Back to blogging...

Well, there has been another baby followed by a lengthy illness, followed by a surgery, followed by complications, followed by a lengthy recovery between this post and last so I guess I have a good excuse for abandoning this blogging adventure (more on the illness/surgery/complications/recovery in a future blog). So here I go again. Did I also mention we undertook a kitchen renovation during all this as well?

When we first laid eyes on this house, I drooled over the beautiful granite countertops the previous homeowner had installed. I raved to my husband how gorgeous the cherry-stained custom cabinets were (they were a step up from the golden-oak with particleboard and golden oak-sticker end panels that faded in the sun to more of a pink oak). The house had a lot of other things going for it as well, and our previous home sold in one week so we knew it was time to move up in house.

The kitchen just weeks after moving in..

Six months later, and my blindness was gone. The kitchen cabinets were custom, but they were small, finished with the most non-durable ugly protective coating I have ever seen, and after a year of two small children banging into them, they were further scratched and damaged. I bought some time for a while by painting the beautiful brass handles and hinges with some oil rubbed bronze spray paint, but as the paint wore down, I realized that was only a very temporary solution.

The kitchen a year after moving in...we slowly got rid of white appliances and slowly bought black appliances as they were on sale. You can't see the scratches and dings, but the blotchy, uneven stain is very visible..  Can you see how the beautiful granite countertops could have blinded me?!

Then it started.... "Honey, I think we should renovate the kitchen, I can totally build all new cabinets myself." ...Husband smiles and nods hoping it's just a passing notion... This was followed by much research on my part into how to build cabinets, the DIY way. Heck, I had a Kreg Jig, I could build anything with that, right? And if Ana White could do it, so could I. The passing notion did fade a bit when I became pregnant with Little Mister, but my passion just switched from "I can totally build our kitchen cabinets" to "we can totally afford to have someone build us custom cabinets".  I finally wore Husband down (actually, he just loves me and wants me to be happy), and with a combination of sweat equity and hiring Mark Hall Cabinetry to build our beautiful, new, white shaker cabinets, we pulled off a kitchen reno that came in with a price tag under $10,000! Look for future posts on how exactly we pulled this off....

 Smaller eat-in kitchen space and lost window, but I gained a coffee bar and a huge pantry!

 Beautiful Shaker cabinets extend all the way to the ceiling, and cabinets above fridge are more accessible.

Lower cabinets were refaced only so we could keep our granite counters.

DImommY

My husband has gotten good at the smile and nod. I come up with these crazy ideas and present them to him and he just smiles and nods and doesn't say a word to discourage me (except maybe, "How much is this project going to cost?". This blog is my attempt to document my frenzy of DIY projects.

I have recently subscribed to Pinterest which has only made my DIY addiction worse (well, that and my oldest went off to kindergarten this year, so I have some time previously spent breaking up fights between two sisters available to me). Anyway, on Pinterest you create a virtual pinboard of ideas of stuff you like, which has been lovely for me because I often see or think of DIY projects but often forget about them and am onto the next. However, with Pinterest the pictures are there forever on your pinboard (at least until whatever blog site you pinned them from takes them down). So, I have these lovely pictures of clean, organized entryways, boot benches, laundry rooms, and bits and pieces of my dream kitchen. Now I can look at these pictures every day. My crazy ideas for these pictures build every day. I look at them and try to think of how I can make that happen in my own house without spending $100 a day at Menards every day for a week (which is what seems to happen with most DIY projects...). For example, here's one of those lovely pictures I pinned on Pinterest of my dream mudroom/entryway:

My house has a very narrow entry from the garage through the laundry room and I will never have my dream entryway in our current house unless major renovations are undertaken, or unless I throw out my washer and dryer, which I have considered on occasion. Here's what I came up with to try to re-create that lovely, organized mudroom/entryway in my garage:

Not too bad, I can totally live with this!!
Bench--made from scrap lumber and painted with $1.00 oops paint from Lowes. Design from ana-white.com
Crates--also made from scrap lumber, design from ana-white.com . They are on casters so they can roll in and out and they hold our former jumbled pile of shoes. I am thinking I might do some kind of aged-looking stain on them to make them look old, but I HATE staining..
Rug--on sale at Lowes for $20. I saw that it matched the teal on the bench perfectly and it looks fun and summery which I will appreciate in the winter.
Shelf--closetmaid track system from Lowes. Can't remember how much all that cost, but it was cheaper than building the shelves out of wood.
Bins--$3.99 each at Menards.
Coat racks -- got them at Hobby Lobby 50% off, $15 each!!

Next you will be hearing of my escapades to renovate my kitchen cabinets, which I will test out by renovating my laundry room cabinets (somehow this all started with my husband's displeasure that we have to put cereal boxes on top of the fridge, so this crazy idea is not my fault..... ;-) )