favorite projects of 2011

this past year was a very fun one for me....but it didn't start out that way....

when i lost my job one week before christmas in 2010, i was angry and scared.  

then i was just angry.

but i used the experience to do some of the things i never had before.

i was able to do way more than i ever had been able to do in the past when i had a full time job....

i feel lucky that i had the opportunity to experience being a full time mama...

having more time for my photography

doing things i never thought i would ever do, like making a quilt,

and for all of the fun furniture thrifting and refurbishing.  

i also had time to spend redecorating some of the rooms in my house. 

and i am proud that i was able to do most of them for pennies on the dollar.

here are my top ten favorite projects of 2011:

10.  the goodwill coffee table

9.  the ugly bench

8.  the entertainment cabinet turned pantry

7.  my first handmade quilt

6. the diy camera bag 

5.  the twin tables

4.  a sofa slipcover from a dropcloth

3. trying my hand at canning

2.  the kitchen makeover

 and my favorite (and most popular) post of 2011

1.  the laundry room redo

i have also had the opportunity this year to experience washington dc with my son on his 8th grade class trip and go to every one of his baseball and football games.  thankfully i was also able to get him to  his practices all spring, summer and fall long with their crazy schedules and times....

i want to wish everyone a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year.....

see you in 2012.....

xoxo

the kitchen floor...finally....

the kitchen floor was a long time coming....we lived with builders grade vinyl flooring in our kitchen for 9 years.  it was ugly, stained and gouged.  when we bought our home it was a new build spec house.  it was done except for the flooring and countertops. so we got to pick those.  that was way before i had any design sense blogs and pinterest were around.  i wanted to extend the wood flooring that was in our hallway (which you can see beyond the dark floor)

 into the kitchen but the builder told us the cost of doing that would be $3300.00.
what???  uh, no thank you...
so we went with the cheap vinyl flooring.  it was fine in the beginning but it went bad fast.
when i just couldn't stand looking at it one minute longer, we decided to redo the floor.
the timing sucked though, because don had lost his job a few months before and we really could not afford to put wood flooring in.  i stumbled upon a blog where someone had redone their floor using a wood grain peel and stick vinyl plank that was 4 x 36 inches.  it looked great and it was really inexpensive.  i researched it and read reviews from people who used it.  they had it at lowe's, and at a dollar a plank, it was something that we could afford to do,
if at least as a bandage until we got real wood flooring.
we installed it

we were impressed with it

and it looked great.
for about 6 months.
then it looked horrible.
it shifted and separated at one end and overlapped at the other.

despite what we had read about this product, and all of the reviews, our kitchen looked like crap.

and it scuffed something awful.

i know it was inexpensive, but c'mon, really?

we contacted the company by email and i sent these pictures to them.  thankfully, we had kept our
receipt, we sent a copy to them and they refunded our money.  with no questions asked...hmmmm, i wonder how many times they had to refund homeowners money!
we took that money put it toward the wood flooring i waited 11 years for.

  lumber liquidators cocoa birch hardwood
don started ripping up the old flooring and what a bear that was....we had installed the vinyl plank flooring directly over the original vinyl flooring so we had to take up two layers.  the original builders grade flooring was really glued down.... wow!

it took the better part of a week to get it all up but it was finally done.

my brother-in-law came over and helped get us started on the new flooring and show us how to use the nailer thingy with the hammer...

which scared the dickens out of me at first but made the flooring go in really fast.
we did have a problem with the nailer because if it wasn't lined up just right on the board,
it would chip it.

fortunately, i was able to sand (because they were slivery) and stain these little marks and you could not tell the difference.

they finally let me try the nailer and i finished the floor at the doorwall when don was at work.

here is how it started out last year...

i loved it at the time but...

i was really ready to lighten it up....

and here is how it looks now....

i think it looks great.
finally!!!

i finished painting the bottom cabinets the day before we started installing the floor.

i think they look great too....

the color is more like the above picture than the one below....

the rubber band on the door is because my dog thinks that the trash can in there is a snack bar....

i found some cup pulls for the drawers that have a victorian feel to them.  now i just need to find knobs to match....

sorry about the white balance differences.....said the photographer  :D

i finally got the trim up on the top cabinets. i dry brushed them with cream paint because i had sprayed them with a darker paint than the lower cabinet paint and i was too tired, lazy, busy to repaint them.
(i fixed the discrepancy above, though)

 i am very happy with the floor.
except.....
it is really dark. which means that it shows every speck of dust and dirt.
but hey, it is the cleanest floor around because i am constantly dusting, vacuuming or washing it.
and it looks beautiful....
finally!!