Dining Room Today

Well, it's been a few months. I have the best intentions to post more often but being a mama of four is quite busy! Full of crazy, fun, challenging and very sweet moments. My house is a constant whirlwind of kids and kid stuff...everywhere. The logistics of it all, especially with the twins allows me to push the house cleaning aside. Then I don't take pictures which equals no new posts. I can manage the basic cleaning but the deep cleaning doesn't get done as much as I would like. Well, I couldn't look at it anymore, (I am a Virgo) and spent some time cleaning, like really cleaning, the stuff I've been ignoring for a loooong time. I quickly snapped some pics of the house before it was once again demolished in record time. Here's a few photos of our dining room when we bought our house last fall and how it looks today. It's still a work in progress. Other than the light fixture and curtains, everything has either been passed down by a family member or bought at a garage sale. So nothing is perfect but it's definetly progress and it functions well for us. 

Dining room as we bought it.

Photo is taken from the living room looking into the dining room on the left and kitchen on the right. Lots of brown shag carpet. Nice.

After the carpet was ripped out prepping for the floors to be refinished.

After shots. I apologize for the quality of my photos. I use my iPhone to take them and write my posts on my iPad. I know...

Looking out to the screened porch.

From the dining room looking out. I'm planning on doing a post on the living room as well. It went through a decent transformation. 

I've already started pulling out some Christmas decor. Other than the garland on the fireplace I've managed to keep it from the photos. I'm way too early... Until we meet again! Kelly

Spiders & Stripes

It's been a fun summer of exploring our new city and working on outdoor projects. Landscaping, lighting, painting the screened porch and front door were all on the list. I've been able to get a few done. My latest project was painting the front door. The inside is painted a deep charcoal that I love but the door has so much character I wanted to do something different for the exterior. The front of the door is tongue and groove planks so I thought it would be fun to paint the planks alternating stripes. I chose the same colors I used for the screened porch. I love how the stripes look with the spider web window! Now I'm on the hunt for a new door knocker...

New babies & a new home

Hi all! It's been waaaay too long! In fact, over a year since my last post. Ugh! Well, in my defense, it's just been crazy around here. Lots of change. Since my last post we added two more to our family, yes, twins! Our gorgeous gals were born March 20.

Here they are just a few weeks old - Isabel Rose on the left and Stella Lauren on the right - they are pure joy.

Five months later we moved to Columbus, OH to an area called Bexley. It's a beautiful walking community with awesome old homes, great schools and downtown.

So yes, we bought another old home. It was built in 1939; I haven't quite pinpointed the style. The house had zero updates, all original which I like, but wow, lots of work and surprises along the way. We started by pulling up the carpet and refinishing the original hardwoods underneath. Then we moved in.

The next project was the kitchen which we just finished. I like to keep as much of the original features intact as possible so I chose to keep the cabinets. The cabinetry is your basic 1930's style, but there's a built-in china cabinet with leaded glass doors that I just love. All the windows in the house are leaded glass so it's an important piece to the house. Here's some before and afters of the kitchen. 

This is how the kitchen looked when we bought the house. I knew right away the range would need to be relocated. It was in such an awkward and unsafe location. Look at that carpet and the tile is plastic. Pretty nasty...

Here the tile has been removed and the carpet. The kitchen is the only room in the house with the exception of the upstairs bathroom that did not have hardwood. We had new new hardwood installed to match the originals. To get the new wood flush with the originals, several layers of old flooring had to be cut out to get to the subfloor.

Okay, I won't bore you with the rest. Here's the finished product.

You can see here, the area behind the archway was a breakfast nook. To keep the cabinets in place, keep the original arch and window, we decided to relocate the range there. The breakfast nook was too small to work for our family of six and we needed a larger kitchen. Now the new layout functions great!:)

The countertops are marble which fit the vintage look. They are gorgeous but high maintenance. I haven't had any problems with staining but it is very soft so it scratches easily. They will develop a "patina" over time which will suit this kitchen. I love them:)

I chose a large single sink which I love. It's deep so it hides dirty dishes and it fits large pots and pans. The smaller 18" dishwasher fit in the old lower cabinet perfectly. I added two flushmounted chandeliers and a mercury glass pendant over the sink. I went for brass hardware to follow the style of the home.

In keeping with the original look of the kitchen, where the old tile was removed, new white subway tile was replaced.

Here's the china cabinet. I chose to paint it a different color to feature it. My master bedroom, dining room and front and back doors are painted this color, Yup, I kinda like it. The tall cabinet was a broom closet which we added shelves to and voila, it's a pantry!

Here's the new location of the range. I wanted it to look as original as possible so I had the surrounding cabinets built to match. I added some lower rounded open shelves and upper open shelves for functionality, a more "open" feel and to keep with the vintage aesthetic. I obviously still need to put the hardware on the cabinets. 

We went for two months without a range, just a fridg and microwave. Our first batch of chocolate chip cookies was super sweet. XO