Finished Enough in the Kitchen

Oh my gosh! I forgot to show you what's going on in my kitchen...it's almost done. Certainly done enough for me for a while. yay!

Here's where we started last year around this time.

The left wall was the worst part. The door next to the fridge and the lack of usable cabinets was such a pain. Not to mention the inside of all the cabinets was the original particle board from the 60's. I'll just say "gross" and leave it at that.

At my last update, it looked like this (scroll down a bit).

Here's how it looks now (minus a few things on the counters). The room feels about 10 times larger and there is so much cabinet space that I can't even fill it! *sigh of relief* We've got a small island in the center now that really helps when you take something out of the fridge etc. And later we'll add another section of floor to ceiling cabinetry (just behind where I stood to take this photo) that will serve as larger storage and a pantry. I can totally live without that for now. I'm just so happy to have a new, clean kitchen.

Here's my favorite part! The baby bathtub, haha. No really, I love my new sink and faucet with no mysterious grime. Even better, the cabinet below it doesn't smell like an old folks home.

And we got it all done with time to spare before baby #1 arrives.

Finished Projects

**Note: My house is a cave on the brightest day, I apologize for the terrible photos.

I told you that we'd been trying to get some work done around the house before Nick's parents came, right? Here are a few of the projects we got (mostly) finished...

The Guest Room

I made some very bright and colorful curtains for the guest room. I bought some of that pre-patchworked (like this) fabric at JoAnn. I thought it would look good with the quilt that's in the room. It's the most colorful room in our house.

The Dining Room

 This is a photo of the room before we moved in. The door to the kitchen is long gone too, you can see how unnecessary it was with the kitchen just off to the right.

We took the Japanese doors and window screen out pretty quickly, but I only just finished patching up all the holes from all the framing it took to hang them.

We've replaced the light fixture, painted and I made some curtains too. Eventually I will be hemming the curtains and adding some decorative buttons to the tabs at the top. For now, it's just nice to have them hanging, haha.

The Hallway

We've still got a few walls that need some love, but I finally finished the quilt I was working on for the wall opposite the entryway.

Yep, it's the same line of fabric I used for both the living room and dining room curtains. I hope it's not too much of one thing.

Since this quilt was actually for us, I took my time and freehand quilted the whole thing. It took forever but I like the way it turned out. It really warmed up the hall too.

There were some more projects, but these are the biggies. This weekend, or some time soon, I hope we'll tackle the next phase of the kitchen remodel.

We'll be taking out the lower cabinets under the cooktop and replacing them with three new ones. It'll be nice to have the cooktop in the middle and lots of nice storage below and to the sides. Those old cabinets are so gross inside (you won't be seeing any pictures of that, ick). The cabinets are here, so I'm hopeful it'll be sooner than later...I won't hold my breath though. Oh, and yes, we will be putting doors on the uppers, they're just really expensive. I think it's more important to have more new cabinets than to hide my stuff...for now.

Totelicious Pattern

Last night I finally listed a new sewing pattern in my Etsy shop, yay! The shopper tote has been a good seller for me so why not share my innermost secrets with the world? Uh, yeah. Anyhoo, now you can make one for yourself, or your grandma! You'll learn to sew French Seams in this one and I've included some options for different pockets & such. I'm pretty happy with it and very relieved to have it done. On to the next one...mini wallet or tissue cozy, I think.

DIY Stickers

As much as I love to send out nice, clean boxes when I mail an order, I just can't bring myself to use a new box when there are stacks of them in my garage. So, I decided to make myself some recycling stickers for those reused boxes.

Step One: If the box has printing or labels on it, remove what you can then take it apart and reassemble the box inside out. It should appear clean now.

Step Two: Get yourself some full-sheet sticker paper at the local office supply store. I use this stuff for everything, address labels, logo stickers etc., etc. Very useful thing to have around.

Step Three: Go online and download some cool recycle symbol clip art from this site or this one.

Step Four: Lay out the clip art of your choice so that they fill the whole page, then print onto the sticky paper. Now cut 'em out.

Step Five: Stick one of your cool new stickers on your box and then proceed to feel good that you've reused a perfectly good box.

I honestly don't mind a pre-loved box if I've communicated that it's recycled.