Tag Archives: House Projects

A few more things I’ve done lately

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In addition to the library that we updated, I also updated our living room.  Of course, it’s all new IKEA furniture because we may have an IKEA addiction problem (although is it a problem, really?)

I was looking for some before pictures of the living room and realized that I, for some odd reason, didn’t take those pictures.  The best I could do were the pictures I took when we had our floors redone.  It didn’t look much different on day to day basis, really.

Before

After

Also, I got a new Christmas tree that I put up before I took the after pictures.  I have been waiting five years for a 7.5 foot tree. I just wanted a tree that was as tall as the room because I just love big Christmas trees (and, yes, there are presents already under the tree as we are having a Thanksmas celebration this week with family).

Michael calls this room our grown-up room.  I do feel like a grown-up in this room.  Gone are all the college and newlywed hand-me-down pieces that were falling apart.  And it’s so cozy (though to be fair, the Christmas tree is making it feel extra cozy).  And it has a rug!  This is the first rug I’ve ever purchased (unless you count bathroom rugs and of course, I got it from IKEA).  

I think we are done for a little bit on all the updates.  But I’m so happy with how everything has turned out!

Kitchen Project!

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A contractor lived in our house before we did, so we have had it pretty easy with the home care part of home ownership.  I mean, we bought the house because it had a doggie door installed into the wall next to the back door!  Slowly, over the past six years, we have made our house more of our home, adding little things expressions of our own creativity and personality.  One of the biggest projects we have done was to redo our kitchen.

002 - Move In

This was our kitchen when we bought it.  We love all the storage and counter space that this kitchen provides, but it was a little darker than we preferred.  So we painted it yellow.

002a - One Year

This has been pretty much what our kitchen has looked like for the last five and a half years.  We kept talking about changing the look just a little more, but travel opportunities or other projects took precedent, so we just kept putting it off.  Then, on Mother’s Day weekend this year, we took the plunge and changed the cabinets.

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Of course, this was just part one of the change we wanted to do.  We also wanted to change the countertops.

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I wanted to have a darker countertop so that it will be more forgiving on future messes in the kitchen.  Michael did the majority of the work on this project.  I mostly just took off doors or cleared off surfaces.  He has a pretty artistic eye for detail, and did a great job.  We used the Rustoleum Cabinet and Countertop Transformation kits.  The exact kinds we used are below:

Cabinets in Antique Glaze http://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/transformations/cabinet-transformations-light-kit

Countertops in Java Stone http://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/transformations/countertop-transformations

Have you ever done a major redesign of your kitchen?  Have you ever used the transformation kits?