A Good Way To Spend A Rainy Day...

Wondering what I have been up to lately?

Maybe a more appropriate question would be "what haven't I been up to?"

Things have really been hopping since the first of the month.  In fact, I can hardly believe this is the last day of July!  AAAAHHHH! Can summer almost be over?  I had so many projects lined up in my head that I KNEW that I would accomplish over the summer!

I know...unrealistic.  When will I ever learn?

But the good news is that the BIG ONE is nearing completion. 

This was my kitchen at the end of last week when my husband rigged up plastic booths to sand. He is so thoughtful!  This way I didn't have nearly the dusty mess!

Ah, this last pic tells me it was Saturday.  Note the bowl of pizza dough sitting on the stove!  Yes, I cooked through the mess! 

And my before pics of right before we started painting to show all the lovely red paint.  I liked it, but am SO over it!

 You can also see the blue that was in the original dining room.  

And of course my not-so-lovely blue countertops which I am over, but am helpless to do anything about right now since they are not at the top of the priority list. 

My beautiful daughter helped me with the painting to work off her trip to Holiday World.  Actually she says she was going to help anyway.  Either way, I was very grateful for her help as it was a very large job.  1 coat of primer and 2 of topcoat, all those cabinets, and lots of wall space!

So, that's what I have been up to!

I will get some more pics up once we have the base boards back down and stuff pushed back to the walls.  

Also, after 7+ months DH is about ready to put down the final boards on the floor!  YIPPEEEEE!!!

Blessings,

Ronda

Help With a Decision!

I realized today that I had yet to show off the cabinets that I painted in my tiny downstairs bathroom! 

I won't give you the complete reveal because the floor is not done and the trim is still off the doorway. 

But I want opinions, so please read to the end of the post!!

For a while now I had been contemplating painting some of my cabinets.  Every cabinet in the house originally looked like this--

So the logical place to try was this tiny downstairs bathroom where there was only one small upper cabinet and a vanity.  And I knew that white and distressed was the way to go for this primitive loving girl.  

I love them!  Just hoping they hold up for several years, even though it really wasn't too difficult.  

Now for the big question!!  As hubby works diligently to finish laying the wood floor in the kitchen, I can see that I REALLY don't like the floor against the cabinets.  This should have come as no surprise to me since that is why I am painting all my woodwork! 

Something must change!  

The cabinets are custom-built, solid oak cabinets.  I don't know that I can bring myself to paint them.  So I have though about a darker stain over the existing, but that would also darken the kitchen.  So the other option is white paint like I did in the bathroom.  Just maybe not quite as distressed.  

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE GIVE ME OPINIONS!!  

I'm not in a hurry to do it, but when I have a decision like this, it typically consumes my thoughts until I decide! Help put me out of my misery!

Blessings, 

Ronda

Linking to:

http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.net/2013/08/party-junk-200-grain-sack-projects.html

More Kitchen

Some of you may be wondering how the big kitchen reno is going! 

Well, I will get to that in a minute...

Last weekend we the privilege of attending the wedding of Jeff's youngest brother and his lovely bride.  Actually, Jeff did more than attend, he officiated.  It was a beautiful wedding and a great time with family.  Our oldest son, Matt and his wife, Sarah were here from South Carolina for the wedding and also for her to spend the holiday weekend with her family.  

After the weekend, while Sarah drove home, Matt stayed for several days to help Jeff work on the kitchen project.  

When I came home on Sunday, this is what I found...

Both sons were here helping Jeff and they had thoughtfully put up plastic on both sides of the wall that was coming down to try to prevent drywall dust from going absolutely everywhere. 

The bad part was the fridge sitting in the middle of the current kitchen!  Made it extremely tough to move around in there. I knew I wouldn't be doing much cooking, but this kind of sealed it! 

Here is the view from the other side after the wall came down.  

This is Matt laying the subfloor in the room that originally had carpet. 

And after the plastic came down and the fridge got moved to someplace easier to handle...

Yuck! This shot makes me very anxious to get rid of the blue laminate countertops...but...that will be a while.  Unlessssss...well, still thinking about that.  

The wood floor is about halfway across the kitchen now, but you will have to wait for the finished product to see the pics!

Blessings,

Ronda

Tricycle Red Chair

Another chair has been completed for my dining room set!  This was another that originally had wood seat and the rest was white.  After my experience with the last one, I thought I would try a different route so that I wouldn't have the white showing through when I distressed.

So I spray painted the white parts with brown primer.  Primer, thinking that it would hold up better to a little sanding.  Then, once again (since I am a lazy painter) spray painting the whole thing black, followed by a bit of sanding.  

Hmmm....

The overall look, not bad.

BUT...

upon closer inspection...

 Not only did I do a poor job of spraying...

Yep, the white still showed through!  ARGH!

I even tried a little stain on the white spots, but the white paint didn't want to take the stain.  

So, spray it again, or do something a little different?

How about a little red milk paint?

 These were taken after one + a bit more coats of milk paint.  

And then another coat, some sanding, some more messing with paint after the white showed through again.  Still not thrilled...

So, a little dark wax...(and yes, I realize that I am using a lot of dot, dot, dot)

And...

I am actually quite happy with the finished result!

Sorry I didn't get more up close shots.  I tried, but they didn't turn out so great.  You'll just have to come by the house and see it in person!  

So now, I have 6 black chairs and one red!  One more to go to have a complete 8! 

Blessings,

Ronda

Chair Make-Over

 This chair has been sitting in my garage for a while now.  When we bought it at a yard sale, there was caning in the seat.  Since it was broken in places, we actually looked into how to re-cane it.  Jeff got so far as to take out most of the caning...and then there it sat.  No reflection on him-- I have given him too many projects!

I had determined that the chair was going to go in the trash, until a pic I saw on a blog one day inspired me.  I had nothing to lose, so I gave it a shot. 

It is far from perfect and I learned a few things along the way.  Don't know if I will ever have the opportunity to another chair like this, but if I do, I might do it a bit differently. 

And now we have 8 chairs to go around our farmhouse table! Two of them still need to be painted, but that's ok, they are fine as is.  Besides, Jeff still has table leaves to make before we actually need 8 chairs!

Blessings, 

Ronda

Craft Room Update Again...

I realized I haven't given you an update since hubby finished the closet reno. The closets in this room have never been terribly convenient.  They are shorter than normal and all the shelving in them was next to impossible to get to.  So I had him cut out the wall and put shelves all the way across so that I would have a place to store all of my paint supplies.  Since taking out the wall left an ugly spot on the floor, he decided to rip out the carpeting in the closet and put in flooring left over from my daughter's bedroom.  This is a temp fix until we save up the money to replace the carpeting in the entire room.  I'm kind of liking the way this flooring looks, though :)

I would like to figure out a way to hide the mess, but the shape of the closet kind of prohibits that.  I would welcome ideas...

Hadn't shown you any pics since I got all of my craft "stuff" put in this room, either.  My daughter thinks it may be tough to get to the thread that I want! Ah, well...it's cute, right?

Some things I found in my grandma's sewing box...

Which is actually the box down there on the bottom shelf.  I still have a small collection of paper patterns that I can't bring myself to get rid of, even though I doubt I will ever use them again.  

Haven't decided yet what I will put in the picnic basket...but I thought it was a nice addition to this room :)

And to answer the question in all of your minds....no, the kitchen has not made any progress!  Still living in a mess!

Blessings,

Ronda

A New Normal

 Welcome to my new normal....

At least for the next couple of months that is.  The kitchen renovation has officially begun!  One wall in the kitchen is going to completely disappear and one set of upper and lower cabinets will be reconfigured.  

 In the mean time, all the "stuff" that was in the cabinets has had to go elsewhere and the things on the countertop had to be moved to other countertops.  Didn't have much space in the kitchen to begin with, but now, despite the hole in the corner, it feels like the walls are closing in! 

And for those of you who told me I would get tired of a dark color-- I confess, I am ready for the red to be gone! Even though it has only been on there for a few years (3?), it is going to go away.  Unfortunately, the blue countertops will not be going away quite yet.  Those will have to wait until we can save up the funds. 

Hoping the next investment will be a new range :) Once again, when funds come available.  Stainless steel, smooth top! 

There are a few other projects on my radar alongside this one.  Hopefully I will take the time to blog about them!

Blessings,

Ronda