Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Shoe Re-Style!!

awhile ago I found this picture on Pintrest

and after seeing the $500+ price tag ( on sale?-what!?) put them into the "things I will never own because the guilt would kill me" category.

Then I remembered this pair of old and stained shoes that I kept because I loved the shape and fit and knew I could do something amazing with them.

so the next logical step would be to pull out my glue gun and granny-style floral fabric and get to gluing!! I started at the back of the shoe and made sure there was enough fabric to wrap around to the front
and then trimmed away the excess. The whole gluing process took about an hour. I cut little slits to get it to lay smooth around the peeptoe I used some cheap inserts so my feet wouldn't stick to the bottoms of the shoes(ew) and that is that!! I want to make some little fabric flowers to pin on them and I'm also looking for 2 cheap (matching ) brooches to pin on them too. I love that my version of the $553.84 shoe ended up costing me about $4 for the fabric-I already had the shoes and glue!
My husband walked in mid-photo shoot and made his "are you seriously doing this right now" face-which is fabulously contrasted with my "yesss I blaaaaagggg!!!' demented face.

I should probably just post pictures where i'm looking down from now on...

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Wide Open Spaces


one wall makes a HUGE difference!


Michael's family was here for the whole brutal thing (which was until 2 am in case you were wondering)

but the wall is gone and we have a glorious open floor plan for our kitchen/den/the undefined back room.

I'm very visual and once I stood in the spot where my sink would have been and made the outline of my originally planned island I wasn't in love with the configuration. So after a few tweaks I now have a 9'x4' island and a true galley style kitchen:


We loved this floorplan so much that we went ahead and bought cabinets!!! After perusing our options (building them ourselves vs. buying them premade vs. custom) we decided that as wonderful as it would be for my very handy husband to build them he simply does not have the time to do so and custom cabinets = $$$. So it was going to be premade. we looked at Home Depot and Lowes where the $160 a square foot price tags were just depressing. But wait! What is that on the inexpensive horizon?



I had never even considered their cabinetry as an option because I'm a 'real wood' snob but after reading the (rave) reviews decided that it was worth a look. Turns out their cabinets are just like everyone elses (wood fronts particleboard frames)-BUT theirs come with super cool door and drawer dampeners and are already finished AND are about 1/2 the price. Plus they come with a 25 year warranty-which is awesome. We went with the 'Ramsjo' finish on both the cabinets and island and I couldn't be happier!
I'm really excited about the design choices Michael and I made together and now all we have to do is rip out the sheetrock on the ceiling and rewire everything and put new sheetrock in and tape and float and texture and sand the floors and stain them and...oh my...

Monday, June 13, 2011

we wear cute stuff

Lets take a break from the kitchen chaos and talk about deep and serious things. oh wait...I mean shallow and superficial things :) I love the whole maxi skirt thing thats getting to be so popular! I picked up this simple black one at walmart for $14. I think its actually supposed to be a strapless dress but I'm an amazon or something-so its a skirt for me...The shirt is from Ross from a company called cable and gauge (although I didn't see anything near as cute on their website...
and of course - here is Gwen! looking very french in her beret...and one more-because it makes me laugh so hard I make an odd snorting chortle sound-which is as attractive as it sounds. Toddlers and Tiaras anyone??

Friday, June 10, 2011

Kitchen floor plan and inspiration board

I thought I might give you an idea of what we're planning on for the layout of our new kitchen and some visuals for what I'd like to do design wise!

Here is the (very) basic layout-forgive my amateurish paint rendering - you get the idea right! Also its not to scale. I didn't want to spend a year on it ok!
see how fantastically big the island will be!

As far as aesthetic I'm wanting sophisticated but fun!
I love the semi serious prints on pages from a book for over the table - and those chairs are my # 1 choice-they just cost a ton:(

The giant island will be painted a dark charcoal with brushed nickle hardware and I'm still unsure as far as counter tops go-I'm torn between butcher-block and stainless steel and i just might even go with concrete( it would look awesome with that exposed brick...) It will probably come down to cost and ease of installation since we'll be DIY-ing it.
Since the space for upper cabinets is next to zero we'll be doing open shelving with beaded board as a backsplash. (like this)
As far as lighting goes I'm pretty set on using those airy globes from west elm for over the island but I'm still deciding what to use over the stove and dining area-it will be the same fixture and it has to be fairly large for the space I'm considering something like this

but I still have time to make my final choice:)

I hope that helps to make sense of the space! Michael is tearing out the 2 layers of laminate this weekend so we can see what we're working with when it comes to flooring-I will probably shed a few tears of joy when that terrible, scratched, stained, impossible to clean flooring is no more!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

its happening....

2 weeks ago Michael started tearing out the pantry in our kitchen-(please note the eye searing blue) and it just avalanched from there! We'd been chomping at the bit to expose these old chimneys since we moved here so those were next: (oh the blue...yech)It looks like it has leprosy or something...

How awesome are these going to be!?!!
now I officially have no kitchen-its been completely gutted! This is so exciting but also a little nerve wracking-I'm still getting my new systems worked out for every day life. Doing ours and Gwen's room was much less intrusive in our day to day life! Thus far I've avoided taking pictures of my kitchen (because it was super ugly! ) But for reference here is what we've been living with:

(well..sort of-the fridge had already been moved into its temporary new home there in the back room-and usually its a bit less cluttery-I'd been moving things out of the cabinets and drawers to get it ready for demo)

(that splotch of paint is probably whats going to end up on our base cabinets and the humongous island we plan on putting in)


and here is what it looks like right now:

scary right? I love how you can see where the dividing line was. Whoever lived on the left side had much better taste in wallpaper-look how cute the windmills at the top are! (did I mention this used to be a duplex? Our theory is it was converted to a single family dwelling sometime in the 60's?. We're not positive on the timeline but sometime before we moved in anyway)

progress is progress! I have big plans for this space - starting with tearing a 12 foot opening between the 2 back rooms and filling up this wasted space with a 6'x6' island smack dab in the middle of it! Stay tuned for a floor plan:)

One more picture-heres the dream team in action-my Sweetheart on the ladder and our Awesome friends Tommy, who is ripping and tearing away that horrible blue stuff and Amber, my emotional support! haha!