Kitchen Update

Hooray hooray! We ordered our kitchen cabinets last week!!! Here is a rough picture of what it's going to look like when standing in the dining room, with the exception of a few changes made last minute (the counter will cover the cabinetry on the peninsula too).

Ahhhh space. It's going to feel so good when that wall comes down.

Other than ordering the cabinets, we made our first kitchen purchases.

The hood - we had to have the dimensions so we could order the right sized cabinetry above it. I love it.

This clock - I bought it at IKEA (more on my trip to IKEA later).

The next step is to finalize the countertops.

I'm in love with soapstone. Who wouldn't love it? Just LOOK! (Found here.)

I'm also in love with butcher block countertops from IKEA. Check these out. I'd like to use those on the 2 separate countertops and soapstone around the sink, etc.

I also have to consider lighting. Who knew that so many decisions would need to be made?

I love the industrial look of these pendants from Barn Light Electric. I love almost anything from Barn Light Electric!

Or perhaps something like this? Too bad Matt thinks they look like restaurant heat lamps. Oh well.

Good thing we both love these pendants from Pottery Barn.....Check them out here.

I also love that chalkboard wall.

We have many decisions down, many more to go. I'm taking it one step at a time.

I've been stripping...

Wallpaper! Sorry for the corny title but I couldn't help myself. The thought of me stripping for real makes me laugh. I can't help but think of my pale skin, uncoordinated dancing, and the face that I'm not well-endowed. Hehe. Anyway. Wallpaper. The bane of my existence.

I wish I'd kept track of how many hours I spent doing this. Or maybe not - that would be a bit depressing. Let's just say I spent MY ENTIRE SPRING BREAK (with the exception of the day I painted the bathroom vanity - another disaster I'll tell you about later) doing this.

These were my tools.

The top layer came off pretty easily with a scraper and using my hands to pull it down. When I pulled it out from behind the radiator, I found out that it was painted. See? The top left corner is the original, the rest was painted white.

We removed the huge mirror from above the fireplace...remember it?

We discovered this underneath.

So I knew I was in for at least 2 layers of peeling wallpaper. Ug. Once I pulled down the top layer, it also pulled off a bit of the blue layer underneath. The walls looked like this.

It left the adhesive backing stuck to the wall, which was impossible to pull off. Hm. There is a chemical you can use to help remove it, but I rejected that because I'm going all green and hippie. I heard you can use a steamer to help remove it, but before I went to Lowe's to rent one I turned to the Internet. I found a blog (that I can't find anywhere now!) that suggested using a spray bottle filled with water, thoroughly wetting the walls and then using a scraper to get it off.

Holy cow it worked. Not easily, but it worked. To make a long story short, I spent hour after hour after hour (you get it) scraping it off. I was left with this.

Whew. The walls are in great shape underneath (I was worried about pulling pieces of them off), but they are looking pretty dirty now. I'm hoping that my job is done and the painter will take care of the rest :)

Happy Easter!

See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices... ~Charles Kingsley


Happy Easter!!!

Keeping It Real

Hello friends. Sorry for my lack of posts. I've been off all week so what have I been doing that's kept me so busy? Not much. I'll post on my project updates at some point, but let's just say they moved a lot more slowly than I hoped and were not quite as successful as I hoped. Ug.

I've had a few conversations lately about how blogs tend to show only positive things, making the life of the blogger seem more charmed than it actually is. I'm probably guilty of that. I only show you pictures and tell you about things I think you'd find interesting. I mean, who wants to hear me complain about how I probably have seasonal affective disorder since my body hasn't felt the warmth of the sun in 6 months?

After waking up to another morning of rain and cold, I had a pity party for myself this morning. Woe is me.

Anyway, just to keep it real, I'll share photos of what we've been living with the past week. Please excuse the poor quality because I haven't edited them. Due to the fact that it's raining out today I didn't have natural light to work with and haven't plugged in any lamps! (Oh and I'll spare you the picture of my cold sore..the first in years...ug - no one wants to see that. Was that too much information?)

We're painting our bedroom green. I love it.

That means our spare room looks like this. And I wonder why it's hard to find things. Like my camera to computer cord. Hence the lack of posts until today.

The kitchen still looks like this. At least we can still use it. They are coming to take the cabinets next week.

The den looks like this.

Note the drapes all over the floor. It's crazy how much better it feels without them but I think the room actually looks worse at this point than it did when we moved in.

Willow vomited on the carpet in the blue room.

Matt claimed to have scrubbed it as hard as he could yet the stain wouldn't come out. I can't talk because I didn't try myself. Matt later admitted that he's glad it stained because "it will encourage us to take carpet out as soon as possible." Like I need more motivation.

That's about it. I'll try to be a bit more upbeat next time :) My mom comes this week (hooray!) so things are looking up.

I knew I loved Anthropologie

Yet another reason Anthropologie is awesome. In honor of earth day, they are using cork to decorate their storefront windows, which they will then recycle. I'm still wishing there was one in Vermont!

Spring Break 2k11

It's my spring break this week. Woo hoo! My friend and co-worker is taking a trip to the Bahamas with her family and friends. I'll be here in Vermont all week scrubbing mold/mildew out of the basement while the forecast looks like this.



I should be thankful for my new house and time off of work - I know. It'd be nice to have the new house, somebody else to do the work, and a vacation in the Bahamas too right? Hehe.

OK on to the point of this post. My list. After I catch up on my Oprah on DVR, here are the things I want to do before I go back to work next week.

1. Finish stripping the wallpaper. The multiple layers of ugliness have to go.

As seen here



and here



it looks quite harmless. Don't let the white fool you. It's textured. I'll post better pictures later.

2. The bathroom. You've seen it.







A new coat of paint on the vanity, new hardware, and hopefully a new vanity top are all in the works.

3. The basement. Mold? Mildew? I've been told it doesn't matter, that it all needs to be treated the same. Lucky me. A post on that is coming.

4. Bonus things. Painting our bedroom (I'm hiring our neighbor at the lake who is an excellent painter because I most definitely am NOT). I'd like to finish cleaning up the yard too.

I will hopefully get the first 3 accomplished, if I can tear myself away from Pinterest long enough. I saw it first over on Young House Love, but felt like I already do enough stuff online. Then Amanda at Orchard Cove recommended it to me again and I felt like it was meant to be. I LOVE it!

Hope it feels like spring where you are. Can I come visit?

xo

Happy Birthday Matt!

Happy birthday to my amazing husband! 29 years...wow!

I love you more and more every single day :)

xo

Lake Placid

We've made a resolution to take a mini-trip every year for Matt's birthday. Mid-April is a great time for taking a trip because it is the off season around here and we can do fun things for cheap! Last year we went to Montreal. This weekend we went to explore Lake Placid.

We decided to go for just one night since we had to leave Willow at the kennel and because it's just not that far away.

Friday night we went out with some friends. I wore a new necklace Mom and Meg bought for me :) Isn't it pretty?

We left Saturday morning for Lake Placid. We had to take the ferry across the lake...It was Matt's first time riding on a ferry in a car. What an adventure :) He thoroughly enjoyed it!

When we arrived on Saturday, it was cold and windy. No different than weather in Vermont. COME ON SPRING! We planned to ski on Sunday at Whiteface, the mountain where the Olympic ski events occurred in 1980 and that actually has the largest vertical drop on the east coast. The weather was only supposed to get colder, wetter, and just plain worse for Sunday so we decided to ski for the afternoon on Saturday. The chairlift to the summit was open and we braved the weather just to say we'd been to the top.

The town of Lake Placid actually lines the shores of Mirror Lake (Lake Placid is next to it). Our hotel had a nice little view of Mirror Lake.

Lake Placid is a super cute town.

The lake was definitely still frozen. Brrrr.

We went out to a delicious dinner and I fell in love with this funky lighting. I apologize for the iphone picture.

This morning we went to the Olympic Center. Lake Placid has hosted the winter games twice. The first time was in 1932 (only the 3rd winter games ever). The second was in 1980. The Olympic Center houses the hockey/ice skating rinks (where the event Miracle on Ice occurred, as the US men's team beat the Russians to advance to the finals - they went on to win the gold medal). We did a little tour of the museum. Here are the pics....

Hope you had a great weekend!

xo