Our house is finished.

Welcome to our home. No matter where we go, this little house in Arkansas will always be special to me. This was our first home as a married couple, and we transformed every inch of this place from a dark & dated 1976 house, to a bright & modern home.

Stick a (4 ft.) fork in it, this kitchen renovation is DONE!

When I left you last time (a week & a half ago...) the kitchen was still pretty much a disaster. It took a while for it to get any better. We exceeded our time frame by exactly a week, and exceeded our budget, but it is so, so, so, so, SO worth it!

Do you know how exciting it is to make dinner on a brand new range?

It also took 400 MORE dollars and a drywall man (who worked till 1:30am on a Saturday night that we found on Craigslist) for it to get any better.

We learned a few VERY valuable lessons.

1. Dry-walling a kitchen by yourself for the first time ever when you're in a hardcore time crunch is not the best idea.
2. Know when to ask for help when you need it (help from a professional & help in the sense of your boss giving you time off from work).
3. DO NOT put HUGE projects like renovating an entire kitchen off until the very last minute. 

Graham is leaving tomorrow for Texas and this has not been our usual pre-goodbye weekend. Instead of happy, fun, quality time together, we've been working till all hours of the night getting this house ready to go on the market. And I dare say, it's finally ready. There are still a few things we need to do, but the kitchen was the last big thing and it is finally, finally finished. 

So, I'm going to stop rambling and flood you with pictures of my beautiful kitchen and start wishing we had done this two years and three months ago when I moved out here. 

Ugliest Kitchen Ever.

Being a procrastinator isn't necessarily a bad thing. Being married to one isn't a bad thing. But it does make life a little more complicated.

Graham is leaving for training in Texas pretty soon (like, less than two weeks), and the kitchen is the last major thing on our house to-do list. He took the week off work this week to get it, done, but it's safe to say he has his work cut out for him. 

Hopefully I'll have some after pics of this transformation to share on Sunday, but for now I leave you with the ugliest kitchen ever.

 The green counter tops are ugly, but they're in really good shape. Pretty much the only thing that is... 

The geniuses that lived here before us covered the wood paneling with wallpaper... but didn't go all the way up. Instead of doing it right, they attached an ugly piece of trim to the top to cover it . Eventually, someone painted over the wallpaper... Anyways, Graham ripped all of this down and is putting up new drywall.

 

Hideous, ancient appliances... 

By the end of day one, this is what we're left with. I honestly thought this kitchen couldn't get any uglier. Although now as we're going into day four, I realize I've said this every single day.

We're reusing the top cabinets, just making new doors. He does have to build new bottom cabinets, since a certain puppy I kind of love chewed them up during her chewing days... My job in this was removing the multiple layers of hideous, really sticky shelf paper that they used.

 

Graham actually decided to remove the bulkheads and open up the tops of the counters. It makes the room look so much more open & now that the sink isn't boxed in it looks so much brighter.

 

Since we're removing the bulkheads, we have to add on to the wall behind the cabinets. There was nothing there before, just paneling behind the cabinet, and the cabinet was bolted into the bulkhead. No now he is extending the wall, which means our pretty wedding picture display is temporarily gone =( and the living room is a mess too. The couch & our new chevron ottoman are covered in sheets to shield them from dust.

Day three looks even worse. The old paneling was gone, the back splash was gone, the counters are gone (they actually are getting resurfaced as I type this) and it currently looks like a war zone. We have no water, no stove, no microwave and I was forced to get take out last night since we couldn't cook anything.

I'm hoping to see a big difference when I get home from work today. Our new appliances come in today, and Graham started dry-walling last night. Hopefully the kitchen has hit rock bottom, and we're heading up to our new, bright, cheerful, modern kitchen. 

Project Declutter: Organizing the Pantry

We're going to be moving soon. Not like next week or anything, but within the next 8 months, and we have a lot to do. The kitchen and the bathroom need to be completely re-done, the guestroom, hallway & junk room need to be painted. But a few weeks ago I was home for lunch, and I opened the pantry to get out a granola bar and all of a sudden I had this overwhelming desire to organize our cluttered, gross pantry.

I didn't take a before picture, but step one was clearing out old stuff. Out came Hamburger Helper that Graham had before I moved in (aka 2010). I moved the food processor and a box of 12 Ikea wine glasses. I started a yard sale pile with a pasta serving set I had never used, and gold chargers I had no desire to keep. Other serving dishes got re homed, and then I could finally start organizing and rearranging what was left.

Part of this project also involved a new method for storing and organizing my spices, and I never would have found room for everything I re homed if I hadn't done that. I had a small drawer full of baking supplies (cupcake liners, piping bags, tips, etc.) and a whole cabinet full of mixes, extracts, etc. I put all of the baking stuff in a large plastic box and freed up the drawer & the cabinet for spices.

Small mason jars for spices.

The small jars (4 ounces) in the drawer didn't cost anything. We had about 24 jars full of hot chocolate left from the wedding. I've been saving them after drinking the hot chocolate, and finally put them to use. I absolutely LOVE this. The jars hold a good amount of spices (just as much as my old system did) and the wide mouth is so convenient. I have three sets of measuring spoons, and the biggest spoon on each set fits easily into the jar. That wasn't possible with my old set. I used 8 ounce jars for the spices I do use a lot of. Like chili powder, cumin, peppercorns and a few other things. They didn't fit in the drawer, but I put them in the empty baking cabinet. The spices and seasonings I use the most are on the first shelf. The second shelf has salts, baking soda, marinade packets, and random stuff I use fairly often. The last (highest shelf) has corn syrups, honey and maple syrups.

The pantry took a lot longer to do, and cost quite a bit more. I used a few different type of containers. Most of them are these from the Container Store. The jars for the tall pasta are these Oxo ones (I got them for a great price at TJ Maxx). I also used a couple of these from Ikea, and the containers for  sugar/flour I use in large quantities just came from Wal-Mart.

 

I know these containers and the way it's set up won't be every one's cup of tea. some of the containers actually take up more space than the boxes of pasta or mix themselves did. The tall pasta takes up twice as much room, but I love how easy it is to see how much of a certain item I have on hand. Once I put the pancake mix & Bisquick in canisters, I could see that I literally had 1/2 a cup of mix in each. If I was going to make a chicken pot pie or something and went to make the crust with the Bisquick, I would have had to run back out to the store. With clear canisters I always know what I have on hand and what I need to get from the store.

Top Shelf: Flours, sugars, mixes & random stuff.

 

 

Graham is very happy I finally labeled the flour & the powdered sugar. I do most of the cooking and none of the canisters were labeled. I knew what was in each. He didn't. So he made pancakes one morning with powdered sugar instead of flour. It was kind of a mess.

Right now I have four small containers of short cut pasta. Only two are labeled, because I don't usually keep this much pasta on hand. But I ALWAYS have white & brown rice, orzo, risotto & Israeli couscous. These canisters are awesome for those. Since rice comes in bags, I need a place to put it anyways. A lot of the rice/flours I have I can buy buy the pound at Whole Foods, and I love that. I can buy in a plastic bag, put it straight in the container and feel a little greener by not dealing with the excess packaging. 

2nd Shelf: Pasta, Rice, Bread & Crackers

 

 

The third shelf was easy. Cereal in Ikea containers, chips in one basket from Target, and cookies/other snacks in another basket. Easy, cheap & super efficient. The canisters from Ikea are PERFECT for cereal. They have a flip top, are decent quality, sturdy & cheap.

The fourth shelf is all canned goods and such. I don't really have a good way to organize canned goods. They make those containers that look like the boxes that soda 12 packs come in, but I don't care for those. As you can tell, I prefer canned beans to dry. So I crammed all of my dry beans in one container. I don't like cooking with them (honestly I'm just too lazy), but I don't want to throw them out. 

The floor is pet food and the giant box of baking stuff. I thought it might be inconvenient to have everything in a box, but I was going to make cupcakes earlier and everything was super easy to get to. And it doesn't get used a lot, so it made no sense having that stuff take up such valuable cabinet space. 

The door was already semi-organized, I just did some cleaning & rearranging to make better use of the space. Teas & beverages are together, broths & bouillon's are now together, so on & so forth. The box of Splenda on the 4th shelf shouldn't be there, but Graham drinks a LOT of tea, and uses it like whoa, so I wanted it to be more accessible.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out. And I'm glad I took a lot of pictures. In a few months when we paint & re-do the kitchen and everything has to come out, I'm glad I'll have a visual reminder of where things go =)

This kitchen is a dream.

eclectic kitchen design by boston kitchen and bath Artisan Kitchens LLC

I am in love with butcher block counters. Our next home will have a kitchen with beautiful white cabinets with brushed metal accents and butcher block counter tops. If we have enough space for an island, I'd love to incorporate a little pet feeding station for Buddy and our future dog (his name will be Dumbledore).