Countertop Painting

It has been a really long time since I have posted anything new on this blog....I have been quite busy being on bed rest and now having a new baby girl!  4 little ones is quite time consuming.  But I have been feeling so incredibly stir crazy this winter since I can barely ever go outside (that is what the idea of what feels like -100 degree weather will do to you)!  So because I have been locked up in the house I have decided to get back to work with easy projects that can be done without having to use my saw, stain, or any other outdoor product.  I have two really bad orange/yellow laminate countertops upstairs that I just could not take anymore.  I decided to paint them.  I am not going to do a tutorial today, but lets just say that I am glad that I did this and now this summer I am for sure going to do my kitchen countertops, that is how much I love how these turned out.  I just primed, painted a base coat, and did a lot of sponge layers of about 5 or six colors.  I sealed one of them with a polycrylic but I don't love the top coat so tonight I am going to use Envirotex lite to finish off the bathroom countertops.  I AM IN LOVE WITH THE BATHROOM COUNTERTOPS and I suggest everyone that can't afford new countertops to do this, it is SOOOOOOO scary at first but SOOOOOOOO easy and there really is no need to be scared!!

Is this really a GIRL??

Can this truly be my girl???? Taken at 21 weeks!!!

Boy or Girl

Tech says boy but I have been told by others not to believe it because the scan was taken too early 914-15W).  At 16 w was told it was more likely a girl...... All these pics were from my scan that was done between 14-15 weeks.

Painting Kitchen Cabinets

After begging, pleading, and tricking my husband, I finally got my wish and got the go ahead to paint the kitchen cabinets!!!  We have lived in this house for 1.5 years and I have wanted to paint them since day 1!!!  This house needed a make over from head to toe (and still does) but every improvement I did to this house, made these atrocious poop brown cabinets stand out even more.  In my eyes even if I screwed up the paint job and had drip marks and brush strokes everywhere, it couldn't possibly be worse than what it was.  I don't really feel like I need to do a big tutorial because there are SO many cabinet painting tutorials out there.  The quick run down of what I did was.....

 Lightly sanded everything down with electric hand sander, wiped it all down and then did 3 (because I was determined for it not to chip) thin coats of primer then I waited 24 hours and painted my cabinets with a color match of BM White Dove in Cabinet Finish paint.  I waited 7 hours between each coat and I applied 3 coats.  I waited 24 hours then hung everything back up!  I also primed and painted all my hardware with oil rubbed bronze paint.  I didn't feel like the Oil Rubbed Bronze paint really looked like oil rubbed bronze, it looked like a speckled black, so I got some metallic craft paint in copper and rubbed that on and now no one would know they were even painted, it looks great.  However, I do not like the look and shape of my hardware, it looks way too dated, so I ordered some pulls on amazon and I am still waiting to get them.  I will also put them on the drawers too so they don't look so plain! I love love love how much brighter and happy my kitchen feels!!!!

This is the before pic

During

After

And just so you have a full view of my kitchen, this is the other corner where our breakfast nook is...

I still have some decorating to do but I am so so much happier in my kitchen now!!  If this house wasn't a transitional home, I would think of installing new countertops and a new sink and faucet too, but it isn't worth the time and $$$ as we will be selling in a few years and we don't want to price ourselves out of this old neighborhood by doing granite and apron sinks ect.......Yay for a lighter kitchen

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OH NO, When is School??

Oh my I think I just made a fool of myself in front of my new little Kindergartener!!! We woke up early, ran to the store to buy Ethan some new shoes because I forgot to buy him school shoes (I'm on a roll) after getting him home, he took a bath, brushed his teeth and got all dressed for school.   We went outside and snapped a few "First Day of School" pictures and then ate some lunch.  We went upstairs knelt down and said a prayer together, just the two of us so he would have that little extra comfort about his first day of school.  I told him how excited I was for him and that I knew he would do so GREAT in school!  I could see and feel his excitement grow with each task we checked off of our list!  Finally, it was time to go outside and wait for the bus to pick us up, I was holding back the tears and he was holding back his excitement (as best a 5 year old can).  Just as bus time was inching up on us, our neighbor and all her kids, who should be in school because they are in older grades, came out of her house.  They quickly informed us that school starts tomorrow not today!!!!  In all the craziness of getting ready for school I must have read the date wrong!!!  I felt so bad for Ethan, he was so super excited, but he is a sweet good little boy.  I could tell he was EXTREMELY let down but he just hugged me and with a quivering voice said, "It's ok mom we will just do it all again tomorrow.........but maybe not all the pictures."  What a cute awesome little boy I have!!!  He was so let down, but he could tell how bad I felt for getting his hopes up that he tried really hard to not show his disappointment!!!  I love this little boy so so so much!

Here are a few of our pics from this morning, I think that even though the date will be wrong by a day, I'm not going to redo these.  He was such a trooper!  I got the idea for these potos on Pinterest and I wasn't in the mood to try to be creative and come up with my own ideas!  Isn't he so handsome???

Awards

Ok so I have been really busy lately, not only with my boys swimming lessons every day, but also  with ripping down wallpaper (my least favorite thing in the world!!  I curse wallpaper) and patching up the drywall, that I have been dead to the blogging world!  After getting back on, I realized there has been more traffic on my blog than usual, and I'm super excited that I have friends stopping by and enjoying my stained table as much as I have.  I still find myself just staring at it, thats how much I love it!!  Some of my new friends have nominated me for some awards, so I wanted to take some time and say THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!  I'm so happy to learn that there are people out there who actually enjoy reading about my projects!  I'm so happy to know that I got the Newbie Spotlight of the week!!  Awesome, thank you!


Maria Elena at Our Home Away From Home nominated me for the Versatile blogger award....

How nice!  Im so excited!

Go check out her blog, she has some awesome photos of Spain!!

Mary at Sure As Eggs was nice enough to nominate me for the Sunshine Award,  and Cari at An Intentional Life nominated me for The Kreativ Blogger Award, I am so grateful to them for the nominations! You should hop on over and check out their lovely blogs!!!

So here is how the nomination works, first give props the the blogger that nominated you and make sure to link back to that blog so others can enjoy their blog too, second answer the following questions about yourself, and third nominate 10 of your favorite bloggers, and link back to their blog! Make sure to let them know that you have nominated them!

1. FAVORITE COLOR: RED but I don't really use it much in my home, mostly in my clothing!
2. FAVORITE ANIMAL:  HORSE  hands down, I love riding horses!
3. FAVORITE NUMBER: 9 I don't know why
4. FAVORITE DRINK: DIET DEW but I'm not drinking it anymore :(
5. FACEBOOK OR TWITTER?  FACEBOOK
6. GOOD BOOK OR MOVIE?  MOVIE because it is shorter and I don't have the time for a book
7. MY PASSION?  MY BOYS anything to do with my 3 little guys, after that is fixing up furniture!
8. GIVING OR GETTING?  GIVING for sure
9. FAVORITE DAY? SUNDAY I get to go to church, see friends, and I get to go home and be with family all day!
10. FAVORITE FLOWER? Gardenia

Ok so now for my 10 favorite blogs!

1. Decorganize Crafts - Love her
2. Re-Made Just Right   -She is amazing!
3. Curb Alert-  She is super creative
4. Silver Pennies - She really inspires me
5. Start at Home-  Love her tables!
6. Visual Eye Candy - Also very inspiring
7. Mama With a Dash of Drama - I always get excited to read her posts
8. Liz Marie Blog- Love her style
9. Random Thoughts from and Incoherent Mind- Always entertains me
10. Sweet Luvin' In the Kitchen- Yummy is all I can say

Check out these blogs that I enjoy!

Stained Table

Ok so I have another table done. Some of you might remember that I painted this table, but I was never really happy with it for a number of reasons, it wasn't the look I was going for, and there were problems with the structure of the table that drove me nuts. So when my neighbor offered me this table for free before she hauled it to the dump, (I forgot to take a picture of the before so I found this on the internet, the only difference is the legs aren't an exact match, but other than that, this is exactly what the table looked like, I even have those chairs sitting in my garage)

I snatched it up before she finished the question. I sanded the table down, used wood conditioner on it before I stained it, stained it with Minwax Dark Walnut then put 3 coats (sanding between each) of poly (thinned out with mineral spirits so I wouldn't have those nasty brush strokes or bubbles). I then painted the skirt and legs with Heirloom White paint and glazed it all so the wood match the chairs I upholstered a while back.


I love this new table but can't decide on the table runner or centerpiece. But the beauty of that is I can change it as much as I would like!! Slowly but surely my house is coming together.

I am still trying to convince my husband that painting the cabinets would be awesome. Actually when I close my eyes and picture my kitchen, I picture white cabinets with Dark Walnut stained butcher block counter tops. My problem is right now, this nook that I love and worked so hard for does not fit in my kitchen. The kitchen and nook seem like two different spaces... First you have this...

Then you turn around and have this....

(this is actually an old picture from the previous owner, the floor isn't like that, and I now have a beadboard backsplash)

 They don't work with one another.  Wouldn't white cabinets and butcher block countertops just bring it all together???? I am really really really working hard on him. He just has this huge fear of painting cabinets.

Breakfast Nook Redo

First off, I am having problems with my blog, it wont show paragraph breaks and the photos are not centered as they should be, if anyone knows why it is doing this please help (I'm a novice at blogspot, this is the first time I've had issues like this though) So I am really excited to have this done! Things around this house have slowed down as far as projects and home renovations because my poor little 3 year old Liam, broke his elbow and had to have surgery. It was a really bad break and the healing process has been a doosie!! He has been in constant pain. He just got his cast off, but now will need to have physical therapy for at least a year because he doesn't have the ability to move his middle and index fingers, and he has severe nerve pain in his thumb, middle, and index fingers. So needless to say, he requires a lot of attention and help because he basically only has one hand.......It has been rough!

                                             

 With that said :( lets get back to the nook. My plan is, and has always been, to paint things with the intent to convince my husband that painting our kitchen cabinets would look nice and be a GOOD THING. I think I made a lot of head way with this nook, because it looks flawless (not to toot my own horn)! We started with a cheapo bench and a craigslist table ($25) we have had it like this for months now and every morning I would walk in the kitchen and cringe at the sight of all my miss matched ugly out dated brown in my kitchen. Now I at least have one pretty corner to look at. I simply painted the chairs and the pedestal of the table gray (with my new cheap paint sprayer that I love) and the top of the table and the bench white. However, I felt it was a little too boring so I came up with something fun. I decided to paint the leaf of the table gray too, that way it could give the table fun character and sort of camouflage the lines of the leaf (when the table is all white with the leaf in, there are two black lines that stick out like a sore thumb) also, it can sort of serve as a table runner too. Either way, I really really like it and I am super happy with it. I bought a yard of burlap for $2.50 and made some quick pillow covers and cut a square for my center piece. Now my walls behind the nook are bare, this I am very aware of and I have a plan to build a shelf that wraps around the corner so it stretches across both walls, I am really excited for my final nook reveal, but it will be a while as I still have a hurt little boy to tend to. I have to say my favorite part is the gray leaf!!!!!