Mailing Happiness

Not only did my Mom and Dad help like caaaarazyyyyy while they were visiting us in December, they also found a way to help us out while they are 13 hours away, in a completely different state.

Let me back track for a second.  Whenever I am out and about, I always keep an eye out for anything in the aqua/turquoise/teal family…especially if it’s something for the kitchen.  I knew our kitchen would be mostly white, with stainless steel appliances, so I wanted to bring in pops of color with all kinds of accessories.

Well, clearly my Mom was on a mad search for all things aqua as well, and she struck gold!  {Or should I say…turquoise haaaa!}

Last week, the hubby and I arrived home from work to see a couple boxes from UPS hanging out in front of our garage.  I brought them inside and eagerly unpacked them to find an abundance of sea blues and greens.

Now, thanks to my wonderful Mom {and Dad}, I have all sorts of accents in my kitchen that help tie everything together!

And that definitely includes the super cute curtain my Mom made for me that you saw in Monday’s post.  We both fell in love with that fabric the minute we saw it.

Seriously, parents are the best!

I Heart Our Barn Door!

In an earlier post, I discussed that I wanted a barn door in our house to cover an awkward area where we have two doors side by side.  The smaller door is for a coat closet, that will be closed 99.9% of the time.  The larger door leads down the basement stairs, and it needs to be cracked open 100% of the time because of our little furbaby.

I was not a fan of how the doors looked, all cramped next to each other on such a long wall…and I definitely didn’t want to have a door that would be cracked open all the time, or opened up all the way showing our ugly basement stairway.  Insert our barn door idea here to solve our problem.

After we gave a bunch of pictures and described many designs to our contractor, he was able to build our door!  The track I ordered from here arrived several weeks ago, and was patiently waiting in our basement to be installed.  Now, the unique request we made is one of my favorite things in our house {although I have a hard time narrowing down what things are NOT my favorites haha}. 

To refresh your memory…this is what the area used to look like, pre-barn door.

View from the front door.

View from the hallway corner by the kitchen.

View from the living room area towards the awkward doors.

View from the dining area.

And again...after more progress.

And, yet again!

Last time.

And here is what it looks like now!!!

Yes, our coat closet is a serious disaster right now.  Cleaning/organizing it is on my mile long to-do list!

I’m seriously in L-O-V-E!  I think it’s perfect for that space and for our home.  And believe me…I get that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.  I know many of you may be thinking “what the heck?!?!”, but to me and the hubby, it’s awesome.

Anyone else have any outside-of-the-box ideas that ended up working perfectly for your home???

JCPenney to the Rescue!

Like most people, me and the hubby are on a major budget.  This definitely makes buying certain pieces of furniture very difficult.  I was convinced I would find a TV console for us on Craigslist, but nothing I came across seemed to fit the bill.  This was probably due to the fact that I fell in love with this piece from Crate and Barrel.

The Pearson 72" Media Console

The console was everything I wanted...dark finish...mix of wood and metal...large enough to fit a big ole' TV for our great room...low, sleek and simple design.  I was sold!  Key word there being "was"...because a few seconds later I laid eyes on the hefty $1,399.00 price tag.  Clearly that pretty thing was never coming home to our house...so my Internet search for the perfect TV console continued.

As luck would have it, I was hunting around Pinterest and happened upon a TV stand that looked somewhat similar to the C&B one I was obsessed with.  I clicked on the picture and, surprisingly, I was taken to the JCPenney site.  It turns out that the piece was originally $999.00, on sale for $199.80, plus I used a promo code to take an additional $39.96 off the price!  Unfortunately, shipping the 165lb. box was a little pricey and cost almost $100, but it was well worth it...because overall, with shipping and tax included, I purchased an awesome console for just $274.81!!

Here is the proof is you don't believe me.  {Don't mind my blacked out order number and addresses.}

I tried super hard to find the original pin on Pinterest so I could link back.  I even tried to find the console on the jcp.com site, but it is no longer available and therefore, has disappeared from the web.  That means that the only pictures I can share with you are the ones I took of our beloved console in our very own casa. 

And if I do say so myself, I think I love this piece even more than the C&B one I originally fell for {and not just because of the uhhh-mazing price tag}!

When I pulled one of the drawers out to show that they extend all the way for easy access, Perny had to, of course, hop in it and investigate.

So what do you think?  Was it worth the $274.81 price tag?!?!

She's Ready for Her Close-up!

It has taken a while, but our kitchen is pretty much ready for her close-up {yup, our kitchen is a girl}!  I have been dyingggg to put a post up showing off our kitchen overhaul, but while I was installing our new cabinet hardware, I realized that nine pieces of hardware magically disappeared from our house during our renovations.  Talk about frustrating!!  And since I am all about saving money, I found my hardware at a wholesale store online, so I couldn't just run out and pick up the remaining pieces, with the same savings.

Begrudgingly, I decided to head to Home Depot in hopes that they'd have matching hardware, and then the kitchen would be D-O-N-E and crossed off the list {even if it meant I'd be spending way more than I wanted}.

I was able to find bar handles that were very similar to the ones I purchased online {not surprised...it's a pretty generic and popular choice}, but of course they were special order only, and crazy expensive.  The original 10.39" handles I bought online were $3.90 a piece, and at HD they were more than 4 times that price!  I also found the small t-bar knobs off-the-shelf, but of course, those were obnoxiously expensive as well.  Online, I paid $1.30 a piece, and in the store, they were basically $6.00 a piece.  Such a ripoff, but of course, I was in a jam and so I spent $18 on three small knobs.  {At this point, I didn't know what patience was.  I just wanted to finish as many projects as possible, and not put things off for another day.}

After I got home, I installed the three small knobs and placed an order online for six more bar handles.  Within a couple days they arrived, but unfortunately, I was under the weather with a nasty sinus infection.  That meant that nothing house-related got accomplished for a few days.  Instead, I happily broke in our new couch, and prayed my antibiotics would kick in and heal me ASAP.

Luckily, by the time this weekend rolled around I was feeling about 90% better and I tackled putting the final bar handles on the cabinets.  Now I can finally reveal our kitchen’s transformation!  Woo-to-the-hoooooo!!

Here is a little reminder of what we were dealing with before...

View from the living/dining room towards doorway #1 into the kitchen.

 View from in the kitchen towards the door to the screened-in porch and doorway into the dining room.

View from the screened-in porch door towards doorway #2 that leads to the hallway.

Cabinetry that backed up to the "restaurant booth" seating.

Close up of the solid wood cabinetry in the kitchen.  Worn and ugly!

Restaurant booth seating bolted down to the floor...must have been the hot ish at the time!

And again.  Check out that linoleum!

View from the doorway to the hallway towards the dining room doorway.

View from the stove toward the dining room.

Yup that's right...our kitchen window used to have wallpapered shutters.

Our window, minus the shutters.

Old stove and hood.

Horrible backsplash tile...including tile on the sides of the cabinets.

View from the sink towards the doorway to the hallway.

View from in the hallway towards the kitchen.

View from in the doorway.

View of the ceiling...showing off the old exhaust fan and high hats.

And now, after lots of painting, demolition, new countertops, new floors, new appliances, new lighting, new sink, new faucet and new exterior door...

View from the living room, which was impossible before our reno.

View from the dining room, which was also impossible before our reno.

Another view from in the dining room.

So much more bright and airy!! 

Shiny new appliances.

Re-purposed island cabinetry...no more restaurant booth seating.

View from the hallway...definitely not possible before our reno.

Brand new curtain made just for us by my wonderful Mom! 

 And here is one last picture to 1) remind you of the aqua color we painted on the inside of our cabinets and 2) remind you of just how high our contractor placed our microwave to begin with {discussed here}.  Yes, that is my Mom standing underneath the microwave, with an inch or two to spare!



I hope you guys enjoyed our kitchen's transformation as much as we did! :)