Kitchen Before and After

Today I am going to share with you a lovely kitchen make-over.  It was completed by my dear friend, Mary.  (She just started blogging. Stop by and say “hi”.  She has one of the cutest kids I have ever seen.  I am not biased She also has a cute dog named Guinea Pig…Ike’s buddy.)  We’ve been friends since the beginning of time.  Seriously.  We go way back…but not as far back as her original kitchen….

Check out that striped wall paper.  It’s actually contact paper.  Genius, I tell you!  The cabinets had seen better days.  As had the floor.  And the bead board backsplash is the reason that I am hesitant to install one in my kitchen.  Bead board and grease are not a good pair.

See that random jut-out next to the stove.  That’s a pipe.  A pipe that caused some remodeling woes…

Mary and her husband wanted to maximize their small kitchen space while still keeping true to the craftsman style of their home.  (Their dining room has some amazing original woodwork.)… 

 

To save space, they moved their sink to the corner to add some extra counter space.  

They did bring in some professionals to tackle some of the more challenging projects.  They hired a plumber to move that pipe to a better location.  They also hired someone to install the drywall.  Contact paper does not do good things to walls.  They also needed an electrician to add more plug-ins and move the stove farther from the fridge.  And they installed 2 new windows. 

Even with all of the professionals involved, this kitchen make-over came in around $7000.  Not too shabby!

Who’s headed to Mary’s house for supper tonight? 

Do you have a before and after that you’d like to share?  E-mail me!  Don’t be shy!

Laundry How-To’s

Yesterday I shared with you our updated laundry room…

Today I’ll share with you how we completed some of these easy tasks and what we learned along the way.

First up….the closet curtain…

I had originally planned to use an old shower curtain rod but the rod was too wide for the closet.  Instead Nate hung two L brackets and one hole straps on the inside of the closet (which is only primed…don’t judge)… 

We hung the curtain (which I made out of 3 yards of fabric) on a dowel rod and placed in the one hole straps…done!  If I can sew this, you can.  It’s a large rectangle with a 1 inch seam allowance on 3 sides and a 3 inch seam for the dowel rod.  You don’t even have to sew that straight if you have a closet like ours.

Next, the shelves..

We purchased two shelving boards and cut them to size.  I primed and painted them.  I used a sample of Valspar’s Radiant Red.  The sample was just enough for two coats on both boards.  Nate hung four L-brackets and screwed the boards into them.  I then painted the white brackets the same color as the wall (Smoky Blue by Sherwin Williams) to help them blend…

I keep trying to go “natural” with cleaners…and then I get lazy.  Bring on the Lysol and Scrubbing Bubbles.  I inhale amoxicillin dust all day.  Pretty sure that will kill me before my toilet bowl cleaner. 

And lastly, the faux roman shade…

I decided to go with the faux shade because privacy really isn’t an issue in our laundry room..except when I walk in half naked in the morning looking for clothes that I failed to put away…but these upgrades are surely going to make we want to finish my laundry as soon as that dryer beeps….for like a week…maybe. And if someone is looking in my second floor laundry room window at 6:30am, I have bigger problems than a faux roman shade.

I followed this tutorial.  It was super easy to follow so I won’t bother with the step-by-step here.  Darby explains it better than I can. (And she remembered to take pictures…which I failed to do.) She used black out fabric but I just left up the blind that was originally in the window to block any light behind the faux shade.  I did have to use some stitch witchery (love the name…it’s basically iron-on tape) on the folds (front and back) because the window is wide and the whole shade was floppy. 

 

There you have it.  The how-to’s on our inexpensive upgrades!! Any questions? 

Who’s coming over to paint the inside of that closet for me?  On a side note, Nate hated hanging ALL of these projects and wanted the title of the laundry room post to include a swear word. Good thing I’m in charge of the writing and he’s in charge of the power tools!  We have a clean blog and straight shelves.  Team work!

Linking up to: Simple Home Life, Remodelaholic,

Lazy Laundry

This week-end Nate and I worked a little on the laundry room.  We didn’t want to spend a lot of money on this room because I’m the only one that sees it.  This was actually the 2nd time Nate had been in this room since we moved in 2 1/2 years ago.  Ok, maybe the 3rd time. 

The room needed help…




Yes,it mainly just needed cleaned but I also wanted it to be a little prettier.  I had originally planned to paint it.  Maybe even add some stripes.  Or pink.  But in the end, I was lazy.  And cheap.
I wasn’t in the mood to paint a room that wasn’t an ugly color…and did I mention that I’m the only one that sees this room. So, I sewed a closet curtain and faux roman shade.  I also painted some shelving boards.  Cheap and sort of easy.  And much cleaner…






I still need to add some art on the walls but I’m debating as to what I want.  We will also eventually add some crown molding and maybe a small sink. 

Our laundry room isn’t like some of the showstoppers that I have seen lately but these small, inexpensive changes did make the room just a little bit cheerier.  And when it comes to laundry…I need all of the cheer I can get!

What are your thoughts on laundry rooms?  Should a dumping ground be a well designed space or does it really matter because no one sees it but you? Does your significant other know where the laundry room is?

Linking up to:  Remodelaholic