Help please!

I follow a LOT of home decor style blogs, and there is one that used canvas drop cloths for patio curtains, but I cannot for the life of me find the blog that I found them on. Have you seen them? In the meantime, I will be going one by one through all my blogs, ugh!

~Front door makeover~

If you can't tell from the last few posts, I have been in total make over mode throughout the house. I have been wanting to paint the front door, but I was scared to, because if it looked terrible I couldn't hid it and we didn't have the budget to buy a whole new door. But after talking to a few friends, I decided to go for it, and I am SO glad I did!
For under $10 and one hour, I have a brand new look.

Front of the house, I think we need to trim the tree's, you can hardly see our house! I didn't realize it till I took these pictures!
Better view of the front door/walkway area. Please excuse the dying flowers. I have no idea why they are dying, maybe too much water!? We have had so much rain this year. We also have an armadillo that is tearing up our flower beds and our neighbors. I go out every morning and fill in the holes...grrrr...

Front door with screen/glass door open

Front door all cleaned and ready to be painted!

rusty, nasty looking old hardware

1st coat of paint
All done! I LOVE LOVE LOVE how it looks!

We can't afford new hardware right now, at least the ones I want, so to tide us over, I sprayed them with hammered nickel paint. They really help finish up the door.

New front of the house. I still have to put the nickel kick plate and hardware up on the glass door. I also grabbed that pot out front and gave that a spray of black paint. I also want to do the light and the hanging basket on the wall.

I really like how it is coming out!

~Kitchen Remodel Part Two~ The Cabinet Makeover

Once we did the first part of our *remodel* in the kitchen, it just kept leading to other ideas! :) I know Seth loves that about me...
I practiced on the 4 cabinets in our bathroom and once we had the technique down, I started on our kitchen.

Ethan helping me wash the cabinets, child labor laws what!?

Now they are laying out to dry

My new friend! Saved me HOURS of sanding and then rewashing. All you have to do is pour some of this onto a lint free rag and make sure it is all covered. In about 10 minutes it is dry and ready to be primed. Easy peasy!

Spray primer. This is where we experimented. I can paint on the primer, and then paint on two coats of paint, OR I can spray on the primer...

Here are the cabinets with one coat of primer. Don't mind all the paint cans in the background...can you tell I am addicted to paint?

Then I can spray on one coat of this...

Here are what they look like with those coats on them.

At this point I get out the paint and a QUALITY paint brush, that is the key! I do one good coat of paint, then they are all done! Using the spray paint for my first two coats literally has saved me hours of work!


My kitchen with the doors off. Don't mind that mess in my spice cabinet or the drill on the counter. Doesn't everyone have a drill on their counter? With the bases, I actually have to hand paint it all, cause I am not about to tape everything off just so I can spray it!

My helper today, I love that Ethan is old enough to help now, and actually enjoys it!! Bonus that Aiden took two really long naps today, so Ethan and I got a lot done!

Aiden was not into helping, here he is watching the music station. Yeah, it's a black screen except for the white box that bounces all around to tell you what is on. He was looking out the window, but I guess the bouncing box caught his attention!

Here are the cabinets just after the liquid sandpaper and the primer coat. They already make the kitchen look so much brighter and it's not even done yet! I know that it is going to be great when it is all said and done!

Next up! Finishing up the top AND bottom cabinets, then new wall color!

Ethan loves to dance

Seriously, the kid dances all the TIME!
Car *robot* dancing:



Dancing to Jai-Ho:

From dance party

Ur Moms

Saw this up in Denton this week while we were burning time waiting for the Dr. It's a bar apparently! :)

~Kitchen Remodel Part One~ The Kitchen Island

We have been trying to figure out ways to get more storage in our kitchen, but not take up more room, since there isn't much there with the kitchen table set we had. I had found other kitchen sets, but it still took up just as much room and we had no more storage than we did before. We had to get a new table, glass table tops and two rowdy boys do not mix, at all!
So we started tossing around the idea of building an island with storage in there, something that we could also add bar stools to and have a breakfast bar as well. We priced out some options, and figured out that it was going to cost us about $500-$600 plus whateverbar stools we decided to get.
Then on this past Wednesday, my brother Jarod called me and said that Lowes had a ton of kitchen cabinets on clearance for $20! The boys and I went up there and we were able to score a huge double cabinet, it was normally $169
Then we got a shelving unit to fit on the end. I was able to get baskets to fit in the cubes and used blank luggage tags to personalize them for each of the boys. I also painted the back of the cabinet with blackboard paint, that way the boys have a little play area



On Thursday night Seth, the boys and I headed out to Ikea to see if we could get some bar stools. We had found some online that we liked for $17.99 each. When we got there we found out that they were on major back order. We couldn't even order them for 2 wks and then they wouldn't arrive for another 2. So we thanked the guy and started looking for other options. When we were looking, thesales guy came up to us and told us he had a deal for us. They were tearing down old set ups and had a pair of stools that they sold for $59 each, but he would give them to us for $19! SOLD Not only were they more comfortable, we were able to score a 3rd one down in the As-id dept and the cashier gave us the same price for it. Two of the stools are a black moleskin, the other is a black and white stripe. Eventually we want to get a 4th one and get all black covers to match. We were also able to score a 73" countertop with stainless steel edging for $95!!

All we have left to do is picture frame molding on the chalkboard, its all cut, I just need to paint the final coat tomorrow and then glue them up. Our next project is going to be re-doing the cabinets, I HATE the color they are. Final touch will be lighting. We are going to take the light box and the chandelier down, we just don't know what we are going to replace them with. What do you think??

Sick baby=no blog

It's been awhile since I have blogged, but once we got back from the cruise, Aiden got sick and was pretty sick for a week. He ended up having a UTI and we will be going in for kidney ultrasounds this week. The Dr said that UTI are not common in boys, especially his age. Poor guy! But the good news is that he is feeling better, no more 105 fever this week!