Texas House : Kitchen

I didn't make it a month with the kitchen the way it was before my paintbrush came out and I started going gray (Moonshine by BM).

The way it was before was entirely too busy for me.  The star of the show should be the cabinets, granite, and the backsplash.  There was no need for all of the faux gold / beige paint.  It's not BAD, it's just not us.

This is the main kitchen area.  Then there's a single pendant light that hangs down over I have no idea what's supposed to be there.  I call it the giant boob light.  Chris says he likes it.  Shocker!

Just past the giant boob light is the eat in kitchen area with a chandelier.  We have a dining room too.  So yeah, the giant boob light area confuses me.

Here's a view of the whole thing from the kitchen cabinet point of view :

 And another from our kitchen table point of view.

Besides being too busy, it was entirely too dark for me too.  I like things bright and airy.  I know, show you the after's already...

First up, our eating area.

I haven't painted the ceilings yet, but it bugs me as is, so I'm sure I'll get around to it before too long.  Ceilings are such a workout though!  I can't decide if I want to go a lighter gray or a lighter blue or just mix it up at least for just the eating area and do a dark blue.  Sort of like this picture.  as I've mentioned before, the trim and shutters are all a cream / off-white, so white is out.

 I have three little vases that I leave on the table.  Kalia and I go pick flowers to put in there.  And then she talks about them nonstop!  I got them from Antro on clearance awhile back.

The crossed ski's and pictures, as well as that HART sign I re-made found their home here in this house.

So did the key art I made.

The kitchen might as well be another playroom for Kalia.  I keep her toys all over the place in here to keep her occupied when I'm cutting up stuff or doing oven stuff that could hurt her.  She is definitely a little helper, but there are times when it's safer for those little hands of hers to be occupied elsewhere!

Under the boob light is a little craft table and two chairs and a bench.  It's the only thing that makes sense there to me.

There are placemats on the table because Kalia is boycotting her high chair, and the big table is a little scary with how much she wiggles around, so we ALL eat at this table.

There is a paper roll to the right of it, and those little drawers hold play doh and coloring books.  She loves this little table!!  It's an two year old pottery barn table (they don't even make that big of one anymore, it's 54"), and we bought it off of craigslist.  There was marker all over it and it was sort of dirty, but nothing a little elbow grease and a magic eraser pad couldn't take care of.  Chris didn't want to buy it initially, and then was like "Wow!!  We got the deal of the century!!  How come they didn't do that BEFORE they sold it??!  They could've gotten a TON more for this!!" It pretty much looks as good as new, cept it's already broken in.  Love that Craig and his ingenious list!!

Oh, and another thing the magic eraser is great at is cleaning grout.  I got down and scrubbed the brown grout until it turned gray.  It was an arm workout, but not as bad as I thought it would be!

Before :

Exact same tiles after :

Amazing!!!  The Target brand worked just as well too, fyi!

The view from the kitchen sink :

 The view OF the kitchen sink :

and the view from the fridge :

No, all of that fruit isn't there for staging.  We eat A LOT.  All of us, including Kalia.  Ask anyone that has had us over for dinner.  We are GOOD eaters.  Hey, at least it's healthy!

I keep another few baskets of toys under this side of the island too.  Can't keep anything there that isn't Kalia friendly, so rather than fighting to keep her little hands out of things, I just give them something to do!

I said I wasn't going to paint these cabinets, but the more I live with them, the more I want to change something up.  The paint job is good enough for now though!  What do you guys think?

Happy Monday!  Hope everyone had a great weekend!

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House Tour : Out With The Old, In With The New

I have promised you guys a full house tour for awhile, and I'm finally going to deliver on it.

Even though this house is no longer mine.  We closed on it at the end of April.

To make a long story short, Chris accepted a job out in Dallas, TX, so for the first time in our whole lives we are no longer Floridians.  We were actually officially homeless for the first time since college!  We lived in corporate housing for a little over a month, and closed on a beautiful new home in McKinney, TX at the end of May.

Our house wasn't even on the market for a week before we were under contract for 99% of our asking price after receiving multiple offers.  We closed in less than 6 weeks.  Happy happy joy joy dance plus lots of mayhem and tears and hugs and yay's all around.  It's been a whirlwind of a few months to say the least!

Onto the Tour!

The Back Yard.  We didn't sod all the way down to the back, so it looks a little barren in this picture.  The new sod that we laid a year ago has started spreading and filling in the dead areas though.  Hopefully that'll continue on for the new owners!

The in-law suite bathroom.  We didn't really do much in here...

Kalia's bathroom.  We painted the walls, took out the old shower door, painted the cabinets, and faux painted the countertop.

The in-law suite bedroom.  I wish I had before pictures to go along with this, but I was in panic mode to get it done.  This room used to be Barney purple...blah!  I painted it Moonshine by Benjamin Moore and painted all of the trim white.

Kalia's room.  Ah, this was such a labor of love...I'm not gonna lie,  I cried the last time I walked through here.  We completely gutted this room and pretty much built everything that went into it.  I replicated this as closely as possible in the new home.  I really loved everything about it!

The daybed room.  This room used to have two daybeds in it, but I moved one into Kalia's room, and then into her playroom.  Chris installed the floors one weekend before we listed it.  It's the same floors we installed in Kalia's room.

The front door and the dining room. 

We hung up mirrors that went to the dresser in the in-law suite, and I painted little shelves and put fresh flowers in there for showings.

The exterior of the front door with the hanging pendant that we installed.

Our living room.  I painted the back of those book shelves along the wall and really loved how it turned out.  All of this trim was an off-white too, so I painted that all shiny white as well.

I also did that key art and those pallet shelves...

and made the Hart sign, and hung the ski's in an x with pictures of Chris and I from our snowboarding adventures.  I'm glad that my 'stuff' gets to stay with us!  I am happy to report that almost all of it fits in perfectly at the new home.

Here's a few of the front of the house, which we re-painted once Kalia got here.

We had to leave the Gator flag.  It was actually a part of the negotiations!

Moving back to the inside...the kitchen.  Oh, how I loved that kitchen.  I pretty much did nada here.  It was the huge huge selling point when we bought the house.

Kalia's playroom.  This room evolved quite a bit since she arrived.  The pictures over the daybed are just black fabric with a picture of her from every week for her first year.  It's amazing how quickly she changed!!  I painted the chalk wall, built and painted the ledges, and then added a family picture wall above the ledges.  Both Kalia and I miss the chalk wall.  If I'm being 100% honest, I don't miss the dust though!

The entry to the Master Bathroom from our bedroom, or the vanity area.  I painted this area twice, did all of the trim white, and we took off the closet doors and spray painted them to get rid of the yucky gold color.

Last time you saw our Master Bath, it was the light blue color.  I painted it gray (moonshine by benjamin moore, my favorite light gray color to go to) because I felt it was more calm and would appeal to a larger audience.

Next up, our Master Bedroom.  I re-did that trunk that my parents gave me and added my sewing machine cabinet that I also re-did to finish out the space.  We've upgraded furniture at the new house, so I can't wait to share what our room looks like now.

Here's a picture of the office.  This room also got painted, and we took out the built-ins, sanded them down, and re-stained them.  They were a blonde honey color before.  I also painted the back of them to make our things pop.

This is the office bath that Chris and I completely gutted and re-did just days before listing the house.  There was striped wall paper and an old toilet, laminate vanity, and builder grade mirror in here.  For such a little room, it required a ton of work, but the difference was amazing.  As you can imagine, we were in a rush, so just use your imagination for the before pictures!

And last, but most certainly not least, the pool deck.  Oh pool, how I miss you.  Our new home does not have one.  I think we'll wind up putting one in, but that yard and that pool were irreplaceable!  

This house and our old neighborhood and our old state, ha, were so hard to leave, but we had to do what was right for our family.  As soon as I quit my job, Chris put out his resume, which is why things got so scattered here on the blog.  Balancing a baby plus Chris interviewing and making up his time with his old job and trying to get house projects done during naptimes and bedtimes because I knew the move was coming was quite a bit challenging.

I'm hoping that I can come back here and share projects and our lives with the four of you that still read this blog (hey 'rents!!).  I'm still working on finishing up getting the last of the things unpacked...like my sewing machine...yuck!!

In personal news, my little girl turned two last month.  Crazy how time flies.  Here's a picture of Kalia jumping on her big gift on her second birthday.  We're still a little hair challenged!!

Hope everyone is doing well!

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