18th Annual Spaghetti Dinner

We had our 18th annual Spaghetti Dinner on May 30th, and I got to show off my new house.  I was super excited, yet also kind of terrified at the large turn out we had.  My mom came back from China, My sister L and niece came back from Cali, and family friend P came from Ohio.  That's how cool our parties are.  :)

I was worried about trying to fit 37 people in my house (and so many adorable children).  But, I think it was a WONDERFUL turnout and I had a GREAT time.  No need to have worried.  

We even had L&M Bakery cake (so yummy) with a clever saying.  

It was so much fun, we should do this more than once a year :-P

Crafting room

I eventually really want something like this in my crafting room for all my yarn. I love how pretty and organized it looks. 

Unfortunately,  I have a lot of yarn and that's not really in my price range at this point.  But,  I decided vertical storage of yarn is super helpful when you want to know what yarn you already have.  And I think it's really pretty and makes a fun design feature.

So,  for $20ish dollars,  I bought 8 expandable hat racks on amazon, and I'm doing a temporary approach to storing/decorating with my yarn.  

I don't have all the yarn wounds into balls yet,  and I'm pretty sure this won't be big enough to display all the yarn.   But I'm liking it so far anyway.

Back deck

I have a nice size deck in my backyard (access is through the kitchen).  It runs the width of my house and extends out about 10 feet (never actually measured it,  so that's just a guesstimate). 

I really like having a deck,  I'm just having a hard time making it comfortable.   I bought furniture for a small balcony about two years ago,  and it is obviously too small for my current set up.  I don't really plan to buy anything new this year unless I find something on super sale...bc apparently everything I like is expensive (of course it is).

So,  making do with what I have this summer.  I created two separate sitting areas...and I really need to buy a fourth chair for that one table.

And I put some flowers around to make it a little more bright and cheery.  Need to get three more hanging pots for the other side of the deck.

It isn't my favorite area,  but it works for now until I can find some better patio furniture. At least Oscar likes it out there.  :)  And I still have the super tiny elephant grill on my table.   

Too cute for words

My sisters have some adorable kids. 

All I need are tiles...

After I hung the curtains yesterday (we'll get to that in a minute), I decided I needed to be finished with the kitchen already.  I'm so sick of my house being a disaster.  My living room is covered in cabinet doors and plastic drop cloths.  I feel like I'm living in a disaster zone.  I want my house back. 

So, I came home from work and decided to get my kitchen put back together.  

And, other than the tiles for the backsplash, it's done.  

I love it.  

I think I've said that about every room so far, but it's true.  I'm so happy with how everything is turning out and I think I did a good job making the house happy, and reflection of things I like.  It really is perfect to me. 

The main kitchen area with the gray walls and hideous striped wall where the tiles will eventually go.  But look at that new counter top!  And the cabinets!  (Just ignore that ugly stove)

And the new fridge!

Keep ignoring the ugly stove.  I really like the black and white combination of cabinets.  And my clock still matches. 

I don't even care that the dishwasher is ugly, because it at least matches.  And it works INCREDIBLY well.  I never want to get rid of this thing. 

And the dining room!  With matching placemats.  Oh, the curtains.  Please ignore the fact that they are floods.  I swear I made 92" curtains.  Evidently I made 90" curtains.  I can't math.  But I will be fixing that later this week.  And they will no longer be floods.  So use your imagination for now. 

Then, I realized after I was cleaning up my living room, I had bar stools that I haven't been able to use in about a month.  Yay barstools are back!

I can't wait for the tiles to come in!!!!

More kitchen

I finally finished painting the cabinets. Yay! Now I just need to re-hang the doors.  Ugh. 

I also painted the wall and made curtains.  Progress is being made!  Yay!

Nothing to do with the house

She decided to wear my sunglasses and hold a fashion show.  Too cute.

Guest room

I finally bought a bed for my guest room.  Yay!  People can come visit!  And have a place to sleep!  

I am kind of in love with this room.  It's almost as pretty as MY room.   

I had an Expedit in my main living area in the last two places I've lived, and I've used it to display all the Christmas gifts from my Uncle Mark, or any other weird things I've found while traveling. Unfortunately, the shelf didn't really fit anywhere downstairs at this house, but I decided it was perfect for my guest room.  Now all my guests can see the cool things I've been collecting over the last 32 years.  

I wanted the room to be fun and colorful, but not so colorful that guests would be uncomfortable sleeping there.  I painted it the same color as my living room, and got plain white curtains at IKEA. Then, I added some orange pom-pom trim to the edges to make it a little more fun.  I love these curtains.  They are one of my favorite things ever.  

                  

I found this awesome bedding on sale at Target, and I knew it had to be mine.  I love it so much, I almost want to put it in MY room.  I'm still looking for an orange nightstand to go in the corner, next to the bed, and I need to find a headboard.  And the overhead lighting needs to be replaced.  But for now, I'm calling the room done.  

Come visit!

Powder room

My powder room was basically the color of human flesh.  I didn't like it, but there was nothing WRONG with it (as long as you don't mind the ugly tannish, pink color).  I had no intentions of painting it any time soon because I was mostly indifferent to the color.  I figured it would be something I would do at some later time, when I wasn't trying to paint every other thing in my house. 

Then, I hung a shelf up in the bathroom next to the mirror.  I have nowhere to put soap or towels or anything else (The pedestal sink does not have a big enough top for the soap to sit, and it was annoying me that it was on the toilet).  But, the shelf I hung was too small and looked really stupid. So, I took down the shelf.  That unfortunately left a rather large hole in the middle of the wall above the toilet.  

I fixed the hole, but I have absolutely no idea what color the room was, and I had no extra paint to paint over the big white splotch.  I contemplated leaving it as is, but just couldn't do it.  So, I went and bought more paint.

PAINT ALL THE THINGS!  

Other than needing some different color towels,  the powder room is awesome. 

Kitchen update number one

The kitchen is moving along.  It's slow.  But it's moving.  

I got all the frames of cabinets primed, and then painted the lower frames black.  It's hard to see in the pictures below, but it already looks so much better in the black than it did in the wood color. I am getting impatient to have the whole thing done, but there is still so much more to do.  Also, that stove just looks so much uglier now that the cabinets are painted.  

I also have the lower cabinet doors and drawers done.  They look so pretty and black!  One more coat (maybe two) for the front of the doors, and they will be ready to hang back up.  I want to buy new hinges and door hardware, but I need to wait.  My budget can't really take that purchase at this time. 

I am also planning to take out the gross brown (fake wood) liner in the cabinets and replace it with the pretty blue liner below.  Eventually.  Or never.  We'll see how I feel.  

Priming. And more priming.

I am so sick of priming the cabinets,  and I still have to do the backs of all my upper cabinets.  

Sigh.  One step at a time. ..

Plans for the kitchen

The kitchen is brown (obviously).  It's not hideous, but it's not my favorite either (actually, I do find it kind of hideous).  It's builder's grade cabinets, with an ugly tan painted backsplash.  It is blah and boring and I really don't like it.  Also, the fridge never stayed shut.  

So, I decided to start changing things up.  I tore down the backsplash (that was way harder than it should have been).  I seriously hate the previous owners for this right now.  It was such a pain in the ass.  

And look, I bought a new fridge!  It's pretty! And it actually stays closed on it's own.  I also ran a brand new water line all by myself...I feel so accomplished. 

I am going to replace the ugly tan counter with a new white counter top (sooooo excited for this to happen).  I am going to paint all the lower cabinets black, and all the upper cabinets white and add some stainless door pulls to try and update the cabinets a bit.  And I want to paint the walls a light gray.  

I ordered an awesome backsplash (seriously...I am so excited for the backsplash).  Look how pretty it is!!!

Then, some gray curtains with blue and red trim to finish it off.  So.  Lots and lots of work ahead of me, hopefully I don't flame out midway through the work.  

Upstairs Hallway

While I was in Richmond, I bought some other pictures to hang in the house (they had SO MANY CANVASES and artwork to chose from!).  I made two gallery walls in the upstairs hallway, but I need two more pictures to add to the bigger collection.  

Right outside my bedroom door (from the two different sides...there is a straight drop down the stairwell in front of these pictures, so I couldn't get a head on shot that fit all the pictures in).

Since the street scenes were all black and white, I decided to frame some of the fabric I had bought to add some color to the walls.  I actually really like how they look with the other pictures.  I think I may try and add two more smaller pictures above and below the largest picture to even it out a bit. 

However, here's a close up of the fabric I framed.  The same fabric was framed for both gallery walls.  

There is a smaller wall right outside the guest room and craft room, and I thought it could use some decoration as well.  I really like how this one turned out.  

Bathroom art

I have had kind of a crappy weekend,  so I tried to stay busy around the house to stay distracted.

I drove back from Richmond on Thursday night after a big snow storm,  and got home to about 2 feet of snow in my driveway.   I had to shovel at 1 in the morning just to be able to park my car.   Not really how I wanted to spend my night after driving on crappy roads for 6 hours.   

Then,  the next night, Little O decided to test my love, again, and had to get emergency surgery  for a stomach issue.    I hope one of these days he figures out that I do love him,  and he can really quit it with his stupidity that puts him in the hospital.   He spent the whole weekend at the vet,  and didn't recover as quickly as they wanted,  so I spent the weekend thinking horrible thoughts that he wasn't going to make it. 

To distract myself,  I hung up some art around the house. 

Everyone has a portrait of their dog in the bathroom, right? 

For such a pain in the ass, he's pretty freaking cute.   Lucky for him I  suppose. 

I officially love my bathroom.  So much nicer than when I moved in.  :)

Front door

I have been looking for something to hang on my front door.   I have a really nice Christmas wreath, and a fall wreath my friend Bug bought me a few years ago, but I wanted something I could hang the rest of the year that wasn't necessarily tied to a season or holiday. 

I had to go Richmond for work this week,  and went to an At Home store (I had never heard of it before,  but I fell in love with it).

And I came home with this for my door.  I think it's perfect :)

Craft room decorations

I have been trying to "finish" my craft room, and I'm getting there.  I finally hung up some art on the walls, and I bought some fabric to make pillows for my couch.  If only I could find the time to actually MAKE the pillows.  

But, here's the update so far.

My grandma was an awesome lady and she had a great sense of humor.  My aunt was telling me how she was going through her stuff, and found a bag of cotton balls labeled, "Humpty Dumpty should have sat on this".  I feel like that is a perfect example of her sense of humor.  

She also had this weird skeleton thing hanging in her bathroom.  She was amused that it was grabbing it's crotch like it was doing the pee-pee dance.  When she passed away, my aunt asked if there was anything of hers I absolutely wanted.  I had to have the skeleton.  Every time I see it, I giggle.  

I hung it up in the craft room so it looks over my shoulder when I'm sitting at the sewing machine.  I still giggle every time I see it, but it also just reminds me of grandma and her awesome humor.  

This is a TERRIBLE picture, but it is REALLY hard to get a good representation of the room on camera.  The room is TINY (8'x9'), so no matter where you stand, you are practically right on top of whatever you are trying to capture in a picture.  

However, as I mentioned before, I have a thing for cityscapes.  I had a large picture of Paris hanging up in my guest room at my old apartment that is too large for the guest room at my new place (the windows make it hard to hang a large picture in the guest room).  Since the craft room is an inside room, it only has one window, and more space on the walls.  For now I have decided to hang it above my sewing machine, but I may switch it to the opposite wall and hang up a peg board type organizer above the sewing machine.  But, that won't happen for a while, so, it's staying where it is right now.  

And last but not least, one of my favorite pictures is this Pug I got for Christmas from Uncle M one year.  He always gives awesome gifts (I have an entire display shelf full of gifts he has given me over the years in my guest room, but that will be an entirely different post), and this was no exception.  It's basically pages of different books with the painting on top.  I think it looks awesome in the craft room.  

I also bought some fabric to make pillows.  The orange and blue fabric will be for the guest room and the gray is going to eventually be curtains for the kitchen.  But the other fabrics are for the craft room.  I just need time to sit down and make them.  

The room is getting there, and I think I managed to make it unique, without being ridiculous.  

Bedroom walls

I posted a picture of my bedroom with the navy blue walls.  I used Sherwin Williams Sea Serpent.  I seriously think it is soooo pretty even though it's REALLY dark.  Then, I finally got around to hanging up some art in the bedroom this weekend.  I have this thing for cityscapes (especially New York) and vintage travel posters. 

It's still a work in progress, but I have a little more done.  I really want to center the dressers on the wall, but they're kind of heavy, and I'm too lazy to do it right now.  So just picture it in your mind the way it SHOULD look.  It will get done.  Eventually. 

This angle is terrible (but my bed isn't made, and I didn't want the mess showing up in the picture). The picture also doesn't look so small in person.  I'm still not completely sold on this here.  I may end up moving it to my spare bedroom and putting something else a little bigger here.  But I love the print, and it's good here for now.  

Then, I was in Virginia this weekend and saw this cityscape and I needed to make it mine.  I was worried the wall would look a little too busy, but I also realized, I LIKE busy, so who cares if it does.  It's me.  

Bathroom

When I bought my house, I made fun that every room was brown.  Then I realized every room in my house is now blue or green (or blue and green), so I guess I like to pick a theme as well. 

I hated the bathroom.  Everything was kind of oatmeal colored, or brown, and the vanity was pretty cheap looking and kind of chipping.  I wanted color (of course).  I also wanted to graduate from my periodic table of elements shower curtain I had in my old apartment. 

I decided to stick with the blue and green theme I had going.  I painted the vanity a darker version of the green in my craft room.  I found a shower curtain that I absolutely loved at Bed Bath & Beyond, and bought the towels on sale at Target.

I need to buy some new stainless hinges for the vanity, so I can attach the stainless door handles, and get something for the wall above the toilet.  But I'm pretty happy with the progress so far.  And all for under $100.

Blogger from my phone doesn't really let me arrange the pictures as I'd like, but here are some before and after shots.  I forgot to take a picture of the bathroom before I started, so I'm stuck with the old realtor photos and a cute picture of Little F that also shows the vanity :)