Summer Pinterest Challenge

If you're anything like me, you pin and pin and pin but never do anything but admire all those pretty pins. Kate over at Centsational Girl and a few others decided it was time to stop simply admiring and actually get to work trying out some of those projects. To inspire others to do the same, they started a quarterly Pinterest challenge. All you have to do is find something that you've pinned and actually make it. Simple enough right?? 

You can check out what Kate made and be inspired to be a DIY woodworking guru and then you can see what I made below and feel better about not being a goddess of do-it-yourself projects :)

My inspiration came from Angie at The Country Chic Cottage. She gives a great tutorial with far more detail and effort so you should check it out. I also used a letter H (for our last name) but you could easily adapt this for any letter or number. So here's the version I found on Pinterest a long time ago and am just now recreating...

I love the distressed look but I made mine using an Ikea frame that I had on hand and I'm happy with it for now. Here's mine...

I attached heavy white cardstock to the backing of the frame and used Microsoft Word to print out a large H in the style I wanted. I traced the H with chalk on the burlap and then cut it out. 

I think I'd like to put it in a distressed frame at some point but for an afternoon project, this went together really easily.

Thanks, Angie for an easy and inspiring craft project!

Easiest BBQ Meal Ever

We had a small get-together for the 4th of July and I knew I needed a meal that would be super easy to fix. We were planning to spend part of the afternoon at another friend's house so we didn't have tons of time to prepare a dinner for our own guests. This meal feels homemade but it's quick and takes very little prep-work. Oh and I didn't take any pictures so you'll have to imagine what it looked like, which will be easy once you hear the ingredients.

BBQ Pulled-Chicken Sandwiches (feeds 8-9)
2 pre-cooked rotisserie chickens
2 bottles BBQ sauce (I like Sweet Baby Ray's)

Shred the chicken off the bone (I don't use the skin) using a fork or your fingers. Put the chicken and about 1 1/2 bottles of bbq sauce in a crockpot and stir. I add a little water so it's not so sticky. Let it sit on low for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally or on high for about an hour. Serve with sandwich buns, cheese and any other condiment you like.

Easy-Peasy Mexican Rice
1 cup cooked rice (I made 2 cups and it was way too much)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 jar salsa

Cook the rice ahead of time and chill in the fridge for a couple hours. Add the black beans and the salsa and stir. That's it. 

We also had grilled corn on the cob and it was really nice to not be slaving away in the kitchen while everyone was hanging out. Since I made way too much rice, we used the leftovers in tacos the next night, and I still ended up freezing a bunch of it. Apparently a little rice goes a long way! 

The Kitchen Breakdown

After posting the Big Kitchen Reveal, I wanted to share some of my favorite parts and a few of the challenges. As a first-time renovator, I learned a lot along the way, especially when it comes to dealing with contractors and such. Since this kitchen was in no way, shape or form a DIY project, we had a lot of different contributors with a lot of interesting ideas and personalities. In the end, all of them did a great job, but some were more challenging to work with than others. 

I learned first and foremost, do your research! Anyone who has been doing (fill in the blanks) for however long will have an opinion about how you should update your space. Personal opinion can easily come across as expert opinion, but doesn't necessarily make it right. It's up to you to know the difference. For example, my cabinet maker was adamant that the pony wall between the kitchen and dining room be 42 inches tall, which is standard. I wanted it to be 48 inches tall. My husband and I debated long and hard about how to handle the situation and in the end I stuck to my guns and my wall is 48 inches. My rationale to the cabinet maker: "If the stovetop is counter height at 36" and I have a 42" pony wall, that's only 6 inches of backsplash behind the stovetop. If I have an 8" tall pot on the burner, it's going to be taller than the wall behind it and that's not going to work for me." He agreed that he never would have thought of it and that it made perfect sense. The guy doing our counters was horrified that I wanted plain white subway tile for the backsplash with absolutely no color to break it up. While he has years of experience and did a great job on the counters, obviously he doesn't spend much time on Pinterest or he'd see that white subway tile is everywhere! And for the record I love it.

Notice how even at 48 inches the wall doesn't look that high, but visually it creates a barrier from the dining room. When you're sitting at the table, you aren't looking at the mess in the kitchen waiting to be cleaned from dinner prep.

The new range is one of my favorite aspects of the kitchen, both for form and function. We searched and searched for the right range and this one was exactly what we wanted and in our price range. Woot woot! It's a Frigidaire and works like a dream. I adore the gas burners and I'm so glad that we made that a priority. The oven is electric with a convection option and heats up very quickly and cooks evenly. I haven't used the convection option yet but the reviews were all positive.

Another feature in the kitchen that I love is the pendant lighting above the island. I originally found the fixtures at Ballard Designs, but ended up having to buy one of the lights at a different company because of an unfortunate issue with Ballard. I won't go into it but it was a pain in the neck to say the least. At Ballard they call this fixture the Newport Pendant and we bought the large size.

Here's a little close up.

The apron-front farmhouse sink is wonderful. My husband wasn't sure about how it would look when I first showed him some pictures, but in the end he agreed that it was the right choice. I only wish we had this sink when our little ones were babies because it would be awesome for baths in those early days. It's big enough that I can fit the drawers from our refrigerator in the basin for cleaning and they sit flush on the bottom. I love the exposed front with the new cabinetry. The only issue I've had is that it sits just a little lower than counter height and sometimes I accidentally spray over the edge. Other than that it's been fantastic. And just for clarification, it's white, not cream as it sort of looks in the picture. That's just the light.

I have to say we were very fortunate that our renovation went smoothly with only the smallest issues here and there. Our contractor was great and it was done very quickly compared to stories I've heard. I love cooking and entertaining in our new space, and I'm excited to get all the decor arranged so it's truly finished. 

The Big Reveal

Well here it is... finally! The walls are still what you might call a blank slate. It's been such a busy couple months that I still haven't figured out exactly how I envision the finished product. For now I'm happy to have a functional and beautiful new kitchen space.

I tried to take the before and after pictures from close to the same angle, working all the way around the kitchen. The first picture is coming from approximately the old entrance to the kitchen from the living room. What used to be an unused eating space is now home to the refrigerator, microwave and deep pantry drawers, as well as the only remaining upper cabinets.

The old peninsula was removed and the dishwasher relocated to a much more convenient space alongside the new apron-front farmhouse sink. The outdated tile and its grody grout was replaced by quartz counters and simple subway tile backsplash. 

The old wall between the kitchen and dining room was cut down to open up the space considerably. I love being able to see all the way into the backyard from the kitchen, and taking out the upper portion of the wall lets in even more light. The pony wall is topped by a narrow counter for serving plates and dishes to the dining room. We traded in the old electric oven for a fabulous dual-fuel oven with gas burners.

The biggest and best change was the removal of the wall between the living room and kitchen. The entire layout of the house has changed and it is so open and airy. Entertaining is so much more fun when everyone can gather around the island and the cook can actually be part of the conversation!

A close-up of the old and new sink area shows the size of the farmhouse sink. I really love the single bowl and the extra space it allows. I can easily clean any pot or pan without making such a mess around the sink. We chose to undermount the new sink so you can just sweep any mess from the counter right into the sink. It's so much easier to keep clean.

Finally here's the view looking from the back corner inward. I'm so happy with how everything turned out. The white cabinetry makes everything feel lighter and it flows better into the rest of the main living area. Even though a deep wood stain on the cabinets would have been beautiful, it might have made the kitchen feel like a dark corner when the whole purpose of the renovation was to open it up.

There you have it. We planned and planned and now we are really enjoying the result!

Rushing Ahead

I walked into Target today and was greeted with large signs shaped like pencils covered in school-related slogans. Say what?! Does Target not know that it's only July 5th?? Our local schools finished the school year less than three weeks ago. Do they honestly think anyone is ready for back-to-school shopping? Who wants to buy school supplies when they just got summer started? NO ONE.

Trust me, I know this is nothing new. Doesn't it seem to be getting a little out of hand though? Obviously it would be inconvenient if they didn't start selling school supplies until the day before school starts, but we're not even close. We've just barely started to enjoy the summer and they're packing up the bbq tools to make room for spiral notebooks. Why are these stores in such a hurry to get to the next season??

The worst part is that the stores force your hand by setting up for the next season so far in advance. You can't wait to shop for stuff like backpacks or lunch boxes at the normal, reasonable time to purchase school supplies because all the good stuff is gone already. It's the same with swimsuits and winter coats and boots. If you want new boots for the fall you have to buy them in August. Here in southern California you might not even get to wear the darn boots until November but if you try to buy them then you're up a creek because no one sells boots in November. That would be insanity. Think about it. Why on God's green earth would you sell a product during the season when people actually use it??

I wish that we could focus on what we need right now and not have to worry that if we aren't planning months in advance then we won't have a prayer of finding what we need. That's my rant for today. I'm done now and I feel lighter.

Summer (School)

Baby Girl (L) recently finished her first year of preschool. She only went two days a week but this is our first official summer break. In an effort to ward off insanity boredom, I started working on a plan to keep L busy during the summer. I signed L up for some day camps staggered throughout the summer at our local community center and I made a list of things that she seems interested in these days. While we definitely have more than our fair share of princess business around here, L has a pretty wide variety of ideas for pretend play. I just started jotting down themes that came up like pirates, cowboys/girls, camping, etc. Then I did some searching around the homeschooling blogs (there are a billion you know) for activities or learning packets based on these themes. L is pretty enthralled with the idea of homework and workbooks... probably because she doesn't have any real homework yet... so I knew activity pages would be a hit.

One of the best homeschooling blogs for preschool-aged kids that I found is called Homeschool Creations.  The rockstar mama who runs this show makes up all these awesome packets of age-appropriate work pages and activities surrounding a theme and then also outlines how she uses them with her own kids. She turns the whole packet of materials into a DIY workbook for each kid, which she calls a lapbook and puts together using file folders. Oh and all the pages and resources are FREE. I said she was a rockstar!

The first unit we did in honor of summer was Gardening/Flowers. I know that's probably more of a spring theme but it's not like flowers don't grow in the summer too! You can find the materials from Homeschool Creations for the Garden unit here. It's a big packet with lots of printables so I didn't use all of it, but just chose what I felt would be most appropriate for L.

The front of L's Garden lapbook.

The inside of the lapbook at the beginning looks a little sparse but we did other pages that I just slipped inside the folder. There's a garden words mini-book and a flip-book of garden pictures where L circled the letter that starts each word. I glued in the envelope to hold the story sequence cards that go along with the book Jack's Garden. 

We used Jack's Garden by Henry Cole, as well as a few others that we picked up at our library. We also read The Curious Garden by Peter Brown, which was my favorite. Both L and her little brother really liked Seeds Grow, which was a very simple explanation of how seeds become flowers.

We did a flower craft (loosely) based on this one. I had the foam flower shapes already and let L loose with the glitter glue to make them "fancy." I didn't have any brown yarn for the roots so she just colored them with marker. Truthfully the hardest part of this whole craft was getting the pipe cleaner stems to stay on the paper! We ended up using some tape because glue just wasn't getting the job done.  

Overall the whole experience was a hit. We didn't do as much as I planned during the week because we were just settling into vacation and taking everything slow. But L seemed to like having the activities to do and it gave us something constructive to do during the afternoon when boredom usually hits hardest. We did plant some real seeds and as per my usual gardening experience, they have yet to grow at all despite our best efforts. No wonder my husband laughed a little when I told him we were going to do a unit on gardening! 

This week is pirate week in our house and so far it's a hit! 

Like a Freight Train

Oh boy another month has passed by without a full post of pictures of the updated kitchen. I was waiting for one last light fixture to arrive (a very long story) and now that it has, I just haven't gotten around to taking a full set of 360 comparison photos. Mostly because the kitchen is in full use so there's stuff on the counters a lot of the time. Not that it's always messy, but it's not always picture perfect and when it is, it's usually nighttime and the lighting isn't great. That's a lot of excuses but here's one sneak peek of the sink area for now with the before and after shot. It's an amazing difference and we're really loving it!

You can see a lot of the major changes in this one picture. We removed the soffit in the center of the kitchen ceiling, took out the peninsula and repositioned the dishwasher. We created a pony wall (half wall) where the full wall was between the kitchen and dining room. We replaced the old double-bowl sink with a beautiful and ginormous single bowl apron-front farmhouse sink. We got new cabinetry, new paint color on the walls and a fabulous cambria quartz countertop. I'm in heaven!