Kitchen & Dining Room Reveal

Chocolate?
Does anyone have some chocolate they want to give me?
No?

I see how good our friendship is.

But I guess even though you won't give me your chocolate, I can still show you our KITCHEN!
And our DINING ROOM!

**Edit:  The day I wrote this post, we had friends coming over for dinner.  She brought me chocolate.  She gets a gold star every day of her life :)

Yes, the time has finally come when you get to see a whole entire room of our house.  The living room is nearly done, but you have to wait for that until after I get a sofa reupholstered.
 Let's just say it's a bit of an "elephant" in the room.

Here are some before and after shots, and I'll give you a rundown of some specific things along the way.

 The "before" pictures are from the day of our house inspection, while we were trying, trying to buy this house from a somewhat hesitant realtor/bank.
What?
Yeah.
First picture is what you first see while walking into the house.   Overall, things were in decent shape.  Just dirty.  And Oaky.  Is "Oaky" a real descriptor?
Here's what it looks like today.

We actually have had this chandelier for over 2 years.  We were once looking for a house in Iowa, and I found this nice chandelier at a garage sale for $15.  I thought "Oh, we'll be able to use that soon!"
Well, after two years of storing and hauling this thing around, it has finally found a home.  And the scale of this one is much better than the little baby that was there before.

Next is a view from the top of the stairs that you saw on the right of the last picture

Awww, even Jip looks cuter in the after shot :)

And do you see our new sliding door?  Much better!  The old one had a pane of glass broken out of it, so it had terrible insulation.  And the weatherstripping and wood had been all gnawed up, too.  Again, we say "thank you" to our good buddy...I'll call him the "Old Man" because he'll appreciate that...for helping Joe install it a couple Saturdays ago.

Also from the top of the stairs, here's a view into the kitchen 

* Please ignore the pile of dishes on the counter.  They're clean, I promise*
And here you can also see the Striped Bench...that mysteriously never made it into the shop to be sold. Strange thing, that is.

This is the kitchen, as seen from the dining room.
Gettin' the hang of the layout?  Good.
Because if you break into my house, I would hate for you to get lost.
Seriously, don't break into my house.

Here you can see the Kitchen Island, built by my handsome hubby.  Click on the link if you'd like to see some detail shots.

Also, check out my super-duper roller shade in the window above the sink!  I just made it about two weeks ago, and I'm pretty stoked about it (do people still say "stoked"?  Now that I typed it out again, it looks stupid).  

Slick, huh?  If you want to make one of your very own, it's not difficult.  I followed the tutorial from Design*Sponge found here.  The only part that they didn't explain was how to shorten the roller blind to fit your window.  I found those instructions here.  And if you're like me and you found a fabric you love...but it's lightweight, not medium like they suggest, you can do what the cool people do and iron on some heavy-duty interfacing.  Hooray!

Lest you think that all we did was paint the walls and trim and windows...and that led to so much more light bouncing around, I would like to direct your attention up.  To the ceiling.

EWWWWWW!!! Do you see that nasty ceiling?  EWWWW!
I think I almost had a conniption fit when Joe starting putting up the new ceiling paint.
And now that our ceiling is "bright white," it bounces the light around like crazy.  Which means we don't use lights during the day very often, and we only need to use a few at night.  I love that.
That plus the light wall color and white trim, and the house feels much more fresh.

 My amaryllis is almost done blooming.  So much for waiting for Thanksgiving, huh?  It's been really beautiful this year, though.  5 blooms in total, can't complain about that.

So there's our kitchen and dining room!
I'm still not sure if we're going to put something on the dining room wall.  And what it might be.
And I don't know if I'm going to end up putting something above the cabinets in the kitchen.
Perhaps I need to start collecting plates...
Or grapevines.
I hear those are all the rage.

Sorry, I'm getting snarky.
Probably because you wouldn't share your chocolate.

I'm off to go make bread and a mess in the kitchen now, though.  Good thing I cleaned it for these pictures!

If I don't get a post written next week, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I have a lot to be thankful for this year.  A gracious God, wonderful husband, perfect little baby to meet, loving family and friends, a new home, a puppy, and the list goes on...and on.

I hope you are able to spend your Thanksgiving surrounded by people you are thankful for.

~The Doodle Bug

I'm usually partyin' at these hangouts:

Friday Feature @ Redoux

Feathered Nest Friday @ French Country Cottage

Furniture Feature Friday @ Miss Mustard Seed

Show & Tell Friday @ My Romantic Home

Flaunt it Friday @ Chic on a Shoestring Decorating

Frugal Friday @ The Shabby Nest

Simply Creations Link Party @ Simple Home. Life

It's a Hodgepodge Friday @ It's a Hodgepodge Life

Spotlight Saturday @ Classy Clutter

Trash 2 Treasure Tuesday @ Kammy's Korner

Nifty Thrifty Tuesday @ Coastal Charm

Tuesday's Treasures @ My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Be Inspired @ Elizabeth & Co.

Wow Us Wednesdays@Savvy Southern Style

Make It Pretty Monday @ The Dedicated House

Doodlings No.3

Do you ever have one of those days?

Those "I can't really seem to get motivated to do anything today..." days?

Probably not.  Probably only really responsible and energy-filled people read my blog.  The kind of people that hang out with Martha Stewart and play the Cello in their spare time.

But today is one of those days for me.  I don't know why, since it's my "blogging day" and that usually gets me pretty pumped full o' lead and ready to go.  But not today.

Today I have looked up a plant that I would like to buy.  I saw it in Country Living yesterday, it's called a "Paddle Plant" and I want one.  Or two.

Via Country Living

And I am dreaming of a glass shelf or two for my kitchen window, like these ones, to put my new Paddle Plants on (actually I've had this page from BHG cut out for over a year now).

Via Better Homes & Gardens

But then I start thinking "Would that block my view...?" and I get scared.

Here's the bank of kitchen windows before we moved in.  I would put the shelves (1 or 2) in the big center one.  What do you think?  

I have also been working on a project that I started last Saturday.  I was hoping to have it done to share with all of you today, but alas the window casings needed primed and my dog needed groomed this week.  So it'll be on the docket for next week--it's a good one, too :)

Speaking of my dog.

My Dad told me that my Aunt (my dear, sweet Aunt from Crate Storage Bench: Tufted Upholstery) ...

...told him that she hadn't read anything about Jip on my blog lately.
And she wanted to make sure he was okay.
He's fine.  Except that he always wants to be outside and whines and complains when I won't let him out.
He apparently didn't get the memo that he's supposed to be a white girly-dog, carried around in handbags and given bows to wear.
HA!
My dog eats drywall chips and bugs for fun.
Maybe that's why his breath is so toxic.

So for your viewing pleasure, or to satisfy anyone working for the Humane Society who might check up on my blog periodically, or even if PETA might gander a visit on over here, (you should come see my freezer full of meat), here are some recent pictures of our little monster!

And here's where I made him dance for a treat.
He hates it when I do that to him.

He's happy as can be right now, curled up beside me on the couch sleeping.
Ahhh, what a life.
Jip really is sweet and very loyal.  We love him to death and are very happy we have him.

Besides, who can resist that face?

And lastly, though most importantly, our little one is doing very well!
(the baby, not Jip...track with me here...).
Everything is progressing very normally.  We had our 20 week ultrasound last week and got to see some ninja kicks and punches.  I have a little baby bump finally...though I don't have any pictures right now to show you because they're in Joe's cyberspace files somewhere.
Soon, I will have to post some soon.

And I bought a changing table!  That will be revealed in time.  Rest assured there are many projects in the works, they're just not done yet.  Much exciting stuff between now and January!

Have a great weekend everyone.  This Sunday is Joe's birthday, so we're excited to go out on a date and spend some good time together.  Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

Oh, and let me know what you think I should do with my kitchen window!

~The Doodle Bug

Shoveling, Shlepping, & Shopping.

Today is the first day of Buffalo's March Occasional Sale, and it's a good one!  I've been working this week trying to finish up a few big projects for the store, and this morning I took in the last two things.  Phew!  It feels good to have a full booth, and I even had time to check out a few of the other stores in town.  We have such a creative little nook here, and it is so neat to see what everyone is doing.  So, here is a summary of my day, a day in Buffalo, Minnesota!

To start, I had to get out of the driveway...and get the snow out of the back of the truck.  This is the life of a girl in the upper midwest without a garage :)

Window Garden

Yesterday and today have been full of exciting decorating fun.  Today, I've been working on a little bench made from a small wood crate--but you'll have to wait until it's done to see it!  For today, I have the results of a long thought-out process that I finally jumped on yesterday.


                      Before                                                                                    After

In magazines, I kept stumbling across pictures like the ones found in these blog posts (I am sorry, but I cannot post pictures from other sites on my blog...they always end up getting removed even if they are credited and linked to the original site...anyone know if that's just the way it's always going to be, or if there's a way around it?  I read blogs that have pictures from other sites up...I'm just not sure how they do it!).  If you have a spare moment, these are the links to their posts; they're pretty cool:

A Garden for the House

ROOST

Budget Wise Home

Don't you love those hanging terrariums?  If I got my wish, I would have some of those puppies--I'm just not sure that I would remember to mist them everyday.  And I love the idea of glass shelving in the window--they give you a place for plants without blocking the light.  Perfect.

But for me right now, I wanted to find a similar solution without having to go and buy anything.  So yesterday I set out to get it done.

Hand Painted Old Window

Joe and I just got back from a weekend in Iowa, seeing family and my brother's new house!  Now it's back to the norm, and to welcome us all back from a long weekend, here is a nice project to ease into.

This is a very simple project, easy enough for most anyone to do--and it looks great at the end!

I bought an old window at a barn sale about a week ago. You can find old windows at barn sales and salvage stores pretty easily.  I decided that I would paint a quote on it to make it a wall hanging, so I printed off the text on regular paper, placed it on the back of the window, and taped it to secure in place.

From here, it's pretty straight forward.  I have been doing so much painting lately that I've been using some handy-dandy paint palette flyers from a hardware store to decide my colors.  It gives me clarity and helps make color decisions much more quickly.  Here is the palette I chose for this window--the frame was already that blue color, so I decided to keep that, and choose colors around it.

Thanks, Dutch Boy!