Things Are Looking Up

While I was cleaning out those laminate cabinets that I painted last week, I got lost in all of my past.  Do you ever do that?  I start going through things, then suddenly it turns into a trip down memory lane.  As in, "Oh!  Look at all those 4th graders that I taught right after I graduated college!  ...dude, they'd be seniors in high school by now... gulp."

Anyway, one of the things I found during this lengthy process was a folder of old pictures that I've taken.  Back in 2004 or 2005, I was given my very first digital camera.  It was a little point and shoot, and I had a ton of fun with it.  The camera only had 4 megapixels, but that wasn't half bad at the time.  I took many pictures, and most of them were developed and promptly stored away in this little folder.  

Within the stack of pictures that I found were several outdoor shots, primarily in yellows and greens.  And then the light bulb went off.  I could totally put these humble pictures to work in my kitchen -- where I'm looking to add more yellows and greens.  I liked them well enough to display them.  So, I slapped them in cheapie photo frames and did.

Here's what I found.  These were all taken in Jacksonville, FL, unless otherwise noted.

I love the yellows in this one:

This picture is my personal favorite:

 And this one was taken in Saint Augustine, FL:

Not bad for free art, right?  These pictures were hung on this odd little piece of wall that connects the top cabinets to the ceiling, which is one of the few actual wall spaces that we have in the kitchen.  I've left it fairly empty for far too long, mostly because I had nothing that I wanted to hang so high.  It almost seemed a bit pointless, since you really do have to look up to see anything up there.  This isn't the best pic of this space, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about:

Pretty empty... and unexciting.  Here's what we've got with the pictures in place:

So, here's my vision.  As I mentioned briefly in a previous post, we're gearing up to paint the cabinets white. I also want to ditch the garland above the sink and add hooks for holding mugs... and maybe some sort of a kitchen sign.  We'd love new floors and countertops, but those will have to wait.  Shoot, we'd love to get rid of this wall entirely and open things up between the kitchen and living room, but hey, all in good time.  For now, my main goal is to brighten up this space and make it more cohesive with yellows and greens as accent colors.  

What do you think?

Linking up to these great parties here!

Thanks for reading!
Sarah

Busy, Busy Week

I know I've been a little MIA this week, but I have a good excuse.  Dave and I really opened a can of worms last Friday when we decided to paint the sunroom.  We had been talking about this eventuality for some time now, but decided -- sort of on a whim -- to get on it last weekend.  

Then I decided to move some ugly laminate furniture out of my bedroom and into the sunroom to add storage and then I decided that I should paint them, too.  Long story short?  I have been painting for nearly a week straight, and I am tired.  Seriously.  But I can't wait to show you guys the results.  I'm pretty excited about what I'm seeing take shape.

Sadly, I'm not done.  I still have to second coat the cabinets today, so maybe by tomorrow I can give you guys the reveal.   

But, I do have something to share.  This is a quick little spray painting project that I completed last weekend.

Back story: Yesterday was my birthday, and what I wanted more than anything else was to paint my kitchen cabinets white.  But we have neither the time nor the money to do this right now.  So, we decided to save up to pay a friend to come help us out (this is the same guy who painted the exterior of our house last year.  He's a professional painter and quite good -- and could always use a little more business).  This will take a few months of good paychecks, but at least we're on the right track.

Anyway, I decided recently that I'd like to pull my kitchen together with an accent color (or colors) to play off the white so that it feels more cohesive and less busy.  And I chose yellow and lime green.  So off I went to Goodwill last weekend to see what I might find there.  And this is what I came home with:

I love this little creamer.  It's terribly retro with those little mushrooms (which I actually adore), and it totally fills the yellow and lime green requirement.  And at 59 cents...

I liked this lime green bowl, too.  Simple and perfect for adding a little color to a shelf.

Then I saw this candlestick holder.  Not really my style as is, but with a coat of yellow paint, it might also be a worthwhile investment.

So, that's what I did...

While I was at it, I decided to spray paint the lids for my mason jars.

Do you remember this corner shelf?

I was getting so tired of looking at those tins.  I was really into that style years ago, but my tastes have kind of changed.  So I traded them out. You'll also get a glimpse of my new yellow lids at the bottom of this picture.  I'm kind of digging those, too.

Then I made a few changes to the shelf by my window.  From this:

To this:

I took the photo of the leaf years ago, found it recently, and stuck it up there.  I also moved the yellow cups to the corner shelf above and added the (now yellow) candlestick holder.  I love that photo series of my family taken last summer at a wedding.  Really need to get that framed before it gets ruined....

So, that's it!  Just a few small and very simple changes to bring some things together, but sometimes little things make a big difference.

What little projects have you guys been up to lately?

Thanks for reading!
Sarah

 

The Kitchen Curtains are D-O-N-E!

Yay!  I really like how they turned out, but, man, this project was so much more frustrating than it ought to have been.  But before I get ahead of myself, how about a before pic?

Again, I liked the original curtains well enough to keep them hanging around (get it?  ha ha ha) for a couple of years.  But I was getting a little bored with them.  So my plan was to dye them.  If you'd like to see that post, you can find it here.

I dyed them grey, and I'm pretty happy with those results.  The next step was to add some sort of design.  I wanted to do an impressionist flower thing, and this is what I came up with:

I cut all the shapes freehand and pinned them on the curtains.  I sort of eyeballed the distances between each flower and the edges of the curtains.  I didn't want anything to be too exact.

The next step was to sew them on.  At first I was going to hand sew it, but decided that was incredibly impractical since I have a sewing machine and it would take a fraction of the time to use the machine.

But my self-taught sewing skills really caught up with me during this project.  I wanted to use a zigzag stitch for the flower stems, and I'm really just learning as I go here.  I knew enough to reduce the tension...but I sort of figured that that was all there was to it.  I must be wrong, though.  It just kept jamming and tangling up on me.  I wanted to throw my machine across the room more than once.  But somehow, we -- my machine and I -- got threw it.

For the actual flower buds, I used a straight stitch and that was much easier.  Aahh, good old basic sewing.  I just turned the curtains in circles as I stitched each bud to achieve a crazy, not-too-calculated circle pattern.

I'm sorry I don't have any pics of the sewing.  I was too busy silently cursing my machine to think about the camera.

But I do have a lot of after pics!  So, without further ado:

Here's a close-up of the flower pattern.  My almost-three-year-old decided that they were lollipops when she saw them.  I think I'm okay with that. :)

  
This is a full picture of the whole dining nook.  My Dave made this table for me as a Christmas present one year, and I love it.  I scored the wooden chair for $20 at a boutique here at the beach because one of the slats on the back is broken.  Dave got the other chair from his office for free about 10 years ago when they were updating all their furniture.  It had awful, ratty grey upholstery, so I cleaned up the rust and reupholstered it awhile back.  I made the picture board a few years ago and I update it with family photos every few months.

This is a shot of the other side of the nook.  I love this floating shelf from Target and I'd like to add another one.

This picture is probably the most true-to-life as far as the color of the curtains.  

And, just for fun, this is the corner of my kitchen.  On the shelf I've got a four picture series of our family from last summer at a friend's wedding.  It's not framed right now...one of these days I'll get around to framing and hanging it.  I also have this awesome mug that I found at a yard sale -- it's a piece of pottery that was thrown on a wheel, but it looks as if it got squished.  I call it my accident mug.  I've also got some milk glass (faux, maybe) that I found at another yard sale; yellow mugs from Goodwill; and a small pestle that I bought in the Dominican Republic years ago.  

I made the stuffed birds and sewed and hot glued them to a branch that I found in my yard.  I love them.  I know that bids are a little overdone, but I can't bring myself to take them down.  Dave thinks the two in the middle look like they're staring intently into a pot of soup.  I like that :)  

Well, that's it!  If you're reading this and you have mad sewing skills and know exactly what went wrong with my project, I'd love your advice.  I have a slip cover that I'm in the middle of and I can't bring myself to finish it just yet.  I need a little break from sewing before I dive right into the sewing machine again (with a project that promises to be just a little more difficult than this one). 

Thanks for reading!

Sarah

Going Grey

No, I'm not talking about my hair...although that, too, is currently happening.

I'm actually talking about my kitchen curtains.  There's nothing terribly wrong with them.  But there's nothing terribly right with them, either.  They're just there.  They serve a purpose.  But I've never had anyone walk in and say, "wow, what amazing, but normal, brown curtains you have!"   

I've been debating what to do about them for awhile.  I pinned a few photos on Pinterest with ideas ranging from roman shades to using vintage handkerchiefs as curtains.  In the end, though, I decided to try dyeing them.  

I've never dyed anything before in my life.  I've got to be honest, it was a little scary.  But, I reasoned, I bought these things for pennies at Target years ago, so if they turned out awful, I haven't lost a whole lot.  

A month or two ago I bought some Rit brand grey dye from the grocery store.  I had plans to dye my shower curtain back then, but changed my mind.  So I thought grey kitchen curtains might be cool.

The first step, according to the directions, was to pretreat my fabric using their color remover and getting out as much of the original color as possible.  I followed the directions and threw them in the wash:

This is how they turned out:

Don't ask me why the tabs turned purple.  Very strange.  But I shrugged my shoulders and hoped that it would come out okay in the end.  On to step two.  This is where things got dicey.

According to the package directions (which were terribly unhelpful, by the way), I was supposed to soak my pretreated fabric in hot water.  I used water from my tap, which does get pretty hot.

Check.  The second thing the directions told me to do (and I had to look this up online because the package directions didn't actually say to do this) was to dissolve my dye powder in hot water.  They also recommended adding a cup of salt for cotton fabrics to get better results.  I gathered my supplies and...  

check.  Sort of.  The dye didn't dissolve completely, but I figured it was good enough.  

With some reservations, I threw everything into the wash.  I was getting kind of excited at this point.  Finally, finally, it was done.  I took them out and beheld this:

  

Womp womp.  The color didn't really come through in this picture, but there were not grey.  They were some sort of army greenish...faded...ugly-not-sure-what-color-it-is color.  With purple tabs.  Hmmm.

I decided to try this again.  The next morning I bought two packs of grey dye at the grocery store -- same brand.  The directions on these new packages were much more helpful.  For starters they told me, in detail, to dissolve my dye powder in 140 degree water (aka, heat it on the stove -- don't use tap water) and to add the salt to the dye bath (previously, I just added it to the dye solution and then threw everything into the wash).  These directions also made it clear that I would definitely need two packs of dye to color the amount of fabric that I had (the other directions said nothing about this).  Waaay more helpful.  Would have been good to know that yesterday.  I also used a little less water in the wash and let the cycle agitate for 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes.

Okay, so this is what I ended up with:

    

So much better.  Like a tenfold improvement.  Again, not sure if the color came through in the pics, but they are definitely grey.  And the tabs may have a hint of purple, but they are pretty grey as well.  Grey enough, in my opinion, to move on to the next step.

I haven't finished these guys, yet.  My plan is to do some sort of applique.  I really like organic themes in decorating (trees, branches, flowers, the outside), so I was thinking of some sort of abstract flower design.  I'm going to work on it this weekend and I will (hopefully) have some update pics for you by Tuesday.  

So.  My evaluation of this project thus far?  I'm happy with the way the curtains turned out.  But, the process?  Not so much.  I definitely made my fair share of mistakes along the way -- I am a novice dyer, but  I kind of blame the directions on the dye package for at least some of those mistakes.  Overall, though, I would definitely do it again.  It was kind of fun to see the change.  And now that I know something about dyeing I feel a little more confidant that I could get the results I want.

Anyway, happy Friday everyone!  Yay -- my favorite day of the week.  I hope everyone has an awesome weekend, and I hope to see you here next week :)

Thanks for reading!

Sarah

  

The Little Things

The last few weeks I've been reading all kinds of blogs about organization and getting your house in order.  And while I was on bedrest for a month and a half, my house definitely began to fall into some chaos.  When others offer to help, it's so very nice, but I feel a little shy about saying, "okay, do this and this and this and this."  So a lot of the stuff that I normally like to do doesn't get done.

I can't blame the state of my kitchen cabinets on bedrest, though.  That's just sheer laziness.  I've been living with this disorganization since the day we got married (well, since the day I moved in, which was about a week later, after our honeymoon).  So on Monday, I decided to do something about it.

After getting off bedrest, it's like I've been moving from 0-60.  I feel like I've been going, going, going with all these ideas and projects in my head.  And I've been so bone tired by the end of each day.  But this was a smallish update and it has made such a huge difference. 

This was my cabinet before:

Here are a few things I had already pulled out when I took the last picture:

You can see in those pictures that there is no rhyme or reason to the way things have been thrown in there.  I've got couscous on two different shelves, canned goods on two different shelves, cans and oatmeal together...really kind of a mess.

After a bit of reorganization and throwing away some outdated items, I began to put stuff back.  I bought some clear plastic bins at Home Depot and grouped foods into like categories:

Now I can easily see what I have so that I don't end up buying three yellow mustards (which is true -- and two out of the three unopened bottles were expired).

I also cleaned out a different cabinet, which is situated on the other side of the stove:

I didn't take a before pic of this cabinet, but it was even worse than the first.  Really kind of a nightmare.  I decided to put all of my spices on the bottom shelf.  Half of my spices were here before.  The other half I had been keeping on my counter (the spices that get used more often).  I decided to group them in the same way, but into old orange crates and all inside the cabinet instead.  I did this so that my counter could look like this:

Aahhh...much nicer.  I love how uncluttered it is.  The coca cola crate was holding the second group of spices plus some dish towels; now, it holds the dish towels and pot holders so that (again) like items are grouped together.  I also moved the teas into the above cabinet and a tin of clothespins into the pantry in my laundry room.

And, so that you can laugh at me, here are some incredible discoveries:

Mmmm.  That's cinnamon.  Scary.  If the sell by date is in '99, when was this purchased?  We may never know.  But I do know that I was in high school.  15 years ago.

And, here are all the items that I discovered were expired:

How does this stuff accumulate?

Anyway, yesterday, as I was opening my cabinet to again admire my handiwork, I became frustrated over the amount of core body strength is took to open them.  Here is the culprit:

Not the baby-proofing lock, but the little hexagonal sticky thing in the corner.  Just a shot in the dark here, but I'm thinking these may have been installed when the cabinets were installed.  The cabinets are original to the house, and the house is 20 years old.  These little guys have long stopped functioning as they were originally intended.  Instead, they make the door stick to the cabinet box.  It's like a game or who's strongest every time you need to open the door.

So I removed them.  Kind of on a whim.  And I love it.  And I'm planning on doing the rest of the kitchen (and the bathrooms as well) today.

It really is in the little things.

Thanks for reading!
Sarah