kitchen Archives - Real Life Notes

Our New House: House Tour Before Move-In

July 8, 2013 by Jill 1 Comment

Welcome to our new humble abode! I snapped quite a few true "before" pictures before we even started cleaning or painting or unloading any furniture. So let me take you on a quick tour. Come on in! This is the front door you just entered from. The coat closet is on the left of the picture and the door to the garage in the bottom right corner. Here's the view as soon as you come in. This is the playrooom/library. To the right is the hallway to the bedrooms and to the left, it's totally … [Read more...]

Filed Under: home, home decor, home improvement, home tour Tagged With: bathrooms, family room, jaye's room, kitchen, laundry room, library, magnolia house, nursery, playroom

The Spice of Life: Cute and Easy Spice Storage

June 14, 2013 by Jill 3 Comments

A few weeks ago, I did a quick update to my spice storage. And the results were awesome. Using washi tape and some leftover jars, I turned my mish-mash of spice jars into a fun and functional spice storage solution that happened to be really easy to do and easy to change in the future too! Win, win, win! 1. Choose the jars for your spice storage. I used Gerber baby food jars for the spices. Once they were super clean, they were the perfect size. I had two different sizes of jars. The bigger … [Read more...]

Filed Under: cooking, household management, organization Tagged With: kitchen, spices

Chalking it up Again! Chalkboard Pantry

October 19, 2012 by Jill 3 Comments

[pinit] While I had the chalkboard paint open working on Jaye's chalkboard dresser,I decided to whip up a chalkboard pantry as well. I used Frog Tape to tape off the inside of our pantry door. I made sure to smash the tape down really well. Then I just painted on two nice coats of chalkboard paint. It would have been better to use a foam roller, but I just used a brush. You can kind of see brush marks, but it's not too bad. After the chalkboard paint has dried for 7 days, you have to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: home, household management, organization Tagged With: chalkboard, kitchen, pantry, projects

Pantry Project

September 14, 2012 by Jill 5 Comments

Ever since we moved in our pantry (well, really our whole kitchen) has been an organizational disaster. The kitchen was scheduled for August as the "one room per month" decluttering rule, but that didn't happen for various reasons. However, I recently (finally) tackled the pantry at least. When we unpacked, we just dumped everything into the shelves all willy-nilly, helter-skelter, mishmash, you get the point. It looked bad. And it was impossible to find things. See what I mean? You didn't … [Read more...]

Filed Under: before and after, organization Tagged With: decluttering, kitchen, lorrie house, projects

Our New Home: Total Before

July 9, 2012 by Jill 4 Comments

Finally, some pictures of our new house. Here's the layout. I love the wood floors throughout. That was super important because both Phil and I HATE carpet. The kitchen is linoleum and the bathroom is tile. Everything else is wood. When you enter the house the coat closet is in front of you, the garage to your right, and you are looking into the dining room (but not from this angle). The dining room is next to the kitchen, which is nice because in our Nokomis house, we couldn't quite figure out … [Read more...]

Filed Under: home tour Tagged With: bathroom, bedroom, before, dining room, guest room, kitchen, living room, lorrie house, nursery, study

The Little Things

May 28, 2012 by Jill Leave a Comment

Sometimes in the middle of chaos, it's the little things that help so much. We're in the middle of packing up the kitchen this weekend. It's been chaos for sure. But the peonies in the backyard started blooming this week. So I clipped a few for my bottle garland, which I refuse to pack until the last minute now that there are peonies to fill it with. Ahhh. Much better. They are wafting a delicate smell across the packing and cardboard chaos. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: life Tagged With: flowers, kitchen, moving

How to install (and grout!) self-adhesive vinyl tile

August 2, 2009 by Jill 3 Comments

1. Sweep thoroughly.2. Clean your floor really well with soap and water.3. Use a staple gun to secure the edges and any other chipped loose spots.4. Apply an embossing leveler. Mix this up in very small batches. Work quickly to smear a thin layer over the floor. Let dry.5. Determine the center of the room. You want to start laying the tile at the center and work out from there.6. Place (BUT DON'T ADHERE!) tiles from the center to the edges to test it out. You want the last tiles at the edges to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: diy, how to, kitchen, projects, remodel, self adhesive tile, tile

Kitchen Remodel Pt. 4: Painting and a New Floor

July 28, 2009 by Jill 3 Comments

Here's our kitchen when we first moved in. I didn't like this pass-through window, the wallpaper border, the color of the walls and cabinets, or the floor. Whew. A lot of work needed to be done. Over a year later, I love all those things (or their absence)!Step one was removing that quaint wallpaper border, as detailed here. Next we tackled the paint job. I followed John and Sherry's advice on How to Paint your Kitchen Cabinets. It was a lot of work. Cabinets before, dingy, yellowed … [Read more...]

Filed Under: before and after Tagged With: diy, home, kitchen, painting, projects, remodel, self adhesive tile

Kitchen Remodel Pt. 3: History

July 26, 2009 by Jill Leave a Comment

In the process of moving the fridge in order paint the cabinets and redo the floor, we uncovered some kitchen history. Our kitchen used to have yellow walls and gray tiles. Lovely. (Not.)Stay tuned--the kitchen remodel reveal coming next week! … [Read more...]

Filed Under: life Tagged With: home, kitchen, painting, remodel, tile

Kitchen Remodel Pt. 2: Removing Wallpaper

June 25, 2009 by Jill Leave a Comment

This quaint border formerly bordered its way around our kitchen. Unfortunately for it's continued existence, it wasn't meshing with our new style. So I got out these tools and attacked the offending border.The method I found worked best was to score the wall paper with the bright green box cutter and then really soak it down with the sponge. Then after waiting a few minutes, it peeled right off with the help of the screwdriver.And, voila!, kitchen sans wallpaper. The oops of this project is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: before and after Tagged With: diy, kitchen, projects, remodel, wallpaper