Yours truly is not her usual self and so I ask for forgiveness for my small absence from blog land. (Not that these posts enrich your lives in any way…but I hate being away for so long!) With my mea culpa out of the way, we can refocus on the kitchen remodel. Our first thought was to do a galley kitchen like this… I also love this design from Pinterest! We were all set with…

I love my husband. I REALLY love his design for our new kitchen. First, we had to demolish our existing crappy kitchen. I hated that beadboard paneling. We took it down and the framing around the two windows. I love the original door and transom window above it. We’re keeping those but hacked off the wood framing around it. You know we’re always finding old gems when we start digging into the cracks and crannies…

I love my husband. I REALLY love his design for our new kitchen. First, we had to demolish our existing crappy kitchen. I hated that beadboard paneling. We took it down and the framing around the two windows. I love the original door and transom window above it. We’re keeping those but hacked off the wood framing around it. You know we’re always finding old gems when we start digging into the cracks and crannies…

Mark and I are on a new diet. We basically eat anything that you can make in a toaster oven or in a Keurig. Here’s why… For the next 5 weeks, we’ll being using this “makeshift kitchen” that we set up in our dining room. Since I don’t cook (and Mark loves Wendy’s) this arrangement should suit us both just fine. We’re going to demo our existing kitchen and make it into a very cool…

Sorry the blog’s been dark for a few days. I was out of town for work (and not feeling so hot) leaving me NO DESIRE to be witty or sassy or do any kind of home renovation. My work trip to interview Olympic athletes in Los Angeles was very cool. I got to steal away to the Santa Monica beach for a few minutes. And stopped to have a drink at the Beverly Hills Hotel….

Our back bedroom is done. Like totally, completely, gonna throw a party for myself DONE!! Let’s journey back so we can fully appreciate how far we’ve come. It started as our junk room. We then got to our favorite phase…DEMOLITION! 🙂 Stud walls and insulation came next. From there, we got the drywall up and had a finisher come in to mud and tape it. Painting made it look super clean. Carpet, blinds and a…

I learned that cappuccino breaks with your husband are always a DO. Especially when Espresso a Mano is right around the corner. I learned that painting trim board is a much nicer experience in the sunshine. I realized that it’s important to go out every so often on a school night…and to splurge for the arancini at Bar Marco which literally translates into “fried balls of goodness.” 🙂 I was reminded by this lovely street…

There is nothing Mark and I won’t try…and we usually accomplish any home renovation project we start…but I think we need to go on the record and say that putting down carpet is HARD. It started as a pretty easy day…we put the carpet tack strips around the edges of the room. We cut the under padding fairly quickly. Quick suggestion…we found the scissors to be better than the carpet knife. My favorite part was…

You know what that title means. 🙂 I wouldn’t say Mark and I are cheap…I’d say we’re frugal and like to stretch our money as far as we can. Especially when the renovations won’t be seen by anyone…here’s what we mean. There are four holes in our back bedroom floor that need to be patched. We’re putting wall-to-wall carpeting in this room, so no one will even see the patches. Instead of buying new wood,…

Normally, I hate stains…and I usually get them on my clothes right before I meet someone important, but that’s for another day. These kinds of stains, though, are totally welcome in our house. Our friends at the PPG Paints store helped us create the stain we needed for our back bedroom door. She really is a thing of beauty. Here’s how we stain it…take an old rag, dip two fingers in the paint and rub…