New Kitchen Plans on hold

((Happy bubble))<<<<<<<POP!!!! Yes my happy bubble was just totally popped :( I just took the measurements for the counter tops so I could get my first real quote and it's going to cost double what I was planning on spending. I could do it for WAY cheaper if I go with laminate counters or nix the new layout (which requires bigger counter tops) but I think I will just have to give up for now and save my checks. If I'm really going to do this I am going to make it perfect and do it right the first time. I am still going to paint the cabinets soon though because those aren't effected by this delay :)

I did however have a ton fun playing with the virtual room designer on Lowes' website yesterday ;) I now have my new kitchen design and layout all input into a 3D model. Hubby finally understands the vision I have had all along and loves how it will look when it's all done. Hopefully once taxes are done we will have enough left, after bills are paid, to be able to order the counter tops so I can get this show... on the road. My plan was to spend no more than $2000 but the counter tops are going to be almost $3000 so the new plan is to stay under $3500 FOR SURE!!!! That will include rearranging and painting the existing cabinets, adding 2 new base cabinets, new vent hood over the stove, new lighting, new REAL stone counters, knocking down the half wall and adding hardware to everything. I am soooooo freaking excited this kitchen is all I think and dream about. I know, I know I am a very sad person but hey some people love hiking in their free time and some people like to rebuild/reinvent their perfectly good house lol.

Here's some good pics of the kitchen now and then pics from the 3D model I created on Lowe's website. It's going to be beautiful!!!

 

The Slow Beginings of a Cheap Kitchen Reno

I am sooooooooo desperate to change up my kitchen it's hard to contain myself. I have already picked out new counter tops, I know what color I what the cabinets, back splash is tied between 2 choices and I have the perfect layout all planned in my head. The problem with this dream is funds and time. Since I'm now a working girl the funds will be coming in but my time gets shorter and shorter each day with kids homework, after school clubs and of course my new job now. I have decided that I am going to go ahead and start the reno process though and just take it slow, like one baby step every other week kind of slow. Here's some shots of the kitchen before any work begins.

Our cabinets are in great condition but the builder's grade honey oak has got to go so they will be getting a coat of paint. I also can't stand that we have NO hardware of any doors or drawers, there is a small lip in the bottom edge of each door and drawer to act as a "handle". I break my nails all the time of that stupid lip because the cabinet doors are to heavy to just pull from that. I NEED hardware on them STAT!!!!

 I LOVE the look of having some open cabinets but wasn't sure if this would look good since we don't have the best "show" pieces of dinnerware. As you can see our uppers are a little...um messy and in their current state nothing in them belongs on "display". PLEASE ignore my dirty pots and pans I was just to excited to start the process that I wasn't wasting precious time doing dishes lol.

So for my first baby step I reorganized all the cabinets and took off a pair of doors for a trial run. It only made sense that the cups should be by the fridge anyway, thanks to pinterest I save every glass jar possible so those needed to be organized and my top shelves were full of unnecessary junk so I was just wasting that space.

 I have always stored my prized polish pottery collection on my hutch but when stored there it rarely got used and just seemed to become a catch all for junk and paperwork. It looks so pretty on there (when it's all decluttered like in the picture) but what's the point of having spent the money on it if I can't ever get to it to use it soooooo I think this should go in my now open cabinet.

Ok so this doesn't really qualify as part of a reno but more of just a clean up an reorganization project but hey the jobs gotta start somewhere, right? I like the open cabinet right now and I am pretty sure once the cabinets are painted that like will turn into love.

 

 

What's on the agenda for the actual reno job you ask? Well like I said earlier I will be painting the cabinets, hopefully getting new quartz counter tops, putting in a tile or stone back splash and replacing the pantry door with something more fun. I also want to move the fridge, knock down the hated half wall and either add an island or extend the cabinets and counter into a peninsula. I always say I have $60,000 dreams with an empty bank account and that is a very true statement but I plan on doing this entire kitchen renovation for about $1,500 ($1,100 of that is just for the counter tops). So one baby step down and I promise on my next kitchen reno post the project I do will be a much bigger change. P.S. I need ideas on a color to paint that hutch so bring on the suggestions.





Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!! I am officially back from an awesome extended vacation and am ready to get my hands dirty with some projects. Just before Christmas I received a job offer so after 4 years of being a stay at home mom I am rejoining the workforce. I am super excited but of course nervous since it has been awhile. I will of course not have as much free time to play with my tools but now I will have extra funds which means I can make my bigger dreams come true ;) Oh and yes my husband is very scared of what's to come in my free time now lol.

Between hubby and I's anniversary, black Friday sales and Christmas I upgraded some of my tools and got some really awesome new ones. Hubby also officially gave over half the garage which allows me to have an actual workshop area. I LOVE having an organized work area where I can actually find, store and use all my tools. Here's some shots of my happy place and new toys.

With these new toys and my new funds this is the project list I have come up with. It is a very long list and I know there are a few far fetched things on it but hey it's all just dreams and visions I have in my head. So here's to 2013 and whatever it may hold for making our dreams into realities.

What are your hopes and dreams for this year?

DIY Play Kitchen

I know all of you have seen the awesome DIY play kitchens all over pinterest and like you I have been dreaming of making one of those since I first laid eyes on the idea. Unfortunately my kids are just to big to truly enjoy playing with a kiddy kitchen so thought I was out of luck. My luck turned around though when my sister asked me to make one for her kids for Christmas. I of course said YES after I finished doing the happy dance. I instantly began the hunt for the perfect entertainment center to start with. After about a week I found one on Craigslist for $20 and the couple even delivered it to my house for no additional charge!! Talk about a big score!

As you can see it is not in the best of shape but I figured for $20 I could totally make it work. Once it arrived though I discovered it was in worse shape than I thought. In the pictures I could tell the top piece was warped but I figured I could just replace that it it would be good to go. NOT!! The entire piece was completely warped all the way to the bottom so the doors didn't even shut properly. I started hunting for another one but was coming up with nothing and time was running out.

Got shoved into the corner for awhile

I was very discouraged on how and where to begin to make this into something safe and study for my niece and nephew which caused me to lose my mojo completely. After weeks of this thing just sitting in my garage my mom called to let me know she would be picking it up the Friday before Christmas to take to my sister. This of course caused the OH CRAP light bulb to go off in my head because I now had only a week to figure out what to do and get it done.

I knew the first thing I needed to do was replace the top shelf and put a sturdy backing on it so I took the measurements for those and headed to Lowes. I had them cut the pieces for me since even though I have a nice new table saw my work area is a little to small to cut down 4ft x 8ft sheets of wood. I used some thin plywood for the backing which was about $16 for the sheet (after they cut it down you do get to keep the extras so you still receive the whole sheet) and I went with particle board for the top shelf which was about $18 a sheet. Since the middle shelf was also warped pretty bad I also had them cut that from my particle board sheet. Thankfully I only needed one sheet of each and I even have a little left overs to put in my wood pile to use on future projects.

Once I came home with my perfectly cut down pieces I was ready to finally tackle this thing. Woohooo! The excitement did not last long though because once I removed the top and middle shelves and slide the new ones in place for a fit test I discovered just replacing those fixed no part of the actual structure problem. My husband came out and tried to help me brainstorm some more ideas but the only thing we could come up with was go buy more wood and just build the whole thing from scratch using the same measurements as the original. I sooooooooo did not have time to test out if I could even build an entire piece of sturdy furniture from scratch. I literally sat on the floor in my garage staring at this darn tv center for at least 3 hours. FINALLY the light bulb went off and I had a new perfect plan! I took measurements, drew out a blue print of exactly what I needed to do and ran back to Lowes (and yes I am on a first name basis with half of the employees at Lowes by now lol).

My vision was to build a base for the whole stand to sit on. This would level out the entire lower half, allow the doors to be realigned and prevent it from ever warping again since will now be supported in the center, front, back and sides. I used 1x3s and wood screws to build the base and then I took the entire entertainment center apart and screwed the bottom shelf to the base. Voila! It was now a perfectly flat and level lower half. I then started putting all the pieces back together using wood screws to secure the shelves instead of the half broken cam bolts it originally came with. I was able to use the original middle shelf as well so only the top shelf now needed to be replaced which was super easy.

 

Now that the whole thing is put together I can FINALLY get to the fun parts...prime, paint and make it look like a kitchen! I missed taking a picture before I cut the sink and oven holes but I'm sure you can imagine what it looked like without those holes lol. For the primer I did some research on the best kind to use for laminate furniture and this was HIGHLY recommend so here's what I used.

After the first coat it looked pretty rough.

Coat number two helped it to look much better.

I did three coats total which gave complete coverage. After the third coat was dry I sanded the whole thing down just enough to smooth any brush strokes out. Since this is a great "gripping" primer you can now use standard interior latex paint for it instead of the more expensive enamel paints. I picked up another smaller sheet of wood which I used to cut out a door for the "fridge" and the "oven". I thought it to be a good idea to make sure those pieces fit before I started slapping on coats of paint that I would want to get completely scratched up. I am so thankful I did check them because I needed to sand them down quite a bit so they would glide smoothly without rubbing the paint when they are opened and closed.

Once the doors were sanded down to perfect size I added some trim to fronts of them. I then made some homemade chalkboard paint by adding unsanded tile grout to the red paint. I put 2 coats of paint on everything and then sealed it with 2 coats of polyurethane. Make sure to use a fine grit sand paper before you begin to poly coat it. Once everything was all painted, trimmed and installed TA DA!!!!!!

The "fridge" door is a chalkboard that the kids can write on, the "oven" opens the way all ovens do and there is a shelf and hooks the kids can use to hang cooking utensils. The sink and cooktop I used came from the tiny play kitchen the kids originally had and they could not have been more perfect for this project. Both doors have magnetic catches so they stay closed.

There is plenty of storage for all kinds of pots, pans and food for sure. I think it came out perfect! One day I will make a window to go above the sink but I ran out of time so for now it's just going to stay white. This was an extensive project that took me about 40 hours and about $120 but it was so much fun and definitely one of the most rewarding things I have done so far! I do have a lot of the supplies I used left over so all in all I'd say I spent about $80 in what actually went on it.

Simple and Cheap Dinner Recipies: John Wayne Casserole

Since moving back to the states from Germany or finances have been WAY beyond tight. When it comes to grocery shopping in order to save money I have been buying a lot of box meals (like hamburger helper and Velveeta skillets) but after months of eating these I am absolutely sick of them and so is my family. I have ask readers and friends for their favorite budget friendly meals as well as scouring pinterest for some. In my last hunt I came across this John Wayne Casserole recipe so I bought what was needed and cooked it last night. Oh.M.Gee this is one of the best meals I have EVER made! I found the recipe here http://www.navywifecook.com/2012/07/john-wayne-casserole.html. I omitted the bell pepper and only put jalapeños on half so it wouldn't be to hot for the kids. I also just added the cooked half of the onions into the hamburger meat instead of having them as a separate layer. Most everything that goes into this is a staple that I have in my pantry at all times so the only thing I actually had to buy was 1 1/2 pds hamburger meat at $3.50 and some fresh roma tomatoes for about .50 and in order to make it another 2-3 times or so (which I will be doing) those are still the only 2 things I would need to buy. We all enjoyed seconds and our bellies were happy happy happy! Oh and my husband who hates eating leftovers just finished eating what we had left from last night lol.

Mini Apple Pies: A great snack for the kiddos and YOU

I made some mini apple pies for snack today, oh and a couple slices of cinnamon pizza for my daughter who doesn't like apples. These were delicious and super easy! Perfect snack for weekends or winter break when the kids will be home all day.

 

Ingredients:

1 apple sliced and cored

1 package of crescent rolls

1/3 cup cinnamon sugar mixture

2 Tbsp melted butter

 

Heat oven to 350. Unroll crescent rolls. Brush the unrolled crescent with melted butter. Sprinkle on cinnamon/sugar mixture. For cinnamon pizza slices just lay the unrolled pieces on cookie sheets but if you want apple pies then place an apple slice at the wide end and just roll it up. I used pink lady apples but use any kind you want. Place on a cookie sheet, brush melted butter on top, sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar and bake until golden brown. About 10 mins for the pizza slices and at least 15 for the apple pies. Let cool and enjoy!!

Please forgive the photo I just created an instagram account and forgot to take a real picture before we started inhaling these.

From Trashy to Classy: My Daughter's Dresser Makeover

Alright so in my last post Help me!!! Design my daughter's "new" dresser I asked for help from all of you on what to do with this terrible dresser I blindly bought. I received LOTS of comments with some awesome ideas. After three long days of mainly non stop work I am happy to say the hunk of junk is now BEAUTIFUL!!!!! I had so much trouble figuring out exactly what I wanted to do with this other than make the base black. A few of the comments suggested painting the side of the drawers for that extra pop of color and removing one of the drawers to make a cubby shelf. I loved both those ideas so knew I wanted to incorporate them into the new design. Originally I planned on keeping it black, white and pink but after starring at it for hours I got an epiphany!!! I have been DYING to find something that matched the blue in her rug for months but have come up empty handed on all my searches. THIS was the perfect thing add that color to the somewhere other than the floor. So how do you find that perfect matching color in a paint store? That's an easy one just pick up the rug out of the room load it in the back of your car, drive to Sherwin Williams and walk through the door with rug tucked under arm. LMAO I was sadly proud of this moment. They were very helpful as always and we picked the perfect color in minutes. I don't have pics of the "making the magic" process mainly because I didn't know what I was doing until it was already done. To sum it up though I sanded it down some to rough up the surface than used all my little buckets of paint (sample quarts from Sherwin Williams that costs $6 each) to paint each area separately. Each area has 3 coats of paint on it. I used a regular good angled paint brush on everything except the handles, used some small craft brushes on those. For the cubby I just removed the drawer track that was in there and cut a thin pine board to fit inside. Then I painted the board and nailed it into place.

The before pic....

and the AFTER!!!!

I have been dying to use the blue from her rug somewhere!

 

I painted the sides of the drawers for that extra pop of color

 

This is the original hardware that came with I, I just painted it to match

Found these super cute knobs at Hobby Lobby

Oh I love them now but painting them with a tiny paint brush earlier was a pain in the butt

Here it is in all it's decorated glory.



I am extremely happy with how it came out and think it looks perfect in her room now.

Total investment on this one:
$60 for the dresser
black paint leftover from her chair rail project so it was free
pink paint left over from painting her walls so it was free
teal paint $6 (with plenty of leftovers to make wall art with hehe)
board for cubby shelf $5 at Lowe's
Knobs came from her old dresser but got them 50% off at Hobby Lobby which made them $3 each

Total Cost: Lots of back pain but it's now a priceless piece of art :)