The Kitchen Remodel

While our kitchen may not be the ugliest kitchen (believe me, we lived in an apartment with the most hideous kitchen I've ever seen), but has to be one of the least functional kitchens out there.  We have dirty, old cabinets that were never intended for this house.  They must have gotten them from a showroom, or a different house or something.  I have one very small drawer in my whole kitchen.  We have our utensils in an upper cabinet because of it.  Two of the cabinet doors had to come off because they forgot to factor in the bump-out in the wall.  The doors wouldn't even open because they hit each other.  My pantry is a joke!  It's next to the fridge and extremely hard to get anything from there.  Needless to say, we can't wait to start working on our new kitchen!

Here are some before pictures:

If you're thinking there are a million things on the counter...you're right!

Yep, check out that awesome little drawer that is missing a drawer front.  Or how about checking out the corner cabinet that has a Lazy Susan that you can't get to because the doors open into the oven and side cabinet.

Just reach your hand next to the fridge to get to the back of the pantry...it's very convenient!

And here is what my Dad has come up with to make our kitchen ten billion times better!

This section stays mostly the same, except there is a nice corner upper cabinet that will actually function. 

Now here's where it gets exciting, for me anyways.  An island!  With drawers!!  We'll also have a little space for 2 stools.  Plus our fridge will be rotated and we will have an actual pantry cabinet that I can easily reach and organize!

Bathroom Inspiration Board

We are literally sooo close to finishing up the nursery (have you heard that same thing before?). But seriously, almost done! We are putting on all of the final touches and are waiting on our rug!

Now, we're on to our next project. I really didn't think we would tackle sprucing up our "master bath", but we've had some amazing deals fall into our hands, so I couldn't resist. I've been dreaming of fixing it up for quite some time and I'm excited that it's really happening. The major eye sore in the bathroom is the sink area. The sink's pipes are all exposed and there is no vanity. The mirror is blah and the light, ugh, I hate that light with a passion (it doesn't help that it's falling out of the wall). It's pretty much the only room we haven't painted so it's still that strange green color.

Some ugly before pictures:

(I swear I just cleaned my mirror!)

Here is an inspiration board with a breakdown of the expected costs:



1. The bathroom already has trim running at about a quarter of the way up the wall. We've decided to paint the top portion white (with leftover paint we already have) and the lower portion a light blue/green color called Water Mark from Behr. Coral will be our accent color. I had been looking at the coral fabric pictured online. The cheapest I found it was for $15 a yard. On a recent stop to Joann's, I found the exact fabric on clearance. I got 2.5 yards for $5!
Paint: $20
Fabric:$5

2. I'll be making 3 art prints to go above our towel rod. I already have extra frames I can use and I'll just print them at home.
Art: FREE

3. I found these coral tea light holders and coral decor piece on Amazon. We happen to have a gift card to Amazon (thanks Comcast).
Accessories: FREE

4. We already have nice white towels and an accent towel in the blue/green color. I want to order a coral print hand towel from Pottery Barn. We also have a gift card for Pottery Barn, so again, no cost!
Towels: $0

5. I found this light on Overstock for only $39.99. We have a code for free shipping. It's not the most exciting light ever, but it will look nice and get the job done. Plus anything is better than the hideous gold fixture currently falling off my wall.
Lighting: $39.99

6. A new mirror! The one we have right now, besides being boring, is very wide. Which as you may guess, makes you look very wide. Which isn't that fun when you're pregnant. I avoid that mirror like the plague. We lucked out at Home Depot and found a mirror for $19, yes really $19. All it needs is some white paint to disguise its fake gold rustic color.
Mirror: $19

7. Again, cashing in on our Amazon gift card, I found this faucet for $44.95 plus free shipping.
Faucet: $0

8. Now, HERE is the most exciting part, for us at least. Our bathroom is a weird T-shape. The sink is stuck at the top of the "T" in between 2 doors. This means that there is not a lot of room for a vanity or sink, without have to shimmy around it. Well, Home Depot had a vanity + sink combo that is the PERFECT size. It is not very deep, so we won't have to shimmy anymore, but the sink part is wider and actually has space for us to place things. And the best part of it all, it was on sale for $70! I can't find a picture of the one we actually bought, but the one pictured is very close, except our sink is more round and has more room on it. The one pictured is actually listed on Home Depot for over $400! Yikes! I'll be using the coral fabric to make a little curtain to hide the bottom shelf.
Vanity/Sink Combo: $70!!!

9. We already own the rugs, shower curtain and other bath accessories in the right colors so again, we're not spending money.
Other Accessories: $0.

Estimated Total Cost: $153.99

Pretty good I think, seeing as a vanity alone is usually more than that!

Over the Break...

We have had a really awesome break. We had a great Christmas at our house. We missed our families, but it was really nice to be able to relax and enjoy the morning. I (of course) love everything Adam got me. Adam is an annoyingly good gift giver. He always knows JUST what I would want or like. I mean, what husband can pick out clothes for you that a)fit and b)you love?! He just knows what I like all too well. It's great for me but at the same time, makes me feel a lot of pressure to get him really thoughtful presents. Not that Adam would care what I got him, BUT I always want to try to be as thoughtful as he is. I think I did a great job this year in this department. I'll blog my favorite present I made for him later this week! Later in the day, we had some friends who were here in Provo over for dinner and played a great round of Clue. Did you know they have revamped the old Clue game?! Neither did we...

The rest of this break has been spent hanging out with each other, playing Super Mario Bros. on the Wii and doing projects around the house. The biggest one we've completed has been a complete renovation of the bathroom in our upstairs rental apartment. If you didn't know, at some point the attic of this house was turned into a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment. It has it's own separate entrance, which is great. We lucked out in that most of our house was updated, however, the upstairs...not so much. It has been in need of some definite help. Here are the before pictures of the nasty bathroom:

Notice the dated flooring and the dresser in the wall. It's nice for extra storage but sticks out like a sore thumb painted that atrocious color. You can also see the "tiles" that are falling off of the wall. They are actually not even real tile. In fact, we have NO idea what they're made out of.

No comment.

Gross. Notice that half of that drawer is missing.

Really, anything we could do to this bathroom would be a huge improvement. We ended up putting in new sub-floor, vinyl flooring, taking down the tiles, painting, putting in a new vanity and storage cupboard, new lighting and resurfacing the tub. And be we, I mean Adam. All by himself. He is seriously so amazing! My little handyman...Here are the awesome after shots.




Here you can get a glimpse of the dresser painted with new hardware. Down by the window is where the toilet and vanity reside. It's painted a nice fresh white and the tile is gone!

The new extra storage cupboard.

New medicine cabinet and lights.

New sink and vanity.

Adam's flawless flooring job! I should've taken a before/after picture of the bathtub as well, because resurfacing a tub does wonders for it's appearance. I didn't even know you could do such a thing before tackling this project!

And for those of you who only read my blog to see my expanding stomach, here is a picture from New Year's. Adam's description of my stomach these days is that it's very "roundy".