It Ain't Purdy, But It's Functional!

SOOOOO.....after a couple of weeks of looking around at thrift stores, consignment shops, and garage sales, and not really finding anything I love, I finally just decided to move out of the kitchen with the furniture I already had.

Really, I just couldn't bring myself to purchase anything.  


I do have a sort of vision for my little sunroom, but when it came down to it, I was ready to move in and start functioning in it. 


Here is the kitchen minus all the "clutter"....a.k.a. my desk. :-)

I dont' know if you can tell or not, but Robert and I really like things UNcluttered, and neat.  Regardless of how it looks asthetically.  :-)  We just want it to function for our family as efficientlly as possible!

Moving all my stuff out really opened up the kitchen and let us use all of our (mismatched) stuff without feeling cluttered and cramped.


I moved my desk in the sunroom and then added a table to the left for all the modems, routers, printers, speakers, and my huge calendar.  Now I actually have a little room on my desk to write! :-)


I also brought up a desk that was in the playroom for the kids.  We have had a hard time finding Olivia a place to sit down and do her homework where she can concentrate.  Doing it at the kitchen or dining room table always resulted in other little people joining her. 

I also hooked up their computer to the internet!  Now they can play all their little games that we've bookmarked on their own desk instead of mine! ;-)  Anyone have any suggestions for popup/ad blockers and a safe internet program?  It's PC so I pretty clueless! ;-)

I also went and got some new pencils, markers, crayons and paper for them to put in their new little desk!  I have challenged them to keep it as organized as they can, putting everything back in it's place when they're done!

We are also getting into the habit of closing the door every time you go in and out.  Another problem I was having is that Rhodes would climb up to my desk and click around.  NOT GOOD!

This is the view into the kitchen from the sunroom!  Loving that the kitchen is now 100% the kitchen with no other purpose!

Anyways, it's not pretty, but at least it's functional!  I still plan on shopping around for things like a tall lamp for next to me, a small area rug to cover the yucky carpet, and a small bookshelf to organize all my books.  And possibly a chair too!   We'll see, it's a pretty small room! 

I'm happy to have a new little spot to call my own!!

The Great Migration: Part 2 + VDay

Valentine's Day just so happen to coincide with the Great Migration part deux.  It first started out as Mac (my BIL) was going to come over to help move the BEHEMOTH desk Robert uses.  THEN, it was changed to - Mac and Lacey are coming over and we are going to cook for y'all for Valentines.  AND he's going to help me move my desk.

Upon further review, measuring, and removal of the office room door, it was made known that this was no easy task.  

So I cooked my own Valentine's dinner.  And everyone elses too! :-)

Seared/grilled fillets, roasted potatoes with Parmesan.  A little zinfandel and fancy quesadillas (brought from Mac from work) and we were set!  And it was all ready after the desk was FINALLY moved!

Empty (dirty) little room!

This furniture (that weighs a million pounds) apparently is super nice office furniture.  A previous company that Robert worked for was moving buildings and just wanted to get rid of it.  So we gained a huge desk, other smaller wall desk, and a bookshelf.

Though it is not the office furniture I personally would have picked out, we hardly say no to FREE! :-)

Plus it suits Robert pretty well.

Ginormous desk....and a little helper!

Not sure it it's going to get in there...

I was just clicking away! :-)

WHEW!  It made it!  This is the set up right now! 

Hopefully it'll stick!

I think he was pretty excited to get down there the next morning!

And I got to clean up and try and figure out what exactly I'm going to do with my new space!!

The Great Migration: Part 1

He officially had enough.  Yep!  He couldn't HANDLE us any more! ;-)  The constant drone of children bickering talking, piano playing, babies crying/squealing, water running, and mommy cooking - it was just too much.  ;-)

And I 100% agree!  He needs a nice quiet place to focus and work.

So, Robert's moving downstairs!!!!  BYE BYE upstairs office!  Papers EVERYWHERE!

(side note: I heard someone talking about organization the other day and she said papers were "nothing but delayed decisions"!  I look at my papers a lot differently now!)

So we have these 2 rooms downstairs that we have painted and carpeted over the years (they were cement and paneling before).  One is completely closed off and the other is a big room leading out to the laundry room and garage.  The big one is the "playroom".  And could use some major organization.  We can't seem to find anything that works really well for us yet.  It gets a lot of use though!

Here is the room cleaned out.  Before, it had a couple of desks, a full size bed, pack n play, old tv, stuff....basically it was a junk/storage room.  No purpose. 

NEW PURPOSE.....Robert's home office!!!

Hey Robert, do you  mind if we store some stuff in here too!?!?

Ok...we'll let you have this space all to yourself!  Sorry, that was a crazy idea of mine!


He thought painting the walls stark white would brighten things up since there aren't any windows.

That was fun.  The kids enjoyed helping a little!

Of course, I wanted in on the action too. 

Robert trying to teach me.  Doesn't he know that I can do this!?!

See!???!!!!  I mean, come on, I'm married to a painter!  I should know a little something about painting! ;-)

I rolled out the walls while Robert cut in!

TEAMWORK!

And I would not advise anyone to let babies play in the room while you paint.  They might get into things, and they just MIGHT lean up against the wall.  Maybe.

But I will say that it kept him busy for a while.

He took off ALL the little pieces of paper that held the threads together.  It's Olivia's friendship bracelet kit!  YIKES!  Little Destroyer.

We knocked it out pretty quick!

He works SO fast!  Love watchin' my man work!

Get it done baby!

Perfectionist....he's probably going over what I did.  :-)

Moving the office downstairs meant re routing internet too!   So we drilled a couple of holes in the house, ran it through the downstairs, and VOILA!  Internet re-routed!

Clean new white office!  So as of right this second, 1/2 of it is downstairs and 1/2 is still upstairs!

After Mr. Perfectionist decides where he wants all his furniture (he's been measuring), and can go offline long enough to re-setup his computers (yes, 3 of them) he'll be rockin' and rollin' downstairs!

Oh, and what are we doing his old office?????

Glad you asked!

It's going to be my Mom Hub!  That's what I'm calling it.  My space to spread out, get organized, clip coupons, ad match, read, study, craft, home school....WHATEVER I WANT! :-)

I will be moving out of my tiny corner in the kitchen!

YIPPEE!!!!

The Kitchen Beginnings

The kitchen is coming along!!!  And I was quickly reminded why I'm not a "projects person".  BUT, before we get into that, let's see some more before photos of this "rigged" kitchen.

During my path of destruction around the kitchen, I also noticed this horrible molding hanging from the cabinets.  Other than holding grime and dirt, it's only function was to hide the under-cabinet florescent lighting.  Which was "rigged" and cords were hanging all over the place.

(Why this didn't bother me before now is completely shocking to me.  The only reason I could come up with would be that when we moved in I was pregnant (with Lillian) and wasn't all there, and then I guess I just got used to looking at it for so long I didn't "see" it anymore!)

Here's another place the previous owners "rigged" some lighting.  There are cords hanging all over the place above the cabinets.

So, we will be figuring out new lighting.  Especially under the cabinets.  But it'll probably be florescent lighting that doesn't need to be hidden.  Decorative florescent lighting, if you will.

Here's the opposite wall of the kitchen.  Hello, welcome to my world.  Yes, I put random things on top of shelves...we're pressed for room in this house!  I keep telling you I'm not perfect! Ha!

Saturday morning, I started taking cabinets off the hinges and hardware.  Yes, all 20 doors and 7 drawer faces.  (But we only have 5 drawers...I told you we're pressed for space!

And this was how we ate breakfast! Watching Robert staple gun things back into place.  Oh, and I threw away that toaster up top.  I guess if I haven't used it in a year or so, I probably won't use it again!  And maybe I can score a new toaster oven out of this project.  We'll see!

THEN, Robert gets all crazy and construction-man-like and decides to rip out the windows in the kitchen too.  Yeah..that wasn't in my plan, but something that NEEDED to be done!

The kitchen is in shambles at this point.  Not fun when there are 4 kids running around pulling things out of shelves!  AHHHH!!  Add in chainsaws and it's TOTAL CHAOS!

The cabinet doors and the bases were primed only on Saturday.  BUT, 2 windows were completely torn out! :-)


So day one was, how shall I say it, not the most "marriage building" of days, but we got through it unscathed.  :-)



Onto the fun part...PAINTING.  {insert Robert groaning}

We actually DID work as a team on this.  And he didn't get onto me too much about my bad painting.

Landon was actually a HUGE help.  And wanted to help.  Loved seeing his servant's heart come out!

Rhodes was toddling around while we were getting set up and he started walking with a leaf on his (left) foot.

So he tried to wave it off.  It was kinda funny.  He stood up and went back down twice to try and get it off.  Then just pulled it off with his hands.

The boys played around in the rain for a minute.  The girls stayed dry in the playroom watching "Annie". 

See....I'm painting!  I'm really doing it!

Unfortunately, it was SUPER humid so the cabinets took long to dry.  Hopefully, only one more day with a cabinet-less kitchen!

On the paint choice.  Let's just say I was more told, than got to choose.  Robert likes this Dove White Semi Gloss paint.  It's like $60 a gallon ($60.19 to be exact), and it's super tough.

Since we were basically working with "fake wood" that was underneath the vinyl-ish stuff, there weren't too many options for paint.  We just needed it all to STICK to the cabinets.  Plus, we can't go too crazy in the kitchen because in this area and home prices, etc....we would not get our money back if we went all out.  So we are doing the best we can with the house and area we are in.

But it doesn't rule out glazes.  We may or may not experiment with them.  We need to see how these cabinets turn out first.  There's absolutely no doubt that a fresh coat of paint in the kitchen will do it wonders.

We are also wanting to change out the lighting to two matching lights.  But one step at a time.  So far we've spent less than $100 (primer was $25), but we have so much leftovers, it's sure to go to more projects.  For Robert's business at least!

Another good thing about ripping off all the cabinets in your kitchen is it kinda forces you to go through your cabinets.  You see things and realize they're expired, or you have a better place for it which then frees up more space for other things!

Now, am I going to color code and line up cups smallest to biggest in my cabinets?

NO.  I'm not that OCD.  But it was nice to throw some stuff out!

Hopefully I can post "afters" soon!!!

Guess I Have A Project On My Hands

Y'all, I am NOT a "home projects" person.  It's just not me.  I don't pull pages out of magazines wanting to "get that look" or buy cute little things for my home very often.  I guess one day, when the chances of a random kid throwing up, or writing on walls, get super low...THEN I will desire a nice home and put our personal touches on it!

But by golly, I got SICK of looking at our kitchen!!!  You see, we have this fake, plasticy covering on the cabinets.  And with as much as all the drawers and cabinets get used, they started peeling off.  See below.

Well, regardless how long we stay in this house, it needed to be dealt with.

And let's face it....I needed a project.


Robert said he could get me a heat gun and start taking them down this weekend.  Well, I thought to myself...."I have a heat gun.  I just call it a hairdryer!"  And went to town about 2 days earlier than we planned!

Really, if I hadn't have gotten the ball rolling, who know how much longer we would have sat looking at it!!!

Here's what it looks like now! ;-)  Still in need of sanding...and then paint of course.

Please ignore random toaster on top of cabinets, nasty toaster oven on counter,  crazy rigged light over sink, ugly, multicolored floor mat, and baby that was SUPPOSED to be napping!  Mmmk...thanks!

Look at this gross stuff!  I can't believe we left it on as long as we did!!!

Good riddance!

My cute little helper!!!  Who clung to my leg whenever the hairdryer was on.  Then reached for the knives!  Seriously, there are way more forks and spoons to grab...why the knife?

So here is my question for YOU GUYS!!!

What color paint!?!?!?!?!

The counter tops are blue.  And we ain't replacing those....right now at least, so we have to work with those.  And the floors are dark.  There is so little natural light in this house already, that I hate to go too dark in the kitchen!  We need it as bright as possible.

On the other hand, super light colors show every.single.little. finger print and grim!


Sooo....any thoughts much appreciated!  Oh, and hardware suggestions too!  I'm not good at this stuff AT ALL!!!