It's done! It's done!

Hi everyone!  Ha, I bet you thought my kitchen remodel was done right?  Well, considering we did the demo over the July 4th weekend, you would think!  But, actually today at 5:30 pm it was finally done!

Man oh man, my kitchen is done!

Anyone going thru a complete remodel KNOWS about those little details that seem to take FOREVER to finish.  No returned calls, illness, holidays, backorders, all of these things and MONTHS fly by!  Well, today the cabinet guy came over and finally installed the trim "filler" piece above the fridge and the crown molding over the expanded soffit spot.  Phew!  DONE!

As promised long ago, here are the BEFORE, DEMO and AFTER pictures of my dream kitchen.  And it really is a dream.  Like some of you, I never really had a nice kitchen with everything new.  So I am really lovin' all the cool stuff (um, like under cabinet lighting for my blind ole eyes!)!  Anyway, here we go:

Before -Wall 1:

After:

and

Before -mini sidewall:

See?  It's gone!!

I don't have a before pic of the entire wall 3 (?), but here are the after pics.  We moved the fridge to this wall and the microwave now is on a built-in shelf:

Here are the built in recycling bins to the left of the fridge:

Before -at the window:

After -at the window, the sink was moved to the left, centered under the window:

Here is under the sink, with the garbage disposal, insta hot and automatic soap dispenser there isn't much room!  I had a shelf installed in the skinny cabinet on the left, now my baking sheets and smaller loaf pans can be separate and easy to get to:

Here is a software generated birds eye view from Parr Cabinet's software -ignore the "pony wall" shown on the bottom right, we ended up demoing the entire wall.

I have lots more organization and gadget pictures!  Click here and here for more blog posts showing the goodies I bought for my kitchen.

OK, now that you've stuck around through all the kitchen pictures, I actually have a card to share!  This card uses Unity's September KOM, When I am With You, some amazing NEW Bo Bunny papers, Crazy Love, and the gorgeous velvet crocheted ribbon (you can get both at Stamp Simply Ribbon store). 

Thanks for stopping by and indulging me with my kitchen pictures and a little Unity/Bo Bunny love!  Have a great day!!

Stuff and stuff and a card (that I don't like)

Hi everyone!  Ever get into a great card making groove and then, POOF!  Gone?  Where did my mojo go?  I have a card to share, but I really don't like it.  The sad thing is it took me TWO DAYS to make.  Yep.  I kept coming back to it and tinkering.  In the end, it's "not all that and a bag of chips", but I thought I would share one of my, "I don't like it, and it will go straight into the birthday card stash" cards.  lol.

It's got good bones.  Good colors.  Just OFF.  Oh well.  The balloons are from Verve's Birthday Bash, the sentiment is from Big Wish and the frame is from PTI's Framed set.

I also have a couple of random pics to share.  This is what happens when Oregon GETS NO SUN OVER THE SUMMER!  What up with that?  The carrots in my garden TRIED.  Yes, they did.  I put the "larger" ones to the right, we ate those.  Still pretty tasty, and my boys got a kick out of eating them with the greenage on the bottom, "just like a bunny"!!  Don't these look like carrots for Barbie dolls?

Remember my garage remodel?  Here is a reminder picture of my favorite part.

Well, the final touch was to get a large piece of carpet!!  You see, my little tootsies are spoiled and don't want to touch concrete in the winter (yikes) on the way to and from the laundry.  So, I went to my local carpet store and bought this large remnant for $25 dollars (it's a high quality residential carpet, not commercial grade).  I cut out around the washer and dryer (with a utility knife) to make a perfect fit.  LOVE this carpet.  I have been asked and YES, I will vacuum it!  And when it gets all goobered up over the winter, it can easily be replaced with another in the spring!

See that laundry hamper to the left of the washer?  LOVE it!  It was $13 at IKEA, the Antonius.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!!

Garage remodel pictures

Hi everyone!  I have been working all day every day for over a week, remodeling the inside of my garage.  

Remember this picture?

This was right before we had the new concrete poured.  Well, just about NOTHING from our old garage came back into it.  See the walls?  Not much but bare studs and some crappy ole unfinished sheet rock.  Typical garage...

Bill and I redid everything ourselves.  I mean everything.  I designed the layout, we hung white paneling on the walls (with help from our Handyman), put together ALL the cabinetry, shelving systems and I painted a re-purposed kitchen cabinet/shelves white.  And I decorated it.  Yes, I decorated the garage -hey, it doubles as my laundry room!

This is the front wall/laundry room/entry to the house.  This is my pride and joy.  

I spent 3 days on this section alone. 

I did EVERYTHING on this wall!  I must say, after finishing this garage, I am QUITE handy with a drill!!  The cabinetry is the Estate by RSI and the shelving system is FastTrack Shelving from Rubbermaid.  Getting the doors to hang correctly was very tricky -it took about 40 minutes for EACH one.

Here is a close-up.  I am glad I found to hang a couple of my ceramic suns I got from my travels to Mexico (each sun is from a different trip).  See those toys on the left?  Those are 3 of my favorites from when I was a girl.  My Barbie dolls used to ride them!  Hey, I grew up on a farm -LOL!

Here is a picture of the other side of the door.  I hung the cabinet and installed the peg board myself!

This is Bill's side, the garage cabinetry was a BEAR to assemble for him, but it's really sturdy.  It's from Gladiator Garage works and we got it at Lowes.  Again, we cut out and mounted the pegboard.  We haven't filled the shelves yet, getting to that tomorrow -LOL!

This is the right side of the garage (where I park my car).  It holds our freezer, some more re-purposed shelves, my scrapbooking tote and a closet bar to hang extra clothes.  That brown cabinet on the far right was the only thing from the original garage we kept, it holds our luggage.

Here is a close up of the spot we have for the boys bikes and our shoe bench (from IKEA) by the entry door.  Now everyone has a place to sit down and take off the shoes OUTSIDE the house!  I also found the great double bike rack at Lowes.

OK, enough of the pictures!  Thanks for bearing with me this summer through all my remodeling.  I can tell you all one thing.  WE WON'T be doing anything like this ever again!  It's been over 3 months of complete chaos. 

Thank goodness it's all done and now we have a beautiful kitchen, the best driveway in the neighborhood and a fully functional and gorgeous garage!  Yeah baby!!

The drive way is DONE! The drive way is DONE!

Hi everyone!  I am super happy to report that the driveway, walkway and garage floor is DONE!  Man, it feels good to have it complete.  AS IN DONE, nothing lingering on like with the kitchen (update, my contractor is coming next Wednesday to complete the last little things, whew).

Wanna see pics of the BIGGEST RUBBER STAMP EVER?  Check this out.  We opted for a concrete stain and stamp along the border of the driveway and continue it on to the walkway.  SUPER COOLIO! 
The big blue thing on the left is the stamp, sorry for the shadows, it was super sunny this day!

Here are some before pictures to let you know what we lived with for 7 years.

And alas... here it is now!

 I can't wait to put back my porch bench, decorative planters and spruce it up with new landscaping!! 

I also have a card to share today.  This one uses a couple of Verve's new release sets, Great Friend and Happy Hello.  I love how versatile the flower blossoms are in Great Friend.  You can use the outline image for paper piecing OR for a delicate flower outline like I did here.  And of course, Julee never misses a beat with the layering options with her flowers. 

My layout is from Taylor's sketch (TESC125) from last week.

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great weekend.

Driveway remodel: Day 9

Hi everyone!  Yesterday, the cement driveway was poured!

As I type, the walkway is being poured.  We have gone with a concrete stain and stamp.  Have you seen that done before?  It will be amazing.  Some of you have asked, and no, we did not take out our HUGE Blue Spruce tree.  We cut the 3 major roots and sealed them and will pray it survives.  I LOVE this tree, I mean really LOVE it.  I will keep it as long as I can.  

Anyway, here are 2 from yesterday:

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day!

Mojo Monday ON a Monday

Hi everyone!  I actually have a Mojo Monday sketch card to share with you ON a Monday!  That so never happens -LOL!  But, with all the crews here all day prepping for the concrete pour tomorrow, I have to stay home.  TRANSLATION: I want to stamp instead of clean! 

I love Julee's sketches!  This Mojo153 sketch ROCKS!  I have used a similar sketch in the past and using 4 squares is always a hit with me.  My card uses 2 newly released Verve sets, Happy Hello and Dream Big.  The sketch lends itself perfectly for that cute square border in Happy Hello!  I stamped it on Vintage Cream in Basic Gray ink, masked it off and stamped the medium sized leaf branch from Dream Big.  I colored in the small square border with the W1 Copic marker to add a bit of pop.

I have a couple pictures of how I masked the squares.  First I stamped the square image on the cardstock and on a post-it note.  Using a craft knife, I cut out the inside of the square on the post-it.

I then lined the square outline onto my cardstock and stamped the image over it.  Easy peasy!

Driveway Remodel update:  Well, at the end of last week we had complete demo and haul away of our driveway, walkway and garage floor.  We were hoping to only demo the left side of the garage, but after everything was demo'd we discovered some serious unsound structural issues, so we had to demo the entire thing.  Ugh, we were hoping to save on the cost.  Oh well, it is for the best and will turn out MUCH better in the end!

So today, the crew brought in and leveled off the gravel, placing the drains and are setting the forms.  We are still on schedule to pour concrete tomorrow morning in the garage!  This will be super cool!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Card Deets:

Stamps - Dream Big, Happy Hello
Ink - Always Artichoke, Basic Gray
Paper - Kraft, Vintage Cream, Basic Grey Manilla 6x6 pad
Accessories - 3/8" blue grosgrain, blue rhinestones and green burlap string (all Pinkhedgehog Papercrafts), Tag nestabilities