Almost forgot....

This post is for the ladies who all asked for a tour of the kitchen yesterday to help me decide if I needed to re do the kitchen island. Now before ya go clicking on pics and all this tour is a Keeping It Real tour. I touched nothing in my kitchen so this is what my kitchen looks like by the end of the week. I could have waited and taken pics after I straightened up over the weekend but I promised I would post today so here ya go!

I had fallen in love with somebodies door hall tree that they created from a $19 door at Lowes. I tried two differ styles of doors and decided just too many doors going on around here. We have a headboard in the guest bedroom that The Hubster and I made as well from a door. The $19 Lows door stands in the hallway waiting to go back home. This is the door from the garage into the hallway attached to the kitchen that was inspired by the hall tree out in blog land. I needed somewhere to put the boys back packs and some place to remind me when things were due at school. The chalk board calendar was just plain black but then I Rub N Buffed it! Now I just need to find one of those chalk pens. Anybody have any ideas?? So far no luck.

Here is the kitchen from the entrance into the house from the garage which we do not use just yet. Getting closer but not quite there. Remember I am keeping it real!;)

Just a differ view. I am stumped on what to do with the top of the cabinets. I have faux grapevines that I used at the last house and was not going to put them up here but just maybe....Any ideas??
View into the breakfast nook with leftover lunch and all. Mind you I have a grazer and he was still working on our Lean Cuisine. I did purchase the fab today to make the cafe curtain on the bottom! Not sure how long it will take me to make um but at least I have the fab. Where is The Nana when I need her!HA! They would already be done and up by now.

A better view with the arches into the living room. Still loving my chandy there! The Hubster still hating it.
In this pic you can see the hallway of doors over by the fridge. We have the garage entrance and then the pantry, the half bath and the laundry room all on that hall which leads to the dining room. Lots of doors so now you can kinda better understand why the $19 door was not working for me.

And here is where I temporarily blog away my days. Need help with this area as well. The apple will move into the front office as soon as we finish cleaning it out. I have visions of cookbooks and what not but just soo many shelves. I am at a loss. I do love my bistro chair though. It is from our front porch at the Baton Rouge house which I did not want to give away so I decided to use one of the chairs in here.

There ya have. The Keeping It Real tour of our kitchen. Please make any suggestions on what I could do with the top of the cabinets and the desk shelves and if ya think the island works or not the way it is. I am thinking any normal person who is not as obsessive abt things would think it was just fine. Some days I wish I could be one those people!Ha!

Have a good weekend ya'll! It is soooo nice outside! W may actually get out the new patio living set and finish painting the dining set. Again soo many projects.

Happy Fall Ya'll!

I should have done this post yesterday with it having been Oct 1 and all but oh well. I hope that you all are enjoying making your home festive! I usually have the house decorated by the end of August. Yes, The Hubster thinks I am crazy but I enjoy it. This year not so much. I have been focusing on getting other things done around the house and thinking abt all the Christmas decorating I want to do so I keep telling myself to save up so I can make the Christmas holiday just the way I want it.

I did decide though after browsing thru blog land that I wanted to make a new fall wreath for the front door. I fell in love with the initial wreaths I had seen and since HobLob had all wreath making stuff half off last week I went for it! So for a mere $21 my front stoop has a semi fall make over. I was in the process of taking out the ferns and noticed that there is a family of lizards living in them. Silly lizards do not realize those darn things are fakes! HA! I kinda feel guilty upsetting their habitat but they have thru the weekend and then they need to find a nest.

Here is an up close of the initial wreath I made. I love the colors! I do wish my "F" was bigger but that is the largest I could find and my second attempt. I used The Nester's wreath hanging trick instead of putting a hole in the front door. Works much better. The wreath is I think an 18 inch grapevine. All I used was one garland that I just wired on and then some fall picks. The ribbon I already had from when I made wreaths for the front doors at the last house in Baton Rouge. Yes I said doors. We had a double door thing going on. I am actually not even sure where those wreaths are at...hmmmm.

Here is one pile of fall decor waiting to be placed. The tall topiary thingys are actually going on top of the urns and will be decorated with lights and garland wrapped around um. I will probably top um off with a raffia bow of sorts. I wanted to make a pumpkin topiarys but I just could not bring myself to spend $30 on each urn. $6o on fake pumpkins was just too much for me so I will be watching out for the big mark downs soon to come. Also there is a little snippet of the new rugs I ordered from Ballard a few weeks back. I LOVE um! Once painting is done I will have everybody over for a tour!;)

Here is a sneak peek at another project in the works. Turned out to be more than I originally wanted it to be but oh well. Have a good one ya'll!

P.s I am joining in over at Rhoda's at Southern Hospitality for the Fall decorating Party! Go on over and have some fun!

The Kitchen Island

Before we signed the contract on our new home I told The Hubster there were two things that I required for us to buy this home. See this home was a home that The Hubster had picked out geez 6-7 mths ago. Yes it sat that long on the market. Actually it sat on the market for abt 2 and half years. Our new home was actually ready for move in when we moved out of the hood to Baton Rouge. We moved just before the market tanked and it just now is trying to recover around here. The builder wanted wayyyy toooo much for it and well he would not come off the price at all. So it sat and sat and sat until we came around. The Hubster wanted this house because it has everything we wanted...almost. It lacked the wood flooring thru out and a kitchen island. We ended up getting such an out of this world deal because it sat and sat and sat that The Hubster agreed to my request.

Here we are almost three months into our home and even though it was a home I was dead set against...power lines cross the back fence...I must say I do love our home and it is starting to feel just as such. I am enjoying adding those special touches and I am enjoying watching Oldest and Littliest enjoying so much! The Hubster lived up to his agreement...well almost. I have my semi island and well after much consideration I decided to forgo the wood flooring at least for a few years. There were just so many other things we wanted to do that the floors just did not make sence.

Here is the butcher block kitchen island that I actually purchased in Baton Rouge right after we went under contract. It was the perfect size and the perfect price!

Here is the island after two coats of SAMPLE Sherwin Williams black paint. Don't let the sales people tell ya ya can't paint anything with a $4 sample paint cause ya can! I was NOT paying $20 for a quart of paint for the island when the sample size was more than enough with extra left over for the dining room bench.

I loved her distressed legs and that is actually what took the longest. It would have gone much faster if I had courser sand paper. I actually broke a sweat in the kitchen distressing it. I liked how it turned out but wanted to place stain over top. I thought I had the right stain from recent projects.

This is how it turned out.

It is a LOT darker than I wanted and I am thinking of sanding it down again and trying a lighter stain if possible. I am waiting though to see if it grows on me. It actually is a cherry stain and matches our kitchen cabinets so maybe it was meant to be. I was also thinking of doing a cream layer and then black again.

So what are your thoughts?? Should I leave it or re do it???

It is "Do It Yourself Day"...

over at A Soft Place to Land. I have always enjoyed popping over at Kimba's looking thru every body's projects. There are always so many wonderful ideas to file away! Today I have decided to join in after months of lurking. Since Littliest has been under the weather I do not have time to make an entire new post for this redo today but I really wanted to join in on the fun. Click here to see one of my most fave re dos that I did recently. For those who have already seen it I promise a new reveal within the next few days. I just finished the fall wreath for the front door!

Thanx for stopping by ya'll and be sure to hop on over to Kimba's if you never have. You won't regret it!

"Enter as strangers leave as friends"

This & That & A Reveal...finally

Happy Monday ya'll! Hope the weekend was good to you and that your Monday has been just as good as well! Other than Littliest being under the weather and me christening the new dining room rug things have been good. The weather was wonderful last week so there was a lot of playing outside which now has come back to get us. Littliest has bad allergies and he is congested in his chest and tries to cough it up. We go thru this at least twice a year so not a big deal but still not great to hear him go thru. Now the rug I have not even taken pics yet for ya'll to see but I promise I will soon! It came in last week from Ballard and is super sweet. Better than I had imagined and well it holds Chick Fil A sweet tea without staining. I was going thru all of our HobLob treasures and thinking abt the chandy in the dining room and well knocked a fill cup on the floor! I was afraid it would stain and go thru onto the floor but nope. Soaked it up and then sprayed water on it and soaked it up again. So far so good. In actuality I am glad it was me and not somebody else. I would have been livid. Now not so much.

The yard sale was Sat morning. I was out there at 7 and it was beyond slow but I expected that since we are way back in the back of the hood. I wrapped it up early around 11 but still made out super well. Well enough to buy a new sewing machine at Costco I had been coveting for a month now with money left over! To top it off I even got a FREE table from our neighbor/Realtor. She was out walking and said she was sitting it out at the curb cause ya know somebody would take it. Well she put it out there and I made The Hubster walk down there because my interest was peeked. I was thinking coffee table. Nope! The Hubster came back and said go down there. I made a bee line down there knowing good and well if I did not somebody would get it. Thankfully it was slow and The Hubster and I carried it down the street to our garage. It is a dark brown with rattan and a VERY heavy glass top. It will become the new desk in our soon to be office! After that find I did not care if I made any more money that day. I was just thrilled!

Now on to the big reveal that I have been promising! Here is the before of our breakfast area in the kitchen. It was a work in progress that I was stumped on. I had hit a road block and liked nothing that I was attempting in there.Then one day it all started coming together.

Remember this beauty? Ha! I had purchased her for just $10 on the local yard sale site with every intention of her going in the breakfast nook. I loved her then hated her and decided to by a new fixture and then after three differ attempts at spraying her I finally found a combination finish I liked....no LOVED.

Here is what our breakfast nook is like now! Still a work in progress but I am so happy with the progress! The Papa swagged my new beauty even though it went against every grain in his body. In the end he liked it though. He said it was the custom chain cover that The Nana and I made that pulled it off. (Sorry the pic is not so great. My camera is acting up and the color is slightly off and I have no idea how to fix it. URGH!)

Here is an up close look at her. I know I am partial but she is a beauty isn't she!? I used Rub N Buff once again on this chandy. Once I used it on the chandy over the sink I knew I had to use it on this chandy as well. Littliest and I just purchased the shades at HobLob today since they were half off. 6 for just $15 ya can't beat.

Now I saw ya trying to peek around the chandy to see what was up with the mistreatments. I had that picture. You know the picture in your head of how you want "it" but just can not find what ya need to make "it" come to reality? That picture. I saw this fab at HobLob and I said yes that is "it"! I bought a half a yard in each and just hot glued the seams and then hammered um on the wall with some upholstry tacks. Still working on the bottom half of the cafe curtains. I have the fab picked out but just have not purchased it yet.

Here is the door panel that The Nana made for me. I could have but I hate sewing curtains. Thanx Nana! I tied a scrap piece of fab in the middle just to see what I wanted and decided that I am going to make a tie of sorts and then place an antique broach in the center. I can not wait till it is all done so I can take a final redo picture.

So there ya have it! Some of what I have been up to. Did I mention how much fun I am having!?