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???