Nothing But the Kitchen Sink

That's right, nothing is completely done but the kitchen sink.  But, it's still looking pretty good even with all of the surrounding, unfinished work due to it's new, light-me-up friend:

We still have to add some quarter round molding to the upper corners of the cabinets (see the gaps?) but it's so much better, right?  Especially seeing how far we've come:

As for the pendant itself, it cost us $33 - $15 for the medium-base pendant kit (Home Depot sells a candelabra base, which I wasn't a fan of), $15 for the glass cover, both from Lowe's, and a few bucks for a round electrical box that houses the wires above.  Anthony saved us a good chunk of change by installing it himself.  All it took was removing the old florescent fixture, filling in and then sanding smooth a few screw holes used to hold it up, and hooking up the new pendant using the existing wires and new electrical box - all while the power was off of course.  That whole process was the easy part.  :)  The tough part came in choosing which glass cover we wanted.  In fact, I skipped in and out of both Home Depot and Lowe's and came home with a total of seven covers.

    Originally, I thought for sure we'd love the taupe, crackled one on the far left but once it was up and the switch was on, the light it emitted was too orangey-brown and we wanted light and bright.  The second choice was the seeded glass dome, second in from the left.  We actually let this one hang for a few days and loved the look but ultimately decided we didn't like the fact that it clearly showed the bulbs housing.  So after nixing all the rest, one-by-one, we fell in love with this one:

It looks magnificent lit up...which unfortunately the point and shoot isn't good at capturing.  Initially, I was worried there would be too much white around but with the valance in the background and the window behind, it's just perfect.  :)

And that's all there is to write about the kitchen.  As I type, all of the doors belonging to the opposite side of upper cabinets are in the midst of being primed and painted, set to be back up and swinging next week.  However, as I promised in the twins 19 week post, I do have a couple of little thrifty fun projects to share.

A few weeks ago, as I was browsing one of my fave local haunts - Goodwill - for some maternity sewing projects (of which I still haven't done one), I ran into this woven basket/tray:

By the looks of it, someone may have had some chill partays complete with some chips and dip in this little ditty but me, I saw it as a low-profile basket to house onions, potatoes, and bread (and anything else that gets stored on top of our fridge) in style.  First though, the inner circle had to go.  Lucky for me, it wasn't woven into the basket but merely wired on in three places (I made sure before buying it for $2).  So, out came the needle-nose pliers and off came the circle.

Now it's filled and living on it's new perch:

It adds a little more texture to the kitchen, as small as it is, which is needed with all the white that will be.  I also like how thin it is, allowing me to be able to open the cabinet doors above the fridge have I ever a need even though the glass vases up there would still need to be moved...which brings me to my second little project - those vases.

I was handed-down these preserved veggie vases right after we were married and since then, even though they're supposed to be made to look fresh forever, the veggies at the top of both were looking a little icky. 

The other one had green and red peppers in it and actually looked worse.  I emptied that one a year ago and it's just taken me this long to get to the other.  :)  So, to empty I simply plugged my nose (precautionary, especially while pregnant), turned on the water and waste disposal in the sink, and poured away.  The carrots gave me a little bit of a hard time and I had to dig some of them out with a skewer, but after a few minutes I was left with this:

And this is where I say "to be continued".  I'm not sure what the future holds for these guys but a few ideas I've got are a) filling them with coffee beans (spray painted first?), sand, or something else small enough to fill them, b) dumping paint in the inside to color them from the inside out, or c) turning them into lamps.  Once I know, you'll know and see.  Should be fun!  First priority though is getting the rest of the kitchen donzo and then yanking out the sewing machine to create some increasingly needed maternity wear.  :) 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sandpaper, Nails, and a Mask

Finally!  After living without the oh-so-necessary-these-days internet for a week and getting a run around from our service provider, our web is finally back up and Bean In Love is back in business!  Oh happy Saturday!

As you might know, we've started another project to bring our kitchen out of the dark into the light.  We've already picked out and ordered new countertops so the next step is to get started on re-painting the cabinets.  When we first moved in, we had the great idea to paint the cabinets a chocolate brown using left-over/free paint from our previous house (see here).  Well, it was all great and dandy and looked pretty good when we were done but for some reason the paint remained a little sticky, even to this day.  One cabinet door also had lots of little pieces of roller lint plastered underneath the paint, leftover from the previous owners paint job and it always irked us.  So after we painted our master bath cabinets and fell in love with their look, we decided to carry it into the kitchen as well.  This is the story of how I, during my 16th week of pregnancy with twins, began this somewhat large project while Anthony helped here and there in between work and studying for a masters' exam.  :)

   With our countertops due in on the 17th of this month, I decided to complete the upper cabinets first before they arrived so that I didn't have to worry about accidentally ruining brand new tops with endless piles of paint chips and sawdust and 'oops' drops of primer and paint.  So it began with the upper left side:

 

For starters, I removed all of the doors and hardware and then removed everything from inside the cabinets.

Starting with the doors (the easy part), I set up a workstation outside and got to sanding, first with a coarse-grit sandpaper and then with a medium-grit until all sides were as smooth as two babies bottoms.  :)

Before:

After:

Since I was just going to paint right over them again, I didn't sand all the way down to the wood.  I just sanded enough to make sure that I had a non-sticky, smooth, flat surface to apply primer and paint to. 

To get in the grooves on the edge of the doors and inside the decorative routing on the fronts, I wrapped some sand paper around the thin, rounded end of Anthony's grill brush and went to town.

Then, a probably unnecessary step but just for good measure, I quickly rubbed each door down with a thin layer of Crown Liquid Deglosser NEXT (from Lowe's) to further ensure a good paint stick.

Then, it was on to the cabinet frames where I employed the same sanding process.

Just for kicks, here's a quick, all-around view of other happenings in the kitchen:

Me - prepped, pregnant, and fully protected.  :)

And, the new tablescape I created:

Lovely, innit?

Anyway, back to the cabinets.  After a couple days of sanding, sore arms, and lots of pregnancy bathroom breaks, I was ready to prime.

And that was that.  Except you quick ones might've also noticed one tiny thing missing...

The gaudy scalloped edge above the sink (if you thought "the light bulb", I'll count that too)!  Hooray for 2012 and modern design people! 

How'd I get it down?  Well, after noticing it appeared to be attached with two screws on each side...

...I simply removed them and tried my hardest (without Anthony's knowledge or approval) to bang, pull, and rip it down but to no avail.

It wasn't until my sweet, unknowing husband came home that night that he noticed my apparent deviousness and hesitantly removed it for me - after removing molding from behind and ripping it from six unseen nails from above (no wonder!) - and thereby exposing the ugly baby florescent light we've got goin' on.  But it's okay, we've got plans for that thing and they don't involve keeping it.  Stay tuned!  :)

.           .           .

Well, I'm off to start painting and eating, painting and eating (and scouting for the mail man who just might have my Gap maternity jeans in his possession).  Have a great weekend everyone! 

Tops

 We ordered new countertops!  Scuzzy laminate, it's time for you to go!  After waiting and researching and waiting and researching, we actually landed ourselves a good deal (surprise, surprise) at Home Depot.  We found and went with a Staron solid surface that's a tid bit darker than the sample shown on the very left in the pic below.  (I returned the sample before taking a pic...shame, shame.)

 Lucky for us, we snatched up a countertop that was on 'Special Buy' - regularly $42/sq. foot on sale for $37/sq. foot.  On top of that, all of Home Depot's countertops were 10% off plus we persuaded them (easily) to give us an extra 5% if we opened their credit card (to match the deal Lowe's swings around these days).  All of those awesome discounts add up to about $300 in savings!  We can't wait until they're done and in!  Should take two to three weeks.  While we were at it, we scored a new sink (because we can't put an old sink over new countertops, right?...think wine skins people...thank you Jesus)  at a fave discount store around here - Dirt Cheap.  It is/was a $400 stainless steel sink but we got it for 70% off because of one little dent that won't even show once it's in because it's around the undermounted part...if that makes sense.

Anyway, you can be sure we'll have a "they're here and in" post for ya in a few weeks.  As for the current bump situation...

Here 'we' are at 12 weeks.

While we were in our doc's office last week, Anthony asked him what his "professional opinion" was on the sexes of the babes.  He informed us that he usually doesn't give his opinion for a few more weeks but did tell us that the "old wives, whoever and wherever they are, would tell you you've got two girls in there based on their quick heart rates."  Anthony proceeded to put his head on doc's desk...

See you next week!

Hung Over

No, this post doesn't have anything to do with alcohol...or a self-induced nausea fest as a result of too much of it (I don't see how that's "fun"...never have, never will).  Anyway, it does, however, have everything to do with valances.  And it all began with a little bit of this:

and a little bit of that:

I know some of you (eh-hem, Farrah) were hoping I'd have a post on a finished loveseat this lovely Saturday Friday (I know, I usually post on Saturdays but tomorrow my world wide web access will be a world wide won't), but alas, it still sits undone.  I'm at the point with it where I need Anthony's help and he's been swamped with school and work so - no Anthony, no help, no loveseat...yet.  But back to the valances.  It's been on Anthony's to-do list for me to whip up some valances to adorn our dining area windows for like a year.  Finding the perfect fabric took me a long, long time...one reason for the delay in said project...but I did find it.  It wasn't as cheap as I'd been hoping (actually it's the most expensive fabric I've ever bought at $17 a yard) but luckily I only needed two yards to get these babies made.

Here's how it all went up:

First I painstakingly cut out the four rectangles that would soon be sewn into valances and laid them out on our living room floor to make sure they'd look okay...a.k.a. to make sure that there weren't two side-by-side that looked too similar.

I could've made each valance exactly the same - the same floral pattern across each - but that would've required about 4 yards of fabric and I wasn't willing to splurge.  Besides, I liked that they would all be different and since I was using a floral, I could do that without it looking off.

Next up I cut the lining that would be sewn onto the back of each valance.  All I did was lay a large piece of lining fabric (don't know the technical term) over the future valance and then cut it to be about an inch smaller.

After everything was cut I went back and forth from ironing down seams, pinning, and sewing until I had five almost perfect valances ready to be attached to the wood beams that would hold 'em up.

We used two, long (8 ft. I think?) pieces of the cheapest 1x2 pine strips at Lowe's but made sure they were straight before we bought 'em...very important!  Enter handy man Anthony, who cut the wood pieces to the measurement we needed to fit each window.  Because of my little perfectionist personality, I also gave the under side of the wood beam (the side that would show if you looked under the finished valance) a coat of white spray paint, you know, so in case anyone looked underneath they'd look nice too (okay, maybe I'm crazy).  Then, Anthony attached some corner braces we picked up for 75 cents for 2 at our local ReStore.

  

In comes the staple gun and newly sewn valances.  First, we stapled the valance to each corner.  Since we wanted the valances to wrap around the entire piece of wood, we did this first to ensure the fabric was centered and that the side seams were straight and would be flush with the wall.

Then, to make sure the valance hung level, I quickly measured along the length of it.  When I had measured twice and was certain of it's perfection, we began the stapling.

I held each valance in place while Anthony did the clickety-clicking.

We didn't use too many staples since the valances were super lightweight - about one every 4-6 inches.

And then, after a tough 20 minutes of holding and stapling, we celebrated our 'hang-overs' with a rousing game of hide-and-seek.  Ten points if you can find Anthony!  :)

 Haha...that was fun.  Anyway, we did get around to putting them up and we're thrilled with them!  While we were staring, admiring our work, Anthony said "They look so good.  I can't believe we went this long without anything up there."  I don't know...how did we ever survive?!  : p



In case you were curious as to what they looked like underneath...

 To get the crease on the corners, Anthony broke out the iron and made his own corner...yep, that's what I said, Anthony used the iron...I know, I'm a lucky woman.

And finally, here's the whole shebang:

We also hung an itty-bitty valance over the window above the sink, but lighting conditions and a not-so-great camera wouldn't allow a good pic.  You can take my work for it though, it's darn cute.  Now I just need to dress up our plain jane table with a runner and decor or something.  And, now that we've got valances up, the wall to the right of the windows is looking a little too blank and bland, but don't worry, I've got a collage project up my sleeve and I'm sure you'll be hearing about it.  :)

.           .           .

Stay tuned in the coming weeks if you wanna see a curb-side rocking chair make-over and painted wallpaper...and, crossing my fingers and hoping for time, an un-antiqued, antique loveseat finito.  :)  That's all.  Have a happy weekend everyone!

Kitchen Progression

While I was updating the blog the other day with new pictures of our kitchen, including our new appliances, I was thinking about what a change it's taken on since we moved in.  The cost of new appliances (minus the refrigerator since it'll go with us when we move someday) is all we've had to spend to make this transformation.  So, about $1300 considering we got a great deal buying from Goedekers (previously known as number1direct.com).  (Read our review here.)  We weren't planning on forking out money for our new appliances so soon until we had a run in with our dishwasher, followed a few months later with our stove.  But, as usual with unexpected expenses, we bit the bullet, pulled money from savings, researched for days, and then got cookin' with our new stainless steel beauties.  We know we can't exactly call our kitchen "completely upgraded", but it's much better than what we started with.  Let's take a look:

Here's the kitchen right before we moved in:

This is after we painted the cabinets Valspar's Cabin Plank and the walls Valspar's Cream In My Coffee - both leftover from our first house...a.k.a. FREE!

And this, of course, is where it stands now, with our new appliances:

But wait, there's more.  We really love the chocolate brown, and it was great fun while it lasted, but since we have such a small, galley-style kitchen, we're leaning towards a lighter, brighter, and more updated space so...

This is what might be in it's future, courtesy of Photoshop:

Without paying the high price for new cabinets, we'd love to completely update this space with new paint (guilt-free since the last coat was free), new countertops, a new sink, new lighting - on the ceiling and over the sink, and some other aesthetic details - beadboard in a few places, shelving, new molding, and some other wood inserts.  The 'plan' isn't fully tweaked yet though.  For example, knocking out the hollow soffit above the cabinets, raising each cabinet to the ceiling, and then adding floating shelves underneath each cabinet is another idea.  When all is said and done, the first option will cost us around $600, and that's if we pay full price for all of the updates...which we just don't do.  :)  And, it can be done over a period of time, allowing us to continue using the kitchen, instead of all at once which is tougher on the pocket book.  But, for now it's a 'maybe'.  We're not sure yet if the investment will be worth it or if it will even make a difference to a potential buyer someday.  It sure is fun planning though, especially since that's always free.  :)