Friday Love

For today's Friday Love I'm sharing one of my favorite decorating tricks - leafy branches! I realize as I am typing this that it sounds ridiculously simple and made-up. Totally understand, but hear me out. I don't do well with potted plants or flowers. I absolutely love the beauty and charm they can add to the home, but I just don't take care of them well. I think I am being responsible by watering them, rotating them, and giving them proper light, but then next thing I know they've bit the dust.

So how can I keep fresh greens in my home without spending $ every week for new living ones? Right outside our back door. 

Clipped from azalea bushes.

Not sure what this is, but I like it.

Below are some pictures I have found inspiring:

Does this one look familiar? I found this photo so fresh and pretty that I tried a similar grouping with our entry, (above). I would love to duplicate this entire shot so I foresee a couple little projects in the near future!

 Apartment Therapy

 Decorology

 delightfulfindsandme

Elle Decor

You really can't go wrong with a few leafy greens in your home no matter what your decorating style. Our style tilts towards rustic, eclectic and slightly minimalist, so adding some fresh leafy branches not only softens our space as it does with the photos above, but it also blurs the line between outdoors and in, which I just love. 

So what is your stand? Flowers or leafy branches?

Happy weekending!

~Chelsea

One of a kind kitchen details

We are at our final day of the kitchen makeover, and really, this is my favorite post. The before and after photos are fun and dramatic, but it's the smaller details that have made this transformation my all time favorite in our home.

Our kitchen makeover was not about demolishing the entire room and starting from scratch, making every little decision on counter tops, cabinet placement, appliance style/brand/color, etc, etc. It was about using what we've got and making it work. And, small as our kitchen is, I realized how many opportunities there were to make the space truly personal and unique to us, as well as increasing its function. So here we go - a list of some of the ideas I had along the way of how to personalize our kitchen without big spending.

Detail 1: Our pantry! This quote from one of our favorite shows, (Seinfeld), seemed appropriate on our food stash. No dramatic, weighty quotes for us; we wanna laugh! I refinished our Walmart-made pantry in Old White Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, same as our cabinets, and stenciled the quote in a taupe-y grey called French Linen, also by ASCP.

Detail 2: Blown up organization! Like most families, we've got weekly appointments to keep track of, a monthly calendar, a grocery list that gets added to daily, and some sort of meal plan for the week, (I truly am trying in that department). So to make use of the large pantry doors, I painted the insides in flat black paint, (which works exactly the same as chalkboard paint but is cheaper), and created a spot of organization for us to refer to. I keep track of everything in chalk and erase it when it's done or passed.

Detail 3: Painting under our cabinets! Our kitchen has no kickboard under the cabinets, so the space between the lower cabinets and the floor was super gross

See? And that stuff would. not. scrub. off. So, I sanded it smooth as best as I could and painted it the same light aqua that is on the kitchen walls, Spring Mint by Behr. I absolutely love having a snap of color down there. This is definitely something I'd do in another kitchen someday. So sweet.

Detail 4: Lighting! We replaced the previous kitchen light with an $8 brass chandelier I found at a yard sale. You can read here about how I refinished and installed this sweetie pie, (since that post, I have added another layer of color, slightly deeper than I had used originally. The photos below are the new color). We are so amazed at how this simple switch-out has made such a major difference in our kitchen! The lights from the chandelier dance on the walls and just make the whole room feel warm and cozy. A chandelier above the kitchen sink is a little unusual, but this one is really the perfect size for it. I wouldn't do anything bigger, and a chandelier this small wouldn't look quite right in a dining room. Plus, I can finally see! That old light was so dim it was a joke trying to follow a recipe or check the progress of a cooking dish.

Detail 5: Decorating with fruit and flowers! We go through a lot of fruit in this house and when I started running out of room in my fruit bowl I had to get creative! And Shire, my personal florist, keeps fresh blooms from our yard in the kitchen at all times :)

Detail 6: Hand towels! There can never be enough. These are some of my favorites, most of which were gifts, and I enjoy switching them out every few days.

The big picture:

This room sure came a long way! About as far as my muscles and patience would allow...

Thank you all so much for reading and for the kind compliments you've sent regarding this makeover! It was a very satisfying job; one that I am so grateful to have behind me! If you have any questions at all about my experience with painting our kitchen that I haven't answered, please don't hesitate to either contact me via email or leave a comment. I'll do my best to respond quickly!

~Chelsea

Painting a kitchen: Three long days

Hello friends! Yesterday I posted about our major kitchen transformation when, by the power of paint, I turned our kitchen from this....

...to this!

It's one of my most dramatic before and afters, but the in-between was more drama than I had anticipated, (but nothing abnormal for a project like this).

I decided on using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White. For those of you who have not heard of or used chalk paint, it's kind of a dream to work with for a few reasons.  1) It adheres to anything. The reason that is so important is because it saves you lots of prep time. You don't have to sand your surface down to a rough or raw texture as you would have to do with latex paint. For this project, all that sanding would have surely added an extra day or two of work. To prep my cabinets, I simply wiped them clean with a water damp rag and smoothed out any really rough dings or nicks with a medium sanding block. 2) The paint dries fast. I ultimately used 5 coats of paint, which sounds like it would take forever to do on an entire kitchen, but it goes quick when you can start on your next coat as soon as you're done with a previous coat!

As you can see by the single drip running down the can, Old White is not a 'white' white. It is a creamy white, which I just love. Not a typical kitchen cabinet color, but typical isn't what I was aiming for. Our kitchen in it's original stain finish had always had a warmth to it. I wanted to lighten things up but retain the comfort of the coziness I had grown to enjoy over the last 3 years.

 Our cabinets are original to the house, so they're about 30 years old. That's 3 decades of grease and grime splatters all over the place. I knew I would have major bleed through by trying to paint over them in such a light color, so after removing the cabinet doors and laying them out in the garage over broken down cardboard, I started by spraying a thin layer of shellac over everything before beginning to paint. I'll get to why I did such a thin layer in a sec. Before you Shellac, cover your counters in towels or plastic and open all your windows. It's potent stuff!

After reading some reviews, and a recommendation by my SIL, this is what I went with to prevent bleed through on my kitchen cabinets: Zinsser clear shellac.

So, I sprayed the shellac all over everything, then began painting. For about 5 seconds I painted with a brush, then hated the way it was going on and immediately switched to these handy sponge brushes, which worked beautifully to prevent brush strokes. The paint went on soooo smooth and even using these, (I took this pic after the whole job was done, so they are looking a little rough):

I did 2 coats of paint and then took a really close look over every square inch for areas of bleed through - which there were many. I basically just sprayed shellac over areas of bleed through whenever I saw them, even after 4 coats went on. I'd see bleed through, shake my can and 'spritz' the shallac over it, and then paint again.

Some photos of the awesome fun time I was having...

One coat:

Three coats:
(I kept everything in my cabinets and just pushed stuff back and towards the middle. The drawers I emptied):

Garage taken over by cabinets:

After 5 coats plus touch ups, I sealed the cabinets, drawers and all in 2 coats of Minwax Polyurethane clear semi-gloss. My favorite way to apply this stuff is with a lint free rag, (and be sure to wear some sort of protective gloves over your hands; I like to pull on disposable latex gloves).

SO, once all was said and done and the cabinets were reattached and hardware added, I snapped a few pics of the imperfections I mentioned in yesterday's post.

Upon closer inspection...

This cabinet is our worst, but I really wanted to show you what bleed through looks like. This cabinet is not dirty. Every brownish mark that you see is bleed through, even after several layers of shellac and four coats of paint, plus touch ups. The cabinets were very difficult to spot bleed through since I was working on them in the garage which doesn't have the best lighting for such detailed work. There were some drawers that looked like this, but when I really tackled them with the shellac and then repainted, they turned out perfect. So if you take anything away from this post, it should be to work in a well lit area!!!

Also, I must admit that not only did I stop at two coats of paint on the other sides of the cabinets, (rather than 4-5), I did not even touch the insides of the cabinets. Left those in the original wood.

The whole job, from start to finish, took 3 days. I worked during my kids' sleep time, (early in the morning, nap time, and late at night), and meal times for those 3 days. 

So, as you can see it's definitely a homemade job. But a job that resulted in a major feeling of relief and accomplishment. I absolutely love being in our kitchen now. Who knows, maybe I'll start cooking gourmet meals in there!

Coming up tomorrow are some of the unique details that didn't make it into my reveal post yesterday - these are the personal touches that make the room feel truly special and personal to us, (not to mention functional)!

Thank you for reading!

~Chelsea

Kitchen makeover!

Hi guys! Welcome to our kitchen makeover! This week will be all about before and after photos, tips on painting cabinets in chalk paint, and a few unique ideas that will help put a personal stamp on the most frequently trafficked room in the house. 

So let's get started! We've got 30yr old cabinets which we've been planning on painting since before we moved in 3 years ago. I'd been waiting for a 'right time' to get the job done, but really, is there ever a right time for such a task? I was dreading it, to be honest.

Kitchen before

Finally one morning in early August, I was sipping my coffee while my little ones ate their breakfast, and got the sudden, overwhelming urge to go for it. I had already purchased my paint, (months prior), and had all my supplies just collecting dust in the garage. It was go time! So to start, I made a huge mess. Everything had to come out of the drawers, cabinets had to be removed.

Kitchen After 

**In this case, 'after' is a super loaded word. I'll give you a detailed account of what went into the process of painting our cabinets and how it went using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint tomorrow!

Last Friday I posted about my new interest in woven rag rugs - this one I fount at Target for $13, and it is SO thick and soft!

I really, really liked the original drawer pulls that were already on our drawers. I took them outside, laid them on cardboard, and gave them a couple coats of black spray paint by Rustoleum, my favorite brand for spray paint. (I bought new, simple black knobs from Home Depot for the cabinets, 95 cents each).

If you were to take a closer look at our cabinets you would find imperfections, which I will vulnerably include  in the details of this makeover tomorrow. But, as my very kind husband reminds me every time I point out an imperfection, doing this myself saved us thousands of dollars. It's so close to my dream for this kitchen and I couldn't be happier with the results. 

And if you noticed the switched out light fixture above the sink and missed our how-to post about that, here it is!

Thank you all for reading!

~Chelsea