More Shelving is Up!

Just a quick little post to update you on some kitchen progress. We kind of got slowed down a lot because Eric threw out his back last weekend and I have been really busy with work among other things. This weekend (while I was working) Eric put up the rest of our little narrow cup shelves on the side wall. We are loving having everything out and accessible. It also gives us a chance to show off a lot of our more interesting and special mugs and cups.

Ignore the dirty dish on the couter ;-P

I also wanted to share the cute little mug I made at a girls night out we had doing paint your own pottery (you can see it displayed proudly on our new shelves). I was pretty happy with it considering I haven't done paint your own pottery since I was six :-)

Little bits of kitchen progress

We haven't had time to do too much lately but here is the progress we made over the last week. Maybe we'll get some more done this weekend :-)

Eric is starting to add some narrow shelves for glasses on the side wall

Another view of our narrow glass shelf

I painted a bunch of the drawers and replaced the hardware, next step is the cabinet doors and then the framework.

I think the black will look so nice when it's done :-)

That's it for now, hopefully there will be more coming soon, we'll see how crazy our weekend gets :-)

P.S. Sorry for the terrible pictures, it was way too dark when I was trying to take them.

More Kitchen Inspiration

I posted before about our Inspiration for our remodel of the kitchen area. We knew we wanted butcher block counter tops, black cabinets, brushed metal hardware and we planned on keeping the white backsplash. I think I also mentioned how we are taking out our upper cabinets and replacing them with shelves. When Eric first pitched this plan to me I had a little trouble envisioning it but once I started looking at a lot of interior design blogs I saw exactly what he was going for and I jumped on board. In case you were thinking we're crazy for replacing our cabinets with shelves here are some inspiration pictures so you can see the look we're going for. I think it will give the kitchen a much more modern look and opens up the space a lot.

Also, I have started the very first step of redoing our cabinets! I just redid one drawer so far so that I could test it out and make sure I like it. Well now that I have completed the first drawer I love it and can't wait to do the rest! I think it will make all the difference.  It's exciting to see progress, there should be more coming soon!

Chore Chart

January is all about cleaning and organizing and generally putting your life back together after the madness of the holiday season. I've been struggling to get back in to my daily routine and having to fight the urge to snuggle up with a cat and a large stack of unread books that I got for Christmas. To help me get organized to accomplish my New Years goals for the house I found a few helpful tools.

This is great! I am such a visual person and seeing everything broken down in to daily tasks is so helpful, it keeps me from being overwhelmed. I printed one out and put it on my fridge. You can download this one or a blank customizable one here.

Another cool idea, I haven't really used this yet because it might be just a little too organized for me. Plus printing this every day seems like a waste of paper. Still, I like the idea and the way it's laid out. You can download this and others like it here. 

Aren't people clever to come up with things like this? It's a good thing there are so many organized people in thew world out there. Making awesome tools like this to help poor slobs like me pull it together ;-)

Out With The Old, In With The New

There is something so refreshing and awesome about the start of a new year. As much as I love Christmas and everything that goes with it I am always starting to feel a little claustrophobic from all the extra Christmas decorations in the house by the time January rolls around. All of our Christmas decore is officially packed up and put away and the living room is feeling much brighter and cleaner now. We also have some new house plants so we won't miss the greenery too much. We are getting quite a collection of indoor plants by now, 27 at last count. Watering and keeping track of them is a bit of a chore but they are mostly really low maintenance, succulents and the like. Here are some pics of our latest greenery as well as some other developments around the house.

Three new plants we got recently, lime tree on the left, some kind of fir (not really sure what) that we got at ikea, and a new Christmas cactus on the right. The Christmas cactus didn't bloom this year but it will be yellow supposedly.

this is the aftermath of taking down our tree, so many needles!

a coffee plant I brought back for Eric from Orlando

This is s a trick I learned on Pinterest, I put the old ends of som green onions in a vase with water and let the green part grow back. Apparently you can do this indefinitely. 

Also found time to hang the new painting that our friend Joanna gave us for Christmas!

In other news my brother Logan is moving to DC as of tomorrow. It is crazy how much I will miss having him around! I'm really excited for him and know he will have a great career in DC though. Change is painful but necessary and good in the long run :-) Tonight Eric and I had the family over for a little farewell bonfire and in the process got to burn bits of our  Christmas tree :-)

Christmas tree bits, burning away

fire!

Good luck in your new adventures Logan! I'm going to miss you like crazy!