Cooking with Gas (Not Really!)

We actually just left a gas stove behind, and this is electric, but whatever, it’s newer and nicer thus far.

We tackled getting the living room organized last night, so tonight we decided to work on the kitchen. It was an easy choice, right off of the living room, plus, it’s a kitchen so there wasn’t much to do!

Just so you know what we were working with, let’s jump right in to the before shots—

This is a great angle showing how open the kitchen is to the living room. Also, you can see the side door that I mentioned that we frosted in last night’s post.
 

One of the things we really loved about this house was all of the cabinet space. It may not seem like a lot to most people, but at our townhouse, we only had one full size cabinet and 3 small (above the fridge/sink/stove) ones. This is heaven to me! The downside is that everything was just so beige—totally not me! Right away, I knew we needed to go neutral in the kitchen as we have the blue living room, which you can see from the kitchen. I wanted color, but not a rainbow. I chose a nice taupey-grey, which was a good contrast against the off-white cabinets, but still complimented the countertops (which are new.)

We got to work painting and hanging our new dark natural roman shades (I just knew I wanted these blinds as our two kitchen windows look out over the back —I’m a stickler for everything across the front matching. Up next we cleaned and organized the cabinets (I’ll spare you the photos of our pots and pans!) I’ve already said it once, but I love these cabinets. Word on the street (literally) is that the previous owner was a cabinet maker and custom designed these to fit our space. After plopping my succulents in the window (the only thing I’ve managed to keep alive—ever), and adding something to the wall, we’re calling this in-progress done. Notice in these photos that we’ve got some tile next to the window above the sink. I think this is what we are going to use for the new backsplash (when we get to it.) I’m definitely not in love with the current situation as it matches the counters, but it’s clean, so whatever.

Without further adieu—

Hello Sammy Cat.

I apologize for the crappy quality, using my phone to get these photos for now. Also, my bad on not replicating the angles! You get the point. Hope you enjoy, more later!

—Melissa & Derrick

It’s Finally Beginning to Look Like Home!

We moved this weekend and I think it was the most unorganized move I’ve ever seen—no really, ask my mom! With us not knowing our exact close date, and if it would actually happen (because of buying a foreclosure) we really didn’t put a ton of effort into packing. PLUS, for ten straight days all we did was work, and work on the house. I am happy to report that we’ve done three pick-up truck loads of Goodwill drops just getting rid of things that we don’t need, and thrown away countless bags of trash. Feels good to purge!

We hit bumps in the road with the simplest of projects, but Saturday finally came and we moved! Our primary goals at this time are 1.) To be organized enough with clothes and such that we can still function day-to-day so that we can go to work, and 2.) To work one room at a time trying to make it feel like home.

We decided to begin with our living room as this is where we spend the most time together. We painted the walls (Olympic Paint in Blue Shamrock) to bring some color in, and added the new (clean) blinds. We frosted the window in the side door, which we love because we still get the natural light, but no one walking down the side of our house can see in.

Here’s the before—

And, the in progress—

Other than that we’re working with what we’ve got. We hung existing pictures/art on the walls (with the exception of the one brown piece you see—it’ll be painted white very soon—and placed existing furniture in a set-up that works for us. I’m hoping to do wall-to-wall bookshelves from the window down, but that’s a project for down the road. (Ignore the prints leaning against the wall, they’re for other spaces but are safest here for now!)

All in all, were happy with where the room has landed for now. It will be fun to watch it evolve as we do! As we make updates, I’ll add photos, but for now, we won’t call this done, just in progress!

More soon—

Melissa & Derrick

House Stats

In just about 25 hours we should be signing our life away closing on our house. I thought it would be fun to look back at these stats down the road to remember this journey.