The Big Reveal

I know you've been waiting with baited breath for these pictures. Right?

It's not totally complete yet - but it's almost there. I have been waiting patiently for the kitchen to be clean and put back together to get pictures.

Let's look at the before kitchen one more time. Notice the empty wall and the awkwardly placed island. The black range which opened right up to the only real prep space in the kitchen. Lastly - note the old floors.



After a couple of months of very hard work, here we are today:


We removed the awkward island, turned it to face the family room, and made it bigger. We also added more cabinets along the empty wall for more storage. Changing the island also gave us a good place for a little bar/sitting area. Our friends come over and have a perfect spot to sit and chat with us while we finish up cooking.

With all of that cooking going on, we decided to get a single bowl, deep sink. It's been a dream so far - no complaints. Oh - and double ovens. So awesome. We had multiple people say that we'd only ever use the double oven a few times per year. We've had them installed for 2 months and we've used both at the same time at least 3 or 4 times. Not on purpose either.

Since there was a fair amount of rearranging going on, we also got new counter tops. Choosing a counter top type and then choosing a color was probably the hardest part of this whole ordeal. We knew we wanted a solid surface counter so we could have an undermount sink. That's about as far as our "needs" list went. Originally we looked at granite but just couldn't decide on a color. Plus there was the concern of having several different slabs in the kitchen and it not be cohesive. After a lot of trips to different stores/shops we finally landed on Silestone as the material. It wasn't a hard sell to get the color, which is Bamboo. This is one of the items in the kitchen that I just held my breath and said "Let's go for it." not totally sure how it would turn out.

So, what do you think? Love it or hate it?

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Fabulous Fabric

Do you remember this post? Where I asked for help on finding good - but inexpensive - fabric?

Well, I did. I found it about 2 months ago - and I'm just now getting around to telling you about it.

Clemson Girl told me about this fabric store that is about an hour from my house. It is a mecca of cheaply priced fabric. It is so awesome.

Here's what I came up with for making my own roman shade for the back door. I liked the geometrics of the fabric below, the colors were pretty neutral for the yellow-orange paint on the wall. The only problem with it is that it's not quite long enough to do the whole window. I need to find a solid color to go at the top and bottom of the shade - and then I'll be all set.


What do you think? What color should I get for the top/bottom of the shade to sew it all together?

While I was in this fabric mecca, I found some other fabric that I picked up and just couldn't put back down. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it (yet). But I am bound and determined to figure something out!
Suggestions??


Look at that - $7.50 for 1.5 yards of embroidered fabric? You can't beat that.

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The Floors: (almost) Finished Product

The flooring guys finished up on Friday afternoon around 4pm.

Why didn't I post pictures before now? Oh, because we've made approximately six trips to Home Depot for various items, caulked the baseboards and shoe, filled the nail holes with wood putty, painted half the base board in the house, painted the stair facings, painted the stair trim, and finally went to a frat function on Saturday night (not a kegger...but an actual, like, function). haha.

We were busy! I hardly came up for air (or the internets for that matter)

Let's just say that sitting on wood floors for almost two days straight makes your booty hurt.

So here's what it looks like after everything was in, but before we got started painting. I will wait to share total "after" pictures with you once the house is put back together again!




{I am easily pleased - this fireplace detail is one of my favorite parts!}


What do you think? What kind of flooring do you prefer in a home?

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Floors - Day 1

Today was the first day that we had people here to install our floors. Things went really well and they got a good bit done - considering they were just getting started and such. We are extremely happy with how they are coming together.


We chose Brazilian Koa 5" planks from Lumber Liquidators. The thing we liked about them the most was the variations in the pieces of wood. Some people love that (us) and some people want a uniform look throughout the space. I think both look fabulous - but this wood just tugged on my heart strings... you know, the way home improvement items do.

Here are some shots from the end of the day...







Check back tomorrow - we'll have 4 guys in the house nailing away!

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The Silence is Over

It's over for now, anyway.

I thought I'd show you what has been going on around here lately to explain the reason why I haven't been so chatty.

Drawn your attention down in these pictures...





We pulled up all of our old carpet and linoleum. Pulled up the underlayment (under the linoleum). Pulled up 65% of the staples until we found out that we could hammer them down (d'oh!) and then we pulled the baseboards out, bottom cabinets, stove, dishwasher, and all of the furniture.

Tonight is the first night that we didn't have anything to do when we got home from work. Actually - I didn't go to work since I was here all day with the flooring people.

So definitely stay tuned - because they made some progress today and it looks great!

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a little help, please

I really like this fabric. I like it a lot. And I liked it enough to seek it out to potentially make a roman shade for my back door in the morning room. I first saw this fabric on a blog post about a bathroom at Odi et Amo's blog.

She also links you to the place where you can trade a kidney for purchase this fabric. The website is Avid Home and the fabric is gorgeous. Just, not in my budget. $49/yard is a little steep. Especially since due to the width of the fabric, I would need TWO yards. Oye.

{source}

And here's the aforementioned door again. I want need something to cover that window. I'm sure our neighbors would love to not watch us eat dinner every night.

Here's where you come in... I need help either deciding on one of these fabrics OR finding something else to go on that door. I plan on making my own shade, unless you blogger friends of mine, can find a shade that is cheaper.

What am I looking for? Something simple. Geometric patterns are nice. Something light and airy because I will be, at some point, hanging sheers on the wall of windows. I like the gray in the first fabric - but I'm not married to gray.

I plan on making a no-sew roman shade. You know, the kind you use mini-blinds to make? Tons of information here if you haven't heard about these.

Here are some current options:

{source}
$14.98/yard

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$12.98/yard

{source}
$8.98/yard

What do you think?? Or should I continue to shop around??

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The Kitchen - Before

So I mentioned in my last post that there were items on my weekend "to-do" list that I left off my list because they deserved their own post. Truth of the matter is - they are going to get several posts.

We are currently in the planning stages of renovating our kitchen. I'm sure all of you are thinking "*gasp!* But your house is only 2 years old!" Well, almost 2 years old...

That's right. It is only 2 years old. But we also moved in 2 years ago knowing that we didn't love our kitchen, knowing it could be better, and determined to do something about it. It's taken living here for a little under 2 years for the best plan to develop, the money saved to do it, and the planning to begin.

So here's a glimpse of what we're working with:

What you're seeing in the last picture is what is getting the majority of the overhaul. Technically, it's supposed to be our dinette (or eat-in kitchen, if you will). Note the light fixture that used to be centered over our table.

It was a little cramped and The Mr. and I both like to cook. Sometime we're in there together and the only real prep space is the island. This can create problems sometimes because we'll be under each other's feet - especially since the stove/oven is so close to the island. We needed a "two person" kitchen.

So what's the plan, Stan?

Well, we're going to put cabinets along the wall to the left of the dishwasher. Mostly standard size cabinets with one pantry cabinet. We're also going to rotate the island 90 degrees towards the sink/dishwasher area and probably move it 6" to the left. That will give us some more space and give us room to put our oven underneath the island. Replace the range with a smooth surface cooktop. And install new countertops.

Stay tuned...this is just the beginning! I am going to break down some of our inspiration ideas and hopefully a blow by blow of the kitchen as it comes together over the next couple (to several) months.

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Dining Room - in progress

Last week I showed you the morning room. This week, it's the dining room.

This room is most definitely still "in progress" because we plan on adding a chair rail around the room (hence the two different colors) and picture frame molding on the white section, below the chair rail.

This color is Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter on the top. The bottom is the builder's "custom" semi-gloss trim color. It's mixed by Sherwin Williams and they call it "Soft Shell" - but there are apparently about 20 different mixes of Soft Shell. You have to tell them your neighborhood and lot number and cross your fingers. Thankfully, we got the right color.

So what do you think? Ideas for other wall hangings or table centerpieces?

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The Morning Room

We've been doing some painting around the house lately. We knew we wanted a vivid color in the morning room (or technically we use it as a breakfast nook - but that's neither here nor there). We picked out this picture on the wall shortly after we moved into the house.

It has a terrible glare on it in the picture I took - so here's a better look at it:

(Image source: Jim Booth's gallery)

It's called Lowcountry Sunset by Jim Booth. When The Mr. lived in Charleston, sometimes he would take me to a bench overlooking the marsh and we'd either watch the sunrise or the sunset. This picture definitely captures one of the many things we loved about Charleston - and so we knew it was something we wanted to have in our home.

So when choosing a color for the morning room - which is where this lovely picture resides - we knew we wanted to use a color out of the sunset. We chose to go one shade darker than the kitchen - so we picked Sherwin Williams Torchlight. We had it color matched into Glidden paint - but after this painting experience, I'll never use Glidden again. I've never had such a difficult time getting good coverage on the walls.

So without further ado:





The room is still a little empty and lacking in the decor department - but I wanted to share the color with you because I'm pretty thrilled with how it turned out.

I know I need to replace that awesome Clemson floor mat with something that, well, "matches". And I would like to put a roman shade up on the patio door - I just need some help picking out the fabric.

So what do you suggest I do with this room? What else should I add in here to make it feel like like it's complete?

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