Our New House: House Tour Before Move-In

MagnoliaBeforeMoveIn1

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...]

The Spice of Life: Cute and Easy Spice Storage

spice storage

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...]

Chalking it up Again! Chalkboard Pantry

Chalkboard Pantry

[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...]

Pantry Project

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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...]

Our New Home: Total Before

first-design

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...]

The Little Things

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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...]

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

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...]

Kitchen Remodel Pt. 4: Painting and a New Floor

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...]

Kitchen Remodel Pt. 3: History

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...]

Kitchen Remodel Pt. 2: Removing Wallpaper

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...]