Kitchen before

And in case you were wondering...here is the only before kitchen shot.....


At least I think that is the only one, and unfortunately it does not include the ugly track lighting, or the over the sink lighting. Also, we got rid of the 80's under the cabinet lighting. They were flourscent lights and when I bought the house I thought they were paper towel holders.

New light fixtures and more kitchen progress!

My mom, brother and sister came to visit me this weekend and my brother was able to do a lot of work to the house. He took down the old, ugly, track lighting in the kitchen and put up my ikea light. And I bought a pendant light and kit from Lowes for $30 to replace the light over the sink. He also took down the ceiling fans in the dining room and bedroom but something funky is going on with the electrical in there so now I have to call an electrician to put up the two other ikea lights in those rooms.

He also put up a coat rack in the den, fixed the leg on the couch in the den, fixed my broken door (by putting a new lock and handle on it- it probably took him 3 hours to do!), fixed the cabinet doors that were hanging crooked and probably some other things I can't think of right now. All in all it was a very productive weekend.

Here are some pictures. Also, I've decided that I'm going to lay glass mosaic tile down on my laminate counter tops. All different shades of pretty blues. I got a 1x1 sample from ebay. It's $1.60 a square foot, so I should probably be able to knock the whole thing out for $75. Awesome! And it's so me- more so than granite or the plain, white laminate that is there currently. You can see the glass tile laying on the countertop in some of the pics.










Oh and A. and I are getting a puppy on Feb 4th! Half German Wirehaired Pointer (like my parents had) and half Lab. Yay!

Kitchen cabinet unveiling

Well today is the day I finish painting the cabinets I started painting around Thanksgiving. It wouldn't have taken this long had I not put it off because I thought I'd have to paint the whole thing with a paint brush. I originally started using a roller but it seemed to leave a spongy texture on the cabinets, even after sanding and priming. So I moved to the paintbrush and pretty much did all the upper frames and two of the doors with the brush. Then I put it off for more than a month and started again in the New Year. I picked up the roller again and did a second coat on some of the doors I already had one coat on and lo and behold when it dried they looked great! I had never given the rollered doors time to dry before. So now all it is taking is about two coats with the roller so things are speeding along. I'll finish in less than an hour and then I just have to put all the hardware back on (I haven't bought any new hardware yet, but I have spray painted the old hardware a metallic silver so it looks good for now). Of course there are about 4 more cabinets that haven't been sanded, primed or painted that surround the fridge. The wall over there hasn't been painted yet either.... I'm going to wait to start those til after my family leaves. They come on Jan 23rd and will leave early Monday morning.

Pics of the kitchen cabinets still to come!