Kitchen redo: before

Good gravy I think I've lost my mind! I have decided to paint my kitchen, top to bottom and will probably be starting next week! I'm really excited for this one, but I know it's going to be a tremendous amount of work and halfway through I'm going to think I have made a huge mistake, but the outcome I know will be glorious!
Why do I think I've lost my mind?  Well, Thanksgiving is a few weeks away, and we've got a certain boy's birthday party between then and Christmas. Plus, you know life. Feel free to send the men in white coats to take me away!

Here's what I'm working with.

These pictures are almost two years old, (I can't believe that!) and the faucet has been replaced but other than that it's the same. 

The cabinets are so dark! They also match the floor. I don't get it but hey, that's how life goes. The ceiling is the same... baby yellow as the walls (again, why?!)

Cleaning the years of grease and grossness off the cabinets, walls and ceiling is going to be the worst and probably most time consuming part. I don't even know how I'm going to get the ceiling clean enough. Thanks textured ceilings.

First up,  cleaning all the gunk from the ceiling. That will take, 3 days, I'm guessing. 3 days. On the ceiling before priming and paint. That alone makes me not want to do it!

I'm putting it out there, so now I have to do it! After reading and watching every video on the subject I'm confident that I can do it. Have you painted cabinetry before? Any tips?

Garden 2016 let's get this thing going.

I feel like I'm really behind in terms of the garden this year. It's already May and there's NOTHING done! Well... not nothing, the compost is spread and the ground has just been tilled. Now it's time for the really hard work. Building the rows.

check out the before (top two) and after (bottom two). Huge difference!

Enjoy the garden while you can girls, you're getting fenced out. 

This year we opted for a tractor and harrow instead of just rototilling. My goodness, what a difference! The soil is so smooth! We have heavy clay, this year it was better but still very heavy. I added compost and that helped. I might add sand next year but that's not even worth thinking about yet.


Now for the hard work, building rows, then landscape fabric, planting and drip irrigation. I'm going to use straw in-between the rows. It'll break down quickly, help keep the weeds under control and it's cheap.

We've been doing a lot of work outside and with each step of each project I want to do more. More more more!We have a few more fence panels to put up. I'm like to run them out to the field, but we might just stop where the long grass starts. We'll see what happens.

In case you're wondering what our garden looked like last year, here's a few highlights (The first tilling and what it looked like by July)

I can't wait until I have more produce than I know what to do with!
Are you growing anything this year? Tell me about it! I love to know what other people are doing!

Nature baby's room redo painting

I painted the ceiling a few days before Christmas, I did the pitched parts and the flat part. Technical terms, I know! It went surprisingly quickly, about an hour from start to finish and I did 2 coats. Then the sun hit it a few days later, out came the 3rd coat. The third coat was tricky to see where I had already painted and what needed a once-over. I supposed that's why tinted ceiling paints was invented.

As I painted the samples on the walls, I knew right away which one it would be. Galaxy purple, girly but subtle. I wanted her room to be calm and bright. The walls were easily covered, well as easily as textured walls can cover. The person who thought texture walls are a good idea is the devil. THE DEVIL! 2 coats and the walls were done. I'll be doing small touch ups for a long time, textured walls being the devil and all.

For the ceiling I used Valspar Ultrawhite, it's the same white I used in the living room and the same I will use for every ceiling in the house.
On the walls is Sherwin-Williams Galaxy Purple.

What do you think? I'm inclined that say that it's a huge improvement. Her room is now bright and girly, there is a clear difference between the walls and ceiling but it's subtle, definitely a color that she can live with for many years. By the time Nature Baby wants to new color I should forget how much of a pain it is to paint textured walls.

This will be my last painting project until help arrives, I just can't get enough done during nap time. I still need to paint the trim and the doors, the doors are bad! There is pain drips, scratches and dents. That'll be a project. And ALL the hinges are painted. Why! Can someone explain that one to me, please? I haven't decided if I will strip them or just buy new ones.

Now is the fun part, decorating! I'm not going to spend a ton but I did already by this little turquoise bench, I love it! It's the perfect height for her to put her books in and put some things on top. I have a few DIYs to do, and I'll be posting about them too! The only thing I've put back on the walls is her little elephant bunting, that was mine when I was a kid, hung in a very similar spot in my room for years.

What do you think?

DIY Mirror update

This mirror came with a second hand dresser we bought. The mirror alone was worth the price of the dresser!

It finally warmed up enough to spray paint it out in the barn. This project was super simple. The most time consuming part was taping and sliding the cardboard between the frame and glass.


Before

Please ignore all the mess on the dresser!

Here's what I did. 

I scuffed up the wood with sandpaper, wiped off the dust. This took a total of 5 minutes. 

Next is getting the cardboard between the frame and glass. I used diet coke boxes. They're thin enough to slide in and sturdy enough to be pushed in without bending. I carefully slide some tape between the glass and frame where I couldn't fit the cardboard, covered the rest, taped it up and was ready to go!

Next was painting. I did 3 coats I think, I wanted to make sure all sides were covered and there was one high spot that just didn't want to be black! I let it dry for at least 30 minutes between coats.

There was a little bleed through onto that glass. My dear friend Google informed me that acetone would fix that. It sure did! Who knew?

Here's what I used
Krylon Fusion Black gloss
a tiny strip of sandpaper
a few diet coke boxes
frog tape