The NEW kitchen - remodel on a budget!!

Okay, many of you may have seen my previous 2 posts about my new home and the work we have done on it since moving in to make "our own".  You can see them here and here in case you missed it.

We have remodeled and/or updated pretty much every room on the main level (I have still yet to show you the powder room, dining room and mudroom/family center :). It only took us about a month - thank, God because living here through construction with 4 children was not fun - and I am so happy with they way everything turned out!

So without any further delay let me show you a peek at my new kitchen:

Now let me know you the "BEFORE" picture of a similar angle:

Now let me show and tell you what we did to change the look!  

We started by removing all the upper cabinets off the walls and taking the soffits out (these are the drywall "ledge" above the old cabinets that typically house plumbing and electrical lines). 

Here is what it looked like after we removed those:

This picture was taken on day one - it all came apart quickly. We had not yet moved in, but were scheduled to move in this same week!

About a week later this was the scene. They had tucked all the electrical lines, plumbing lines and duct work as close to the floor joists as they could. We were planning to raise the cabinets about 3 inches more off the counters and top them with crown molding to hide the lines all running above. The upper cabinets and all the doors and drawers were off getting professionally painted. My husband , some friends and I took on the task of painting all the lower level cabinet boxes to save money. Man was that a job!!

You can also see here (especially if you compare it to the pic above) where we had them add a framed wall to the backside of the peninsula cabinets. This will be where the granite bar top sits a couple of weeks later - not quite ready for that at this point!

Here is day one of re-installing our cabinets. These are the same cabinets that were in before but they have been painted Sherwin Williams Muslin (this is the same color we used for the trim throughout the house). 

 Another project associated with the kitchen was this doorway. I wish I had a before shot of it, but I can't find one! :(  Anyway, it was a very narrow doorway with two little mini bi-fold doors attached. since you see this opening right when you walk in the front door and into the entry foyer I really wanted this to look nicer and have a better flow. Our reno team enlarged the doorway (to what you see here) making it taller and wider and then added a soft arch to the top to mimic the arch in the glass on my front door. It was a small quick project but made such a difference!

 And below are the finished pics:

From the kitchen looking into the entry.....

 And from the entry looking toward the kitchen......

Okay, so back to the kitchen its self:  Here is the first shot of the cabinets fully installed. Now waiting on the crown to come in!

 Couple of things to note: 

• We had a dead space above the wall oven cabinet so we added a custom wine bottle holder there. 
• Cabinet hardware was being changed out - notice the cabinets on the bottom and to the right have already been fitted with the new hardware. I went with the oil rubbed bronze through the house. 
• The tumbled marble tile back splash was still in tact, but this would be replaced in the next week. 
• Granite bar top was not yet installed as I was still looking for the perfect granite! 

Speaking of granite - below you can see the granite I finally decided on. I had taken my current counter top granite (we did not replace that and left it in tact from the old kitchen) "cutting board" and used it to see how the granites would look together in my kitchen.

This is the piece that I ended up purchasing - it was a remnant at a granite yard (yay - saved money!!). I wanted something that would contrast the existing granite, but also tie in and compliment nicely. This granite with the greys, black and chocolate in it was perfect. And it is SO sparkly!  It's like have a jewelry box on the bar :)

Above: Installation of the granite bar top!  I was so exciting when this came in and I could see it all together :)

Above: granite and glass tiles being installed. Wires coming out from under the cabinets will soon be supply electric to our under cabinet lighting!

And here are the finished pics - please let me know what you think and if you have any questions about any of the materials used please let me know. I am very cost conscience and would consider myself a "bargain shopper" - this project was no different. I went for quality, but found ways to do it on a budget for sure!

 And here is an old shot followed by the new version from pretty much the same angle:

 Love is a verb!  I love this :)

So to wrap it up and give you a bit of a list of what and where here you go:

• Glass tile and granite tile backsplash - Lowe's Epoch Spectrum Desert Gold Mixed wall tile
• "Cozumel" granite bar top via Alma Granite 
• Most decor and window seat pillows via TJ Maxx and Home Goods
• Cynthia Rowley upholstered bar stools with nail head trim  - TJ Maxx 
• Pendant Lights - recycled from original kitchen...just relocated to over the new bar.
• Appliances were in place with the exception of the fridge which was moved from our previous home.
• Cabinet hardware via Lowe's
• Wall color: Behr "Milk Chocolate" and Trim/Cabinet color Sherwin Williams "Muslin"

I hope you enjoyed the pics of my new/recycled kitchen! :)  

I would love to hear your thoughts, comments and questions! 

XO

Jessy 

OOTD - Polka Dots + Denim

I wanted to take a quick break from the posts about the new house and throw an outfit post in real quick.

Max Studio polka dot skirt via Marshall's / Wedges via TJ Maxx / Mossimo Denim Vest via Target / Tank via Loft / Kenneth Cole watch / Stella & Dot Renegade bracelet / Stella & Dot Luna wrap bracelet / Nine West Sunnies / O'Neill Floppy Sun hat (purchased at the marina water sports shop while at the lake house w/ friends a few weeks ago) - I loved the colors on it and the fit and size is exactly what I like which is remarkably hard to find when looking for a sun hat! :)

I am always in a sun hat if spending any length of time in the sun.  My husband and I decided to spend a little time reading out on the patio while our daughter was napping this past Sunday so I broke out the hat! It was a beautiful 70 degrees or so.....so perfect! 

I grabbed this great skirt a few weeks ago from Marshall's.  It is SO light and comfortable and is easily dressed up or down. I took a more causal approach to it with this outfit by topping it with a distressed denim vest. 

The best past about this outfit is that my 17 month old daughter was wearing a very similar skirt that day, as well (larger polka dots) and I did NOT plan it that way! It is just the outfit that I had laid out for her and I dressed her without really giving it any thought.  I really would have if I had thought about it in advance though so I had my husband snap a pic of us after church so I would have the moment captured :)

Thanks for taking a look and check back in the next couple of days for the kitchen update! I am dying to know what you all think about it :)

XO

Jessy 

Another New Home update: Family Room

Hello All! 

Well, last week I gave you my first new house update with pics of my breakfast and hearth rooms. Today I wanted to share the family or living room with you (I call it one and my husband calls it the other).  We really spend the majority of our time in the kitchen and hearth room areas, but every now and then my husband will steal a few minutes of our favorite shows in the family room after the kids have gone to bed for the night.  

As with the rest of my home I wanted it to feel relaxed, warm, casual and inviting. I also wanted it to flow effortlessly into the hearth room and kitchen. 

When we purchased this home the owners were using this room as their office and sitting area. They had their family room in the back part of the house in a room that we turned into an incredible mudroom/office combo that we have named our "family center". We put a large wall of built in lockers for all the kids stuff (football equipment, backpacks, shoes, jackets, etc) and desks for computers a large island in the center of the room for homework, crafts, etc. Anyway we will get to that room in a later post!

So back to the family room; let me just get to it and show you some before and afters so you can see what we did in here :)

Here is a before (my baby girl, mother in law and husband are checking it out on one of our "tours" before buying).

And here is another one stepping a little further into the room and getting the back wall:

And (drum roll here :) is our take on the same space (several pics to follow):

We started with the wall color. It was a very pretty pale celadon green color but I just didn't like it for a room this large and for the atmosphere I was trying to create. We changed the wall color to Sherwin Williams "Nomadic Desert". This is the same color that runs throughout the main hallway and upstairs. We also painted all the trim in the same creamy off white that we had used through out the kitchen and hearth rooms called "Muslin" by SW.

The sofa is from Ikea (Ektorp Sofa) slipcovered sofa. You can get 10 or 15 different colors and fabric styles. I wanted light furniture but I knew with all the kids I had to do slipcovered furniture or I would have to replace it all in a couple of years.  The exception is the 2 Ballard Design leather chairs which will only get better with age and wipe clean with no problem :) 

 

The chest is an old pine chest that my mom picked up for me years ago.  I have extra pillows and blankets stored in there and it comes in very handy as a coffee table. It is also on wheels that roll so well so it is easy for us to roll right over to our large picture window and create an additional seating area as a window seat.
This piece has been everywhere in our numerous homes; bedrooms, in family rooms, breakfast room, etc. One of my favorite pieces of furniture and it gets around! :)

The canvas behind the sofa is also from Ikea. I purchased it several years ago, but they still carry it. I was surprised that I liked it so much in this home. It was in the great room at our previous house on a 2 story wall so I was afraid that it would overwhelm this space. I have to say I really love it here. It is such a soft and calming scene.

 

Side table and lamp are new purchases from Home Goods.  Both were on clearance. The side table matches the one in the hearth room next door.

The shag rug was a new purchase from Garden Ridge.  It is the softest rug ever! Same one as the hearth room rug just in a larger size and lighter color.  You could literally lay down and go to sleep on these rugs - they are amazing!  The perfect rug for playing on the floor with my daughter.

Pillows are all from Home Goods. Tray on chest was a very old purchase from a home interiors party.

 

 We bought matching leather chairs from Ballard Design outlet. This one is a fixed chair with an ottoman and the other chair on the other side of the sofa is my husband's recliner. He was so excited to finally get a great recliner to lay back and relax in :) These were steals from the outlet!  You can purchase them through the website here and here. They also come in this color which I love! Too bad they didn't have that at the outlet. 

Above my writing desk I plan to do a gallery wall of family photos.  It looks so naked right now....I am just happy to be as far along as I am with the house! :)
 

When I made my craigslist purchase of 6 parsons chairs (which I slip covered with cotton duck slip covers from Wayfair for only $15 per chair!) I used one of them at my writing desk to keep the seating through these three rooms consistent and it makes it really easy to grab an extra dinner chair when company comes over :)

*I have to take a second to sing the praises of Wayfair.com, too!  They were so great to deal with and I had a special request that with one phone call and no additional charge they accommodated. The customer service dept. was polite, friendly and very easy to work with. I would HIGHLY recommend checking them out for all your home décor needs. And, no they are NOT sponsoring this blog in any way!
 

I also grabbed this Ballard Design desk/sofa table off craigslist.com. I wanted something pretty low profile for this space and this was perfect!  I picked it up about 15 minutes from my house and $45!! :) You can see similar styles here and here.

 

 Above: my daughters Ikea chair. She loves to sit in this with a book - not that she can read, but it is so cute!  This chair is sturdy enough that even adults can sit in it - if they fit :) You can purchase one here.

The shade was custom fit to the the windows and I went with a top down/ bottom up design so we can still get the light with privacy. Next project is to decide what type of panels I am going to hang on all these windows?! I am going to hold off a bit on that I think, though. Let the bank account and my tired self recover a little while before starting any more projects! 

The tv stand is also Ikea. It is the Ikea Besta system. You can configure this system dozens of different ways, too!  I am waiting on the furniture legs that they forgot to deliver when they deliver and built the furniture. Did you know Ikea will deliver the furniture and deliver it on site?  At least they did from my Ikea store (we have one about 20 minutes from our home). It was SO worth it! I can't imagine building all the furniture!

I think that about sums this room up. If you have any questions or comments I would love to hear them! 
Thank you for taking a look and I hope you have an amazing week :)

XO
Jessy

 

New House!!

Wow!  I feel like it has been FOREVER since I posted in my blog....it has been over a month I think! Well, during the past month so much has happened.  We have sold and closed on our old home and purchased and moved into our new home along with almost 4 weeks of renovation work being done while we were moving in and living here - ugh!  Of course, the reno project took much longer than anticipated and it has been trying, but in the end things came out even better than we had hoped!  

We did our project very budget minded and though we ended up well over budget it was a minimal budget by most standards to accomplish the amount of change that we did.  

In today's post I am going to show you the hearth room and breakfast room. They are 2 of the 8 rooms we overhauled on the main floor! 

Even though the kitchen is just steps away from these rooms there is just too much to go over in the kitchen to include it here so I will leave it for another date (although you will get a sneak peak in some of the following pictures :).  

Okay, so onto the room reveals: 

So here is what the "hearth room" (sitting area off the kitchen) and breakfast room looked like when we purchased the home (these were the pictures on the listing - we had a vision for what we would do with it!) : 

 Below:  is as it was when we walked into the house for the first time after getting the keys :)  It was shortly after this pic was taken the we began to paint this area. We left the wall color (Sherwin Williams Killim Beige) and updated all the trim paint, including the fireplace mantle and bookshelves, in Sherwin Williams Muslin (a very warm rich creamy off white).  All the trim before we painted it was basic white.  The trim is the same color throughout the entire lower level now as the kitchen cabinets which we also had painted. Muslin is a color we had used to paint the trim in a home we built several years ago and I always new I would be using it again - now was the time :)  It is a very warm color, but has green undertones so paired with certain wall colors it can change for sure. 

The next picture is after we started moving some of our boxes and purchases in that I was going to be using in this space. You can see the table base and bar stools in here.
You can see from the pic above and below how there is quite a contrast between the trim and the wall color. When you view our finished room pics below you will notice how the trim and wall color look very similar. It definitely helped to achieve the "warmer" and "relaxing" look I was going for.

Next is a serious of pictures that shows us hard at work transforming this room....we had our contractors add the wainscoting to the wall. This really helped to make the room look more "finished".  

Next we began to paint all the trim and the bottom half of the wall was also included in that trim paint color. My mother in law and father in law came over to help us get this room done. We painted two bedrooms upstairs, the kitchen, the powder room and the hearth and breakfast rooms ourselves. The rest of the home we had painted by a professional crew. We just couldn't do any more and were ready to be done! We did save a lot of money with what we did ourselves, though :)

 Above: My father in law painting the hearth room

 The built-ins with out the shelves - they were in the garage being painted :)

Above is my Craigslist table find (my 2 youngest boys were taking a break for some board game time together :) - I bought this solid maple table (round with leaf to make it oval) for $65! I then painted it with about $25 worth of Sherwin Williams oil paint in Muslin (#6133). I had been admiring a very very similar table at Pottery Barn for $800. I couldn't be happier with my money saving choice! :) You will see the finished product below!

Above: Friends and family taking a quick break for a bite of dinner.  I could not be more thankful to these amazing people that helped us make our vision a reality with our new home!  (pictured: father-in-law, Cliff, Teena, my husband and myself in the window seat of the breakfast room)

Above: here is a picture of the breakfast area and hearth room looking from the kitchen (which I will reveal the complete overhaul of that room in the next post! :).  We removed the lights from ceiling and replaced them with recessed can lights for a much cleaner look through these rooms. 

Now for the reveal!  Here are a series of pics from the finished product (or at least how it is finished right now - we don't have window treatments up yet and the built-ins haven't been completed).

Above: this pic is taken from the kitchen (same prospective as the one immediately above it).

My goal was to warm up the area. Lots of textures and soft warm colors helped me achieve this.  I also wanted a very livable space where everyone visiting and those of us living here would feel at ease in. As you can see the plan worked well for my poodle who has deemed the hearth room as his personal nap area!

 All the furniture is slipped covered (happens to be my favorite look) which works very well when you have children (and we have 4 ranging from 16 months to 12 years old!). If it gets dirty you throw it in the wash and it's good as new :)

 Above: for the breakfast room and kitchen I used Behr Milk Chocolate in an eggshell on the walls. I have had a similar shade of chocolate in my last 4 kitchens and I am still in love with the color for this space. In this home especially it ties together the different surfaces (glass tiles on back splash, cabinetry hardware and two different granite counters). I also think it is such an appealing color in general in your cooking and eating area - who doesn't love chocolate! :)

Above: from the breakfast area looking back toward the kitchen. This table was my dream now come to be a reality while assembling this home over the last month!  I saw an add in pottery barn (see pic below)

 The difference? The Pottery Barn table and dining chairs shown above total more than $2400! I put my dining ensemble together for less than $450 - I am pretty impressed with myself and my ability to save this much money and still come up with a table that I even like better than the "inspiration" table and can seat 8 people! Only shown with 6 of the 8 total chairs :)

Above: My version of Pottery Barn's  Tivoli Extending Pedestal Table

Table - $65 (Craigslist find) solid maple table that I painted #6133 SW Muslin

Chairs- (Craigslist find) I purchased 6 fully upholstered parsons chairs for $125 and slipped covered them for $16 each in a Cotton Duck slip cover in "natural" from Wayfair.

Rattan Chairs - (Home Goods) I found these babies with pads for $99 each (PB runs $300 for same chair!)

Underneath my breakfast table I used an indoor/outdoor rug from Frontgate Outlet. It has the muted colors that I have used to accent my new home and it will make clean up a breeze! 

Windsor Tapestry Outdoor Area Rug- $119.00

On top of my table I put together a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the local grocery store. On sale I purchase the greenery and a dozen roses separate for a total of $10!  The salt and pepper shakers came with the white set of china I have had for 15 years.  I had never used the shakers before so I got them out of the packaging and with a permanent marker I marked them with a "S" and "P" for a fun and more casual look. I set it all on top of a bamboo lazy susan that I have had in very locations in my homes over the years (similar here) so it's easy to "pass the salt" to anyone at the table :)

Without the expense of adding a cushion to the window seat yet (I plan to invest in that a later after we recover from all the other "projects" we undertook!) I have gone ahead and put a collection of very comfy yet inexpensive pillows in for a great place to sit and relax (I actually had my morning coffee and began this blog post in this very spot this morning :).  All pillows were purchased at HomeGoods with the middle one found in the clearance section. I had to grab it because just looking at the words on it makes me smile (see below :)

Below: The hearth room was something I envisioned as soon as I stepped foot in this room. I knew what I wanted it to look like but wasn't sure I would be able to pull it all together. It is a collection of things that have meaning for our family and that is exactly what I wanted it to be. It is an extension of the kitchen and breakfast area and a wonderful place to read and relax or for guests to sit and have a conversation when entertaining. No matter what the space is being used for it is an area that I look at alot during the day since my kitchen opens up to it. That makes it the perfect place for putting things I cherish! 

Above: 

Chairs - Ikea

Slipcovers - Ikea

Rug - Garden Ridge (seriously the most comfy rug EVER - you just want to curl up on it and fall alseep! I love to sit here and read my daughter books and our fluffy poodle likes to curl up and take his naps here :)

Throw - Steinmart

Basket - Ballard Designs Outlet

Pillows - HomeGoods (clearance)

Candles - HomeGoods

Side Table (behind chair) - HomeGoods (clearance)

Lamp - HomeGoods (clearance)

Mantle decor - HomeGoods, Garden Ridge, TJ Maxx

(the horse is hand carved wood that our friends smuggled back from Cuba for us - it is a cherished piece to me for sure!)

 Above: On the opposite side of the hearth are the built in bookshelves that flank the pocket door opening into the family room. While I am not done with the shelving they will be much more about functionality for our very large family than for show.  We have a house full of readers and having our books easy to access right next to a comfy place to read is perfect for us. These shelves will also be filled with family photos and mementos rather than art or decorative filler. Once I get my creativity recharged again I will try tackling the layout on these!  :)

Above: I saw this wall art at HomeGoods a couple of weeks ago on clearance and it just made me smile. I suppose it could make different people think different things, but to me it makes me think of never giving up. It's like a personal statement that I WILL be successful in all I do - there is no other option. AND the colors are exactly the right shades for my kitchen/ breakfast area so I decided it mus hang on the wall in between so here it is :)

I hope that you enjoyed this tour of the inside of at least this part of our new home!  I have so much more to show you that I will work on posting over the next couple of weeks.  Now that we are finally starting to settle in I can take some time to do this. 

I will also try to tell you about any ways (and they are many!) that I helped to recreate much more expensive looks and my little DIY projects. I am not super crafty on my own, but I can copy looks just fine :)

Hope you are all having fantastic weekends!  

XO

Jessy