Past Projects: Our Kitchen and Dining Room

The first project we tackled when we moved in to our home in August 2004, was the kitchen/dining room. The cabinets needed to go, and the general color, although light, was very dingy and dreary. The white appliances probably didn't help, and the tile wasn't our favorite either:






That's our realtor in the last picture :D

We decided to go bold and my husband chose a warm red for the walls - Briquette by Behr and honey colored cabinets with a granite top. He and a friend did the demo and my husband's uncle hooked us up with the cabinets and granite.

Now here is the dining room as you walk in from the living room


Our hutches are both from IKEA


The door goes into the laundry room/pantry area and then into the garage


I found these sweet fleur-de-lis candles on clearance at Pier One - score!


My fridge is covered in picture magnets as you can see


I love the hanging pot rack so much that we added another one - saves so much storage space!


I have a lazy susan to the left of the stove with my oils, vinegars and often-used condiments, some of them I've decanted onto glass bottles and labeled with chalkboard labels. On top of the microwave are our Torani syrups. We had a Torani bar at our wedding since it was kind of our signature to offer guests an Italian soda :D

Next to the fridge on the counter you can see the most often used ingredients in the house - oatmeal, peanut butter and honey. I recently stopped using the instant packets and now make the less sugary kind, with just a dash of honey. My youngest sure loves his oatmeal!!!

I love my kitchen and dining room, it is warm and inviting with colors that draw you in. I hope you've enjoyed look at this Past Project!

Past Project: The Pirate Room

My husband thought a pirate theme would be awesome in our oldest's room. I was expecting our second baby and we decided to keep the nursery as it was for the baby, and make our office into a room for our big boy.

The initial sketch was then fine-tuned and entered into CAD - my hubby's BFF is a very good artist - with the dimensions of the room and we just had to copy the drawing onto a grid that was pencil-drawn on our walls.

Here are some pics of the project - it was under $500, including all paints, wood, rope, muslin, etc.

Shading on the sandy beach!

Initial painting of the ship area. The ship was 3-D, painted on a piece of plywood and installed 4 inches from the wall. The space between the plywood and the wall serves as a shelf for us to plug in lights, etc. and there is a sound system hidden behind the sail, for white noise at night.

Initial stages of the ship.

A super friendly dolphin splashes near the light switch.

My mom sewed the sail and my husband did all the woodwork and ropework. The railing is made up of unfinished candlesticks from Michaels that were painted to match the wood :D

The treasure chest, the coins were painted with metallic paint for sparkle.

On the wall, next to where the crib went, the outlet was camouflaged as a starfish, it even glitters!

My little man showing off his pirate room! There was never an issue for him to switch rooms, he slept just fine in his new bed from the beginning, and the pirate room is still the most ooh-ed and aah-ed part of the house tour we give to new guests.

Hope you enjoyed our son's Pirate Room transformation!