Kitch-y

After many months, and a weekend of working past midnight everyday. After many ruined "paint clothes" and many revolutions of the Black Keys album . . . The kitchen JUST. MIGHT. BE. (almost) COMPLETE. 

Beauty in the Chaos

Brad and I have been gone for over two weeks. We decided to redo the kitchen floors about 2 days before leaving. SO when we came home we realized this house looks like a squat house right now. A really pretty squat house, mind you, but never the less, still a squat house. 

I was totally overwhelmed, the inside and the outside need so much love right now, so much cleaning, organizing, painting, planting everything. . . 

So I took a minute to look around. And I noticed, that amongst the mess and the junk and the chaos, there are still little bits of beauty in there. 

Ain't that life. 

Hang your hat!

We didn't want to put a coat rack by the kitchen entrance because we didn't want to make it feel like the entrance. . .but why fight it. . .it is. . It has what I call an "Apple Pie Door" for goodness sake, where you can open the top and put your freshly made apple pie there to cool off. Or in my case, to thaw out. . . .

Brad found this old cement tool at the antique shop. We liked the color and its all we really needed, one big hook to hold a jacket or two.

Now I have a place to put my boots and jacket on so I can take Tom out in my PJ's. I always keep my head down in case paparazzi is out there. And by paparazzi I mean the mail man. 

The Liiiibrary

I wrote THE LIIIIBRARY like that, cause that's how I say it, like Im old and English.

While Brad works and I stay at home and practice being a lunching lady, sometimes I faulter and find myself HAVING to get something done. I TRY to drink an afternoon Martini, I TRY to call a friend and talk about our diamonds, but sometimes I just NEED to do something productive.

Last week I took it upon myself, and I took it upon my friend Cailey to get going on the family room. It's time!

So we pulled everything off the shelves, wiped off that dust, pulled up our paint sleeves and kept the glossy white alive!

On to the shelves my friends!


BEFORE (again, this is way before, before before. . .)

Don't worry, we kept the eagle.

We took everything out getting ready to sand this guy up too!

Shelves almost finished! The window seat will be clear though . . .Don't worry that is NOT the TV spot! If I have it my way the TV will be in the basement. In a box. How much can I learn from The Real Housewives of fill in the blank anyway?!?!

Of course, I would be a great candidate for Real Housewives of Pittsburgh. 

I could get into martinis if I had to. . . .

But until that happens, more physical labor at home!

Is it Spring yet?

As the weather gets (slightly) warmer it makes me excited for our time to fix things outside of the house! Rake, pull up dead plants, plant a garden, paint the house, put a new driveway and path . . .All the things that are going to make this place look special when you drive up. 

One very winter night Brad and I drew up our driveway plans, a gate. . .maybe a gate with a secret code?!. . .that opens only for special guests. One that keeps Tom in and Coyotes, or big bad mail men, out!

I found the draft of our ideas, and as the sun is shining outside, I don't think its to early to think about. . .

Look at me. Two steps from finishing kitchen and mentally moving on. . .

HOME to HOME

There are not many things that make me nervous in life.

I wasn't nervous on my wedding day, I wasn't nervous for the SAT's, I wasnt nervous to try out for chorus in 6th grade. (And they all went well!)

But man, sometimes things in this house make me nervous. Mainly permenant things.

And by permenant I mean expensive and painful to redo. Restaining the floor would be hard on my aching joints. Retiling the kitchen would be hard on our mental state of mind, among other things. . .

So we go on, and hope these big choices that we make in a concrete aisle in a mega home store translate just right when we take the HOME depot to the HOME we know.

Ebony and Ivory

We have been talking about it for months, a LOT, literally, for months, yet when it came time to pull the stain color off the Home Depot shelf we froze. We wanted dark, we didn't want reddish tints, we wanted really dark. But did we want Ebony? I mean. . .Ebony. . .that means black. 

"Yep" said the Home Depot guy we made stop what we was doing (putting up another toilet display) to come help us. "It's dark."

"Well, how can we decide a whole room on one little fake computer picture on the can? It doesn't even try to pretend to be a picture of real wood!" 

He went to get something, oh phew. 

A 1 inch by 2 inch swatch of the stains. "It's not even on real wood," he said, "It's stained cardboard."

Great.

SO there we stood, Ebony or Deep Mahogany? Ebony or Deep Mahogany? Ebony? Deep Mahogany?

You know what, let's just do it. We want dark. We like dark. I stood there and took the Ebony swatch and held it up next to the spray paint can white glossy lid. A mini kitchen. Looked good!

We went for it. No fear decorating! 

(Not always the best decorating technique. . . )

But we did it. 

An afternoon of sanding later, 

An evening of shop vac and cleaning later. . .

A night and day of staining, polying, and polying, and polying later. . .

And here we have it. Ebony and Ivory.

Did we mess up? I am not sure yet actually. I love the color, I just don't know how it will translate once the furniture is in. But we will see. . .once the furniture gets in. . .

Ebony
be good to me
make my kitchen
look pretty
pretty please