Kitchen Makeover ~ Before & After

If you stopped by last month, you may remember my kitchen looking like this during my re-do:

After a lot sanding, priming, painting and trim work my kitchen now looks like this :)

I have always wanted a white kitchen! To me, it's timeless and fun to accent. My decor will certainly change with the seasons and it will be simple.

A few things I love about my new kitchen...

I'm loving the blue mason jars, the deep sink and the onions hanging from the window my sweet friend India gave to me from her garden.



These guys that stop to visit every now and again right outside the kitchen window while I'm preparing my morning coffee:

The view from my stove...I thought enjoyed cooking before!

Most of all, I've been blessed with a space where I can teach my daugher to cook...

Prepare meals and sweet treats for friends and family...




and enjoy the company and conversation nearby


 

I'm really happy with the way the kitchen has turned out. Just a few little things here and there to be done like ordering handles for the cabinets and finishing up the window. I'm just glad the major paintng is over :)

Thanks for stopping by and hope you visit again soon!


Linking up to: Growing Home, Raising Homemakers, Raising Mighty Arrows, Homestead Revival, Deep Roots at Home

Eek what a mess! (Kitchen-redo)

Hey y'all! So, my new kitchen has been cah-razy! We are still in the rental until *squeal* tomorrow...and then the moving begins. However, I'm a little antsy that my kitchen still looks like this:

(minus the lack of paint and trim around the windows- we do have paint on the walls now, praise the Lord, but this picture was taken earlier last week). Everything else still looks just like the photo!

Betcha can guess what I'm doing here...

Yep, so these girls are getting a paint job. Can't wait to show you how they all turn out!

Also on the list to do...clean farmer's sink and get that ugly rust spot out...fix or replace faucet because it keeps spraying everyone who turns it on...and install a water filtration system.

At some point the counter tops have gotta go. I've finally convinced the hubs that butcher block is the way to go. Thinking that may be a fall/winter project.

Alrighty, so soon I'll have some after shots. Just thought I'd update you on what a project I'm getting myself into! Thanks for stopping by :)

New Home: Before & In-progress Interior Photos

Sorry for the delay in my posting. I know I had said I'd post interior photos sooner - I should have known I wouldn't have as much time to blog as I'd hoped. I'm squeezing in some time now :)

There is so much work to be done, but we've enjoyed doing it. My husband amazes me with all his carpentry skills. For those who know him personally, you know he is a jack of all trades.

Here are a few interior before photos and of our work in-progress. I'm so excited to see the finished result. Everything is coming together great. My step brother hired a couple sheetrock guys for us and they are awesome - very reliable and work quickly.

Open concept living area. View from master bedroom/loft. 

Looking up at loft from living room

My hubby is building barn-style doors for these storage spaces

Hubs removed the trim around the staircase to expand the wall. I'll post pictures of that soon, too.

Looking into open concept area from deck. I'm doing some light kitchen remodeling at the moment :)

Today Adam worked on building a post for our mailbox. It took him about 20 minutes to make and saved us almost $15 building it himself. 

 

I'm having a hard time keeping my eye lids open so I'm going to have to call it a day! I'm looking forward to a post of before and after pictures, so stay tuned for that :)  Thank you again for all of your encouragement and prayers!

We got the house! & {Exterior Before Pictures}

I just want to start out by saying THANK YOU to all our family, friends and many of you we've never even met for praying for us as we anxiously bit our nails during this whole house process. God has blessed us beyond our imagination, and with that said, we are still in a dream-like state. So thank you for praying on our behalf. We pray our home will be used to glorify Him; that comers and goers will know that this was His doing; His will for our family.

Time to start building memories.

...But we also have a lot of work ahead of us. I will begin with a "before" exterior shot of our little homestead. I will post many "after" photos starting in August.

The home is a newer construction with a story behind it. It sits on 26 acres atop a hardwood mountain. An older couple built this home to retire in. The husband was a contractor and built it from the ground up. He passed away in 2009, leaving behind his wife and their unfinished home. She resided in the home for a year or two, and decided to move closer to family. Two weeks after she listed the property for sale, we placed an offer.

I imagine it was difficult letting go of this home, but at closing we could see relief in the seller's eyes when she heard our vision for the home and that it is being sold to a family who will truly love and care for it.

There were three showings before us and each inquirer was turned off by the same thing:

the driveway. It is 600 feet long. We live in New England. One word: winter. 

We have a solution for that. He is a 6 ft, tall, dark and handsome country man who wants nothing more than to run his own snow plow. I like to call him Hubby :)
 
There are so many things we had in common with the seller when it came to our ideal house lot and one of them is this: privacy. Absolute, serene seclusion.

view from the house

berries on the property

Our immediate exterior to-do list:

1. Make a lawn. Hubs loves running an excavator so he plans to extend the edge of the existing "lawn" (it is all dirt and a loop driveway right now, with the exception of green grass growing on the leech bed). He plans to get rid of the loop driveway and make the majority of it a lush, green yard :)

2. Stain the porch and fix up/stain the deck.

At some point we'd also like to make another sitting area under the deck (first photo in this post). Right now there is a tarp under there with some wood the seller left behind, along with other random things that are being tossed. I think it will eventually look nice with a couple rocking chairs and maybe a porch swing :)


Well, that is it for the exterior shots for now! I plan to post before pictures of the interior tomorrow. I would love some feedback on paint selection after the pictures are up :)