A View of Lisa's World

the kitchen...

So I've been meaning to post photos of the great kitchen re-do of 2010 for ...well...for a year. But after the last week of cooking and entertaining, I can wait no longer. I love this kitchen...I love the colors, it is everything I wanted it to be...and this past week it was full of ingredients and messes and most of all love and laughter. Photos of the Thanksgiving holiday are in the works...but finally, the before and after of the kitchen.

So...obviously, we painted the cabinets and replaced the hardware...we also painted the whole house (and by "we" I mean Matt!). One of my favorite things in the whole house is the chalkboard pantry door that Matt made. The paint is all Mythic and the knobs are from Anthropologie.

trying to get in the groove...

I'm trying to get back into the groove of blogging every day so even though I don't feel like I have a whole heck of a lot to say, I'm going to go through the excercise of blogging anyway. So the back is improving...but still not where I want it to be. The house project is so close to done I can hardly wait. My amazing and wonderful and handy husband is off for a few days and by Monday when he goes back to work I expect us to be done! I haven't documented all that has been done so in my favorite bullet point list style of late...here is a run down.

• Every wall in our family room, kitchen and dining room have been painted. I should note that the colors are "fully saturated" and that including primer my husband painted each and every wall 3 times. 
• The mud room has also been painted
• The kitchen cabinets have been sanded, primed and painted...which required my amazing and wonderful husband to create a spray booth in the garage and most everything he owns to now have a teal "cast" to it...but the doors look amazing.
• The kitchen cabinets now have knobs, including these on the top cabinets which actually make me giddy every time I open one. I'm enjoying the drawer pulls too.
• I think it might make me more giddy that the color of the bottom cabinets closely resembles the color of these knobs.
• My amazing and handy husband built a chalkboard door for our pantry
• My amazing and handy husband also replaced ALL of the baseboard with the most fabulous 5 3/4" boards.
• He also tricked out the kitchen island with moulding...did I mention he was amazing?
• New red kitchen stools have been purchased as an anniversary gift (thanks Mom and Dad). They were a little tall though so they were altered in a way that no one would ever know by my amazing and wonderful husband.
• The dining room table is almost finished being refinished by my amazing and wonderful husband...this weekend the chairs will join the party
• I have taken an antique buffet that was my grandmothers and painted it (multiple times) and it is now one of my favorite things and I can't wait to share it. I had to repaint the top after the first attempt at stripes didn't work...the second time worked because my amazing and wonderful husband properly prepped the surface with sanding and primer the second time around.
• Today 7 giant prints of photos I've taken arrived and I can't wait to see them on the walls
• My amazing and handy husband has built us the coolest locker set up which I smile about every time I hang up my keys and purse
• All of the doors and trim are shiny and white and the closet door in the kitchen is shiny and white and magnetic because my amazing and wonderful husband painted it with 4 coats of magnetic primer before he painted it shiny white.
• Friday my amazing and wonderful husband and I are having a date and going to Home Depot to get the last few things.

There are probably more things I could report about my house and my amazing and wonderful husband but I think I've kissed enough you know what to be sure that we actually get finished by Monday.

Love you Honey!

This can only mean one thing....

Following the great green paint project of 2009 as documented here, here, here and here we are at it again. Or should I say that Matt is at it again.

This time I have the help of an expert...I wish I would have had that last time. It would have really helped during the whole green debacle. Catrina helped me choose the coral in my office that I totally totally love. After the whole office re-do the front of the house where the office furniture used to live has been in need of attention.

I've had some ideas and a lot of things that I know I want to incorporate into that space. Starting with a buffet that was my grandmother's and some sort of locker situation to organize the multitude of crap that we carry in through the front door and then drop. I've been chewing on it for a while, and have really wanted to get cracking on fixing up that room, but before I could totally commit, I couldn't stop thinking about this kitchen.

It just so happens that the front room is entry/dining and open to my kitchen, it also happens to be true that my kitchen has cabinets in it that I have never really loved. SO....we decided to tackle that too...and well, the kitchen is also connected to the family room so the green wall that goes from the family room to the kitchen no longer works, and well while we are at it, the brown doesn't really go with the new plan either.

So at the moment I am surrounded by white walls....every wall has been primed. Have I mentioned how much I love my husband?

Soon the color will go up...and then the cabinets will get primed and painted....and then the details, many of which I'm really excited about and many of which I haven't figured out yet.

It is going to be fun (for me) and a lot of work (for Matt) who is by far the best husband ever.

how to turn lemons into lemonade

No really.

Step 1: Notice that you have a tree in you yard that is full of lemons. Consider that instead of just saying "hey, there are a lot of lemons on our tree" you could actually make something out of said lemons. Remind yourself that lemonade doesn't actually come from a can or a carton. Search internet for recipe.

Step 2: Hire some help to pick the lemons.

Step 3: Admire your stash of lemons...(in a cute colander of course)

Step 4: Cut in half. Do not let 7 year old wield the knife no matter how much he begs to do so.

Step 5: Do let the 7 year old put the elbow grease into juicing. Hope that there will be a cup's worth at the end of the process.

Step 6: Pat yourselves on the back when there is indeed 8+oz of lemon juice. Pour it into pitcher, add 1 cup of sugar and one cup of water.

Step 7: Stir, stir, stir until the sugar melts and then add 5 more cups of cold water. Feel free to put your knee up on the counter if you require more leverage.

Step 8: Fill glasses with ice and add a garnish if you are that type, any my 7 year old insisted we had to be that type. Add a straw and admire your work before drinking.

 

Step 9: Enjoy

Step 10: Put the kid to bed and enjoy another glass while updating the blog for the first time in way too long.

A week about me in the year of me...

So this is the week I've been waiting for. My darling, amazing and wonderful husband (did I mention wonderful?) is off of work this week...and he is helping me re-do my office. You should realize that this project is just getting started and he has a lot of work still ahead of him, so I will probably call him adorable and wonderful a few more times.

I should also mention that right now the equivalent of "helping me" means he is painting, building shelves, cutting down tables etc..and I'm not doing a whole heck of a lot.

Well I did pack up and we  unloaded the entire room, closet and all, and let me tell you, it is frightening how much stuff I had in that room. It didn't seem like much until it became stacked all over my dining room, now it is a bit overwhelming.

I've been taking photos, and I'll share more details of the plan etc. tomorrow after my darling, amazing, wonderful husband gets the painting done.