Kitchen plans:New layout

The layout of our kitchen sucks.

Like I said before we have next to no counter space. 

I HATE having the stove up against the wall and the fridge sticks out suuuuuper far into the dining area/walkway. Wasted space in the dining area and hall china cabinet and a peninsula with a dishwasher that makes using the cabinets next to it impossible.

So here is the plan so far, courtesy of my awesome brain and a pen and paper:

All soffits will be removed.
Duh.
Upper cabinets raised and crown added up to the ceiling.

Here is the L-shaped main run of cabinets which includes sink and stove......

Dishwasher flush against the wall, get rid of the peninsula and open it up!!!
Also planning on taking down the lonely upper cabinet and putting in some open shelves.

Round that corner and where we removed the counter cook top (second pic from top) is where we'll be relocating the stove.

As you can see from the before photo there isn't a ton of room but I would rather move the stove than have a big base corner cabinet. We'll be gaining a bunch of storage elsewhere and we're already used to living out of 7 cabinets so I'm not worried. I refuse to have a freestanding stove (vomit) so this will most likely require a custom cabinet built on the outside, possibly open storage for cookbooks like I drew. 

We'll see.

On the wall where the stove is now we will have this:

Framed in fridge and four feet of uninterrupted counter space!!! :)

So those are the plans and as you can see I already have all the measurements written below each cabinet. That is because we already have the cabinets, they're stacked tetris style in our garage until spring.

My Aunt and Uncle recently bought a condo and after gutting the kitchen, generously gave us the cabinets and granite counter tops. 

How awesome is that!?!

The cabinets are really, really nice oak and will look really, REALLY nice once they're painted.

This ^ run of cabinets just so happens to be 48" inches and will fit perfectly beside the fridge. That also means one less cut of those granite counter tops-kind of the straw that broke the camels back for moving the stove.

Granite looks like this close up:

Along with the base and upper cabinets there are also two pantry cabinets-24"ish wide by 6ft-ish tall. 

One of them will be built in at the end of the hallway and the L shaped banquette will run from there under the window to the dishwasher cabinet. 

Also planning on ripping out that china cabinet in the hallway and putting in a real pantry with a single door.

Stay tuned for a million inspiration pics and plans!

Kitchen plans, part one of many

We've been dreaming of gutting our kitchen for three years now.

The day we moved in the oven didn't work, thankfully my parents were in the middle of their kitchen reno so they were able to give us their old one.

Over time almost everything else has fallen apart.

The cabinets are original to our 1950's ranch and had birch door fronts back in the day. Back in the 80's the previous owners thought it would be a good idea (side eyes at them) when they put in new pink laminate counter tops to add laminate to the door fronts too. The doors are so heavy that they're pulling the hinges right out of the cabinets. I gave up trying to put them back on so we have a majorly ugly open storage look going on!

The (empty) soffits are covered in pink wallpaper, the switch for the disposal (which doesn't work anymore) is on the front of the sink cabinet (water and electricity are best friends right!?), the back splash tile looked like an 80's McDonald's bathroom, there is next to no counter space, the dishwasher does not wash dishes-it needs to be fired (Office Space printer scene style!), some of the counters are actually loose in places, the faucet only works if you don't turn it up too high otherwise the water shuts off AND the kitchen and laundry room (directly below the kitchen) are on the same breaker so we can't run the microwave or dishwasher and the washer or dryer at the same time because it trips the breaker.

#longestrunonsentenceever


These pictures are from our first showing with our realtor.

Yikes.

It was overwhelming but I could see through all that CRAP to the potential!

We haven't been able to do a lot with it over the years but stripping the wallpaper in the dining area and  painting the soffits and the tile white was a big improvement

We also removed the cook top that the previous owners had, you can see the piece of plywood below covering the hole in the counter top.

This coming spring we will finally be tackling this beast!

So, so, SOOOOO excited!!!!!

If you've been reading for a while now you know how budget conscious I am. 

This reno will be done as cheaply as possible and I'm excited to share it all here!

Over the next couple weeks I'll be sharing some of our plans here so stay tuned and follow along if you want to.

I'm back!

Wow, the last month really got away from me!

I needed a little break though.

Here's what happened while I was gone:

Winter came! We had record setting sub-zero temps here in Montana for almost a full week along with a few winter storm watches. Last Saturday it dropped to -33 the wind chill was almost -50!! We still have about 8 inches of snow but man 35 degrees feels like tropical weather after -50! Hoping we have a White Christmas!

Jude starting reading a few weeks ago-makes my Mommy/teacher heart so happy!!

Our bedroom was finished....horrible photos, again, I know :(  Camera suggestions under $600-ish?!!?

I started running a few months ago. I've never been a runner per se but I really enjoy it, although I'm not very good. My cousin and a friend and I signed up for a Run or Dye 5K...date to be set in 2014. I set a goal for myself last month to get a 12 minute mile by February, (6 months ago I was walking a 20 minute mile and I'd been able to whittle it down to 14-15 min.) the day before Thanksgiving I ran a 12:06 mile! :)
I then took 10 days off and nearly died yesterday getting back into it but I pushed through and did 3 miles in 44 minutes!

I was asked to help out with some design work at a local retirement home. There is no budget so it's mostly working with what they have and just rearranging. I'm excited about this project though because it's such a great way to give back to the community (I'm donating my time).....more on that later though.

I'm DONE with my Christmas shopping. I'm usually getting things the day before so this is big progress for me! As far as gifts for our boys we do...
-something you want
-something you need
-something to wear
-something to read

I read about this idea here two years ago.....love it!


Hope you've all been well....glad to be back!

PS- Our bathroom remodel is on Apartment Therapy!!!!

Saturday musings

Wow, you guys are the best! Thank you so much for all of your sweet comments and emails about our bathroom, I'm definitely feeling the love.

I have an exciting project that I'll be working on in the next few weeks, refinishing a table/desk and chair and a vintage rocking chair that will be up for auction at a fundraiser for a local school. Be watching for the (hopefully) stunning befores and afters, I'm also donating a one hour design consultation! 

I've been playing around with the design for our kitchen remodel this week. I'm still not sure if we'll be able to do it this coming spring or if we'll have to wait another year so I'm trying to not get my hopes up. Here's where I'm headed so far, hope you all have a great weekend!!

Our Bathroom Reveal!!

Giving up the pipe dream today. I have hope though, in the form of a (maybe) kitchen remodel come spring. 

Fingers crossed for a decent tax return! ;)

Ok so just for fun, lets take one more look at the 'before' shots:

So, so, SO sick.

And here my loyal readers, all twelve of you, are the afters.

My camera really sucks.....the flooring is gray not craptastic Tuscan brown.

*The door still needs a couple coats of glossy black

*The colors are weird here because of the flash, but look how my contractor modified those drawers around the plumbing!!

LOVE this sink hardcore! 

It's really huge and even when my three year old washes his hands there's no over spray onto the counter.

I'm seriously thrilled with how this bathroom turned out and more thrilled that it cost under $3500 for EVERYTHING!

So spill it peeps, did I knock your socks off?

*If not, just wait for our kitchen remodel ;)

Help!

The bathroom remodel is plugging away; paneling is up and I'll start painting it tonight, flooring in tomorrow and vanity to follow. Exciting stuff people!! 

I need your help though, ^ obviously. 

I have a little chrome legged stool that is going to go in the bathroom and I can't decide on the upholstery. Like I said it's tiny, about 14" x 9", just big enough for a booty to sit during bath time. I want something that is nearly indestructible so I'm going with leather/faux leather/vinyl. 

So, pop of color or textured neutral???? 

Just for reference these are the other textiles that will be in the bathroom:

Bathroom vanity

is DONE.

Jacobean stain and Minwax finishing paste wax, which by the way is my new absolute favorite thing!

Low shine and a hard matte, waxy finish.

BEAUTIFUL!

Sorry for the crappy phone pics!

Recent finds and revised bathroom plans

I hope you all had a great long weekend. 
Can you believe it's September!? I love fall but man this summer flew by! 

Last Friday the guy who will be working on our bathroom came by to have a look and chat with us about what we wanted to do and set up a start time (beginning of next month). We found some mold in the bathroom cabinet so we decided to get a new vanity. Bath tub and shower are happening too. Yay!

Friday night I spent about an hour online looking at 5ft. bathroom vanities. I hated them all and they were really pricey. There's a guy in town who could custom make one for us but his quote was around $400-$500, which is a really great price for a 5ft vanity but more than we wanted to spend.

I started thinking about a piece of furniture instead of actual cabinetry, looked but there was nothing on Craigslist.

Saturday Stanley stayed home with the boys while my Mom and I went to some garage sales (got a set of antique flatware for $15), antique stores, grocery shopped and went out for lunch. 

Such a fun day!

We also went to The Barn, an antique/vintage shop. I found this great rug for $45 it's about 3'5" x 7'. It is the perfect size for our kitchen......when we remodel in ten years.

 We also found this dresser for $85.00

It was perfect for our bathroom and exactly what I'd had in mind!

Picture it kind of like this....

I'm planning on sanding it down, it won't take much it's pretty rough already, and staining it a little warmer, not so yellow. 
Like this:

I'm going to leave the finish real matte but I need to seal it...Briwax maybe?? Let me know if you've used it or know something else that will work.

Anyway, here is the revised bathroom plan.

We're going to do vertical planking on the bottom half of the wall, just like what we have now with the tile. I'm actually planning on reusing the wood trim to top off the planks. Planking/trim and walls/ceiling will all be Behr's Swiss Coffee. New tub, shower surround and toilet. We'll be getting a laminate top made for the vanity and we already ordered the vessel sink above.
 Two sconces on either side of the mirror. Different mirror than the original plan too, moving it from another room so no money spent. :)

We have this storage set up behind the door (which will be painted high gloss black).

There will be about 9 inches between the new vanity and the wall since it's smaller than the existing one. I'm planning on taking the doors off of those cabinets and having open storage, hamper in the bottom cabinet probably.

Stanley and I are really excited that we'll be able to take a shower upstairs!

It's the little things you know.