Kitchen Impossible

I will be the first to admit...I just love a good home or room makeover show. Who doesn't?

The husbo and I have been living with our 1959 BLAH kitchen for 3+ years now. AND WE'VE REACHED OUR BREAKING POINT. Well, maybe I am being a bit dramatic here. We can live with this kitchen. It's perfectly fine, but certainly outdated. The shiny butter-yellow walls make me sick. Literally. And the white laminate counter tops may just drive me to the nut house. They show every crumb, drip, and stain. 

In an ideal world, the husbo and I LOVE to completely re-do our kitchen. But in the real world, this is just not in the cards right now. 

We both decided it was time for a mini kitchen makeover. 

Here is what we hope to be tackling:

• Replacing countertops
• Repairing some wall cracks and other quirky wall issues
• Painting walls a new color
• Installing a new range hood
• Possibly have the cabinets freshly painted (this one is up in the air)

Here is the current state of our kitchen.

 

This photo fails to show the true "age" of our kitchen. You can't see how old and crusty our range hood is, the shininess of the wall paint, the grease splats on the ceiling or the cracks in the walls. We have our trusty handy-man coming over this weekend to discuss some of the scope of this job. This project is just a bit further over our heads then we want to tackle right now.

INSPIRATION....

The above photo came from Pinterest (where else?) and this is providing the inspiration for our project. I adore the light grey walls with white trim, white farmhouse sink (drooling) and the butcher block countertops. Oh la la!

Stay tuned!

Christmas Craft Recap

I managed to tackle one of about four Christmas crafts on my list this year. 25% success is good, right?

My one and only craft were fresh cranberry topiaries. I bought a pair of styrofoam cones from Michael's like this...

Then I spray painted them with a light coat of red paint - just so the green wouldn't show through. 

The next step was to start hot glueing the fresh cranberries onto the cone. This wasn't as long of a process as I anticipated. 

Once I finished glueing all of the cranberries, I decided to make it a topiary. Using a stick from the yard, I poked it through the bottom of the styrafoam cone and secured with some hot glue. Then I took some air-dry clay I had on hand, shoved a wad into the bottom of the urn, and covered with some spanish moss. 

Here are the cranberry topiaries on my mantle. What do you think?  This craft project was totally an experiment but I am thoroughly happy with the turnout. No, it's not practical since I used fresh cranberries, but I wasn't going for "practical". 

PS-Happy New Year! Cheers to 2013 and more projects!