What I've Been Up To

I've been working hard on a project that I was very anxious to post on here, but it's just taking me so long that I thought I should give a little preview. Here's a picture of my kitchen before I got started. It's all pretty outdated and definitely needed some paint. Well, I'd been reading online about this amazing woman that has almost the same kitchen design that I have and she painted all of her cupboards white. It turned out SO pretty! So I thought I'd copy her. Problem being that I had NO idea how much work it would be! My hubby went out of town for a week and I had these grand ideas of surprising him when he got home with a pretty black table and white cupboards. This is the other side of my kitchen. Can you tell I have little kids? Lots of fun magnets all over the fridge!

Here's everything emptied out and with no doors.

Well, since I had to take everything out, I had to have some place to put it all. My house has never been so messy! I stored everything in the hallway, living room, pretty much anywhere I could cram stuff.

To be honest, I hated it at this point. There were a lot of tears every time I talked to my husband at night during this stage. I just knew I wouldn't finish it in time and what on earth was I going to do if it all looked horrible when I finished!

Yep. Still hating it.

But I kept pushing forward. Here are the shelves.

And then he came home! I was super sad that I didn't finish it before he got home, but then I was really glad to have his help for those bottom cupboards. I really hated those cupboards.

And here it is as it stood yesterday. I still need to finish a couple other shelves so I can put those pots and pans on the counter away. And, yes, it was spaghetti night.

Here's the other side. See those two cupboards on the bottom? That's where I still need to put in shelves.

But the best part are my new shelves next to my window. I love having a place to put some pretty plants! It just helps to add a little more color to my world. How odd that just adding a little greenery can brighten things up so much!

So this is where we stand right now. I still need to paint 7 drawers and 27 doors, add new hardware, and then finish all the clean up stuff, but I really do like it so much more now. Looking at the before pictures, I can honestly say that I LOVE it! And I fully plan on posting more pictures as soon as I finish the whole project, so keep posted!

Kitchen Table

When my hubby and I first bought our house back in 2002, we decided we needed some new furniture. The two big things we bought (oddly enough) were a dryer and this lovely kitchen table. Well, it was lovely at the time. You know, your perfect first dining room table from the early 2000's. Pretty standard. Well, over the years, the kids have been pretty hard on it. Plus I have this water addiction (good thing). Problem is, I always leave my water sitting on the kitchen table. This table just wasn't meant to handle all that water! My hubby said I couldn't have a new kitchen table, though, until our youngest turns 5 so we won't have to replace it again in just a few years. So I kinda have to make due with this one. Hmmm... What to do about it since it drives me crazy? Why, paint it, of course! Before picture.

This is just after I sanded the whole thing down. I took the middle leaf out of it and took the whole thing out to the garage. Then I sanded down both leaves and the whole table. Once I was done sanding, I wiped the whole thing down with a wet washcloth to get rid of all the dust.

Prime time! Before I painted the whole thing, I wanted to prime it all. I have to be honest. I hate priming things. I normally never do it. But I wanted this to turn out really nice, so I was good and did it anyway.

Here's the whole thing primed -- including the two leaves.

And here it is all black. Pretty, isn't it? Now, before I was allowed to bring it back inside, I put four coats of polyurethane on it so we won't have this whole water damage problem again. Trust me. It was a necessary step.

And here it is! Didn't it turn out so beautiful? And the best part for me: I spilled some water on it and it all just beaded up so I could wipe it off. None of it absorbed into the table! Huzzah!! I'd call that definite success.

Another view of my pretty table. What do you think? I LOVE it!

I'm linking up to these fun parties!

Iheartnaptime.blogspot.com

Floating Shelves

I have this beautiful living room (well, it will be beautiful. I'm determined that it will be). Sad thing is, I'm insanely intimidated about putting anything up on the walls in there. Therefore, I have these huge BLANK walls staring at me every time I go in there.

I also have this amazing sister in law and brother in law that have these gorgeous floating shelves in their family room with lots of fun pictures of their kids. Every time we go over there, I find myself gravitating toward those shelves just to look at the beautiful pictures! So I finally decided to get some nerves, and some shelves, and put up some of my own!

Here's the before picture of the living room wall. Here are my supplies. Well, minus a few things, but you'll see it all in the finished product. I got these shelves from Home Depot. I bought two 35" shelves and two 24" shelves in espresso. They're super easy to install. I started out over thinking it, but then they were easy peasy once I got the hang of it. You just find where you want to put them up, put up your stud (the piece of unfinished wood) and put in one screw, then put a level on top to make sure it's all nice and straight. Put in the other two screws (on the long one -- only one more on the shorter one). Then put the actual shelf on it. I tried to center it on the stud. Then put in two more screws to secure it to the stud. Then put some cute little stickers to cover your screws. See, super easy!

And, here's the finished product. I still want to put in a huge temple picture right in the middle and get some pictures of my other three kids up there. I think it's turning out gorgeous so far! Oh, and I'm going to put some other letters on the piano, too. I'll post a picture of that later!

Much better, right?

I'm linking up to some fun parties!

Fourth of July Trifle Cake

Isn't this so fun and patriotic? I mean, come on, what could be better than Old Glory, lots of fresh strawberries and blueberries, and creamy, dreamy trifle? And, yes, I was corrected by almost every member of my family saying I didn't have enough stripes. Oh well! It was delicious anyway!

Now, I call this the Fourth of July Trifle Cake, but it's been called All-American Dessert and American Flag Snickers Cake. You read that right. It has Snickers in it. Now are you interested? Here's the link to the amazingly easy recipe. Oh, and I made it with fresh whipped topping (as in, I made it myself from whipping cream. Just beat up two pints and add some powdered sugar and vanilla to taste).

So, go get your patriotic on while you still have a few blessed hours free of work (hopefully)!

Meatball Subs

We had the yummiest dinner tonight! It was Meatball Subs made with this amazing sauce! I cheated and used the Costco meatballs, put them on a hoagie roll and poured on a good size spoonful of the sauce from the spaghetti and meatball recipe. So good! Try it! And the best part was that I still have a TON of sauce left over for making homemade pizza tomorrow night for dinner.

Sorry, I don't think I'll be that amazing with taking pictures of the food just because dinnertime is pretty crazy around here (who has the time to think of a camera when you have 6 hungry people needing food?!). I promise, though, these are amazing!