and even installed the dishwasher and microwave by himself before I moved in. At first I was upset because I didn't get to pick them out but was very glad that it was all taken care of before I moved into the house.

When we decided it was time to paint we discussed many different color options. We both had our own idea of what we wanted - good thing they were similar. Here are a few of the ideas that we played with: dark brown cabinets with either green, blue or white walls, white cabinets with green, blue, or yellow walls, or white cabinets with a tint of gray with a blue/green wall. We have a lot of red accents in the kitchen so whatever we picked had go with what we already had.

We have been in our house for two years, so for two years I have been looking online at books and magazines for ideas for our kitchen, knowing that one day we would be ready to make the needed changes. After about a week of thinking and talking through what we wanted, we finally chose our colors. We will be painting the cabinets Extra White and the walls Breezy. We both think this will really make our kitchen look more open and freshen it up a lot. This is the look we are trying to go for, but we will have red accents.




Before we even started doing anything in the kitchen, I came up with a time line/to do list for this project. We have painted and removed wall paper in both of the baths and our dining room and painted our office and our bedroom. Each time we have started a project in our house it has taken longer than we planned. Being that this would be our biggest project to date I wanted to make sure that we had everything planned out before pulling off that first piece of wall paper.

If everything goes as planned the whole project should take us 21 days from start to completion. I am not sure if we will be able to stay on this time line but that is the plan and we are going to do our very best to keep to the plan.

Updates coming soon...