Kitchen Re-do

Welcome to my kitchen.  While it's still a little off from what I would have choosen had a built my home, it's come a long, long way from where it once was.

My favorite thing about it is probably the wall color.  I hemmed and hawwed over many other paint colors in my house, but this one I always knew.  It's Benjamin Moore Wickham Grey and for me it was love at first site.  

Funny story, though.  When I was buying the paint I asked them to maybe just put in a little more blue because I was worried it wouldn't be much of a color, and the girl looked at me and said, "there's no blue in it..."  I was a little shocked and worried, but stuck to my gut and boy am I glad I did.  I love it!!  It's a pretty pale french blue.

And it plays really well with the Benjamin Moore China White we used on the cabinets.  Kind of a French Country vibe.

Anyway...this is what the place looked like before: 

Sort of cave-like.  And dark...and ugly.  I don't hate stained wood, but something about this stain made it milky...like it was laid on too thick or something.  So it all had to go.  I originally thought it really all would go, but we actually ended up keeping a lot of things... 

One thing I was certain of was getting rid of that awful drop box florescent light!  Ugh.  Couldn't wait to see that thing gone!  We replaced it with four recessed lights, and sometimes I wish I'd been able to talk my husband into the six that I wanted, but once the pendant lights are shining 4 does the job nicely. 

Which brings me to the pendant Tiffany lights we had in here...

Aren't they just lovely??  Someone thought so because they sold pretty well online! haha.

I did make my hubby move one of the pendants over about 6 inches because they were just too close together... 

I got major eye rolls for making him do this, but ...it just needed to be done. 

See?  Look how pretty that ceiling is now!  It came a looong way!! 

When we walked through the house listing off what needed to be changed, I opened the fridge door, which opened up against this corner wall, and realized that because of the handle, the fridge could only open up about a foot wide...how ridiculous!?  So, next on the list was switching places with the fridge and the pantry.  It was a pretty big ordeal especially since we had to replace the crown molding because it didn't work in reverse...

But all's well that ends well, am I right?  And it all works so well now that it's switched around.  I can open both fridge and freezer as wide as they will go.  Perfect.

Surprisingly, once it was all painted and finished, I didn't hate the backsplash so much...and the countertops really popped where they hadn't before.  We also replaced all that tile flooring with laminate wood planks that look like old hardwood flooring.  Gorgeous!  No regrets there.

We also ended up keeping the knobs and pulls and even the hinges and everything looks and works great.

And then it was all about finishing touches.  Most of the items on the top of the cabinets were thrift store finds.  Love that.

These copper molds belonged to my mother, and bring me back to my childhood every time I see them.

I got the grand idea to put sugar and flour in huge canisters like this from a friend of mine.  They are SO much more practical than the tiny canisters that come in a set like the one I got at my wedding.  Those things never hold an entire bag of flour or sugar so it's always been a problem for me, because it's not a real storage solution.  Anyway, these are from Target and I love them. 

The window by the sink is one of my favorite spots.  I love looking out those windows.  They were covered in ugly blinds, which I quickly threw away.  I ended up replacing those with these little tension rods that happen to fit really snug once I took the decorative balls of the ends that met in the middle.  It almost looks custom.  Perfect.  And these flowy little curtains were a wedding gift from long ago.  They work perfectly here.

Lastly, I put this sign up above the doorway connecting this kitchen to the formal front room.  Words to live by...found at Hobby Lobby.

So, there you have it.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Homemade Laundry Soap - 1 year later review and updated recipe

So, a year ago I adopted this laundry detergent recipe.  It says it will last a whole year and it really does!  And I love it!!  I just made a few changes this year.  So, here is my updated recipe: 

Here are the ingredients.  

And here are the things I changed: 

First of all, I miscalculated the size of the canister I'd need, so I upgraded to this larger size.  I really love these canisters from {Target} and I use them to store flour and sugar as well. 

The other thing I changed about my recipe is that instead of using a normal cheese grater to grate the soap, I decided to try a zester to get the pieces as small as possible.  It worked like a charm.  I set up my bucket and grater like this and my third time doing this was definitely a charm.

The reason I made this change is because sometimes my washer had a hard time disolving the larger soap shavings, especially on a cold water cycle.  The smaller pieces seem to dissolve much easier.

Once the soap was grated, I just threw all the rest of the ingredients into the bucket and mixed them all together.  And it rubbed my hands raw...so next time I'll be wearing gloves for that step. 

Anyway, the result is a wonderfully beautiful detergent that looks and smells like summer. 

I ended up using the smaller canister to store my Oxiclean White Revive which I add to loads of white laundry in place of bleach.  I really love that stuff.  It does the trick without ruining anything! 

There you have it!  All in all, this laundry detergent costs about $20-$30 to make, and it lasts for a whole year!!  That's a pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Thanks & Giving Relief Society Activity

I got the inspiration for our End of the Year activity from this image I saw on Pinterest.

The holiday season is a great time to offer thanks for all that we have, but it's also a great time to serve.  And that's just what we did.

We started out the night by having a "Thankful Dinner" which consisted of 3 yummy fall soups: Butternut Apple, Cauliflower, and Potato Bacon.  We also served a bunch of different salads and some rolls.  I decorated using Thanksgiving decor including my {Thankful Banner I made and posted about here} which I love so much!

We set up the round tables in the Relief Society room and used real tablecloths and the real dinnerware out of our church kitchen.  We wanted this night to be special and using the real stuff just made it feel so much nicer! 

Different sisters brought centerpieces with the Thanksgiving theme for each table . 

And then we had several pies for dessert. 

Each place setting had a napkin tied with a dried grain of wheat and a tag that said, "So Thankful for You." 

So, the sisters came and ate and visited.  We invited the Young Women in our ward to join us for this activity which was great!  

And then we moved into the gym for our service project.  I found this great idea on Pinterest from {this Little Dresses for Africa blogpost} to make pillowcase dresses for {Little Dresses for Africa} an organization that makes and sends these pillowcase dresses to little girls in Africa and other countries all over the world who have never had a dress.  Thier mission is to give these little girls some self esteem.  I loved the idea of making things for some fellow sisters in need, and I thought there would probably be many sisters in our ward who had extra fabric they could donate to make these dresses. 

I was right!  We had more fabric than we could use!  Maybe we'll have to do it again sometime.  The {Little Dresses for Africa website} has a lot of information on how to make the dresses and how to determine sizes and package them up, etc.  

Here are the measurements we used for the pillowcases donated.

And here is the pattern for how to make these pillowcase dresses using just fabric donations.  Most of our dresses were made out of fabric scraps.  

Then, we just followed the instructions from this: 

{Little Dresses For Africa Pattern}

So with the fabric scraps we were pretty much just making a pillowcase first by sewing up the sides before we were able to follow the rest of the instructions.

So, we had a cutting station, where sisters determined what size the dresses could be accourding to the size of the fabric or pillowcase donated.  Then we had an ironing station with tons of irons where the sisters prepared the pieces for sewing. 

And then we had a sewing station where ladies who had brought sewing machines stitched away and mad as many dresses as we could!  I called them my little sweatshop because they were working so hard. 

A lot of the dresses ended up being really cute! 

We strung them all up at the end just so we could see how many we had made. 

I loved how colorful it was!  So many fun fabrics made so many fun dresses! 

It was kind of slow going at first as the sisters got the hang of how to make them, but I was so impressed with how many dresses we were all able to make!  At the end my feet were killing me!  But my heart was happy!

39 Little Dresses for Africa.

Flipping the Deck

This is our deck.

  It was in pretty bad shape when we bought our house and has been on our "To Do List" ever since we moved in.

Obviously the boards were well worn and hadn't been taken care of for quite some time.    

But there were other things too.  Like the railing, or lack thereof.  We had a lot of work on our hands.

The first item of business was to close up the side.  It had been left completely open and critters were becoming a problem for us.  So, my awesome hubby bought some latice and went to work.  Love the way it turned out! 

Then he started flipping the boards.  Literally.  It took hours and hours and hours and HOURS.  But, the underside of those boards was like new. 

There were only a few boards that had to be replaced.  

And after all that hard work, it was so pretty!

Next up was beefing up that railing a little bit.  We'd been looking online and finally found a pattern for how we wanted it to look.

And this is what we came up with.  We are in love!

I just can't get over how different it looks.

This last weekend, we stained the entire thing.  It feels like it took all summer!  

 But we are sure happy with the results.