Dining room update

Since I posted about my dining room, I decided to refinish the china cabinet.

This is what it looked like before....

My mom gave me this when we moved into this house, it is filled with her first china set she bought when she was 17. 

Here is the finished result! 

The china set is white with gold leaves, in the glass on the doors, it has gold etching, it all goes so nice together.

And then I tripped over the dog, put my hands out to steady my fall and put my right arm through the glass on one of the doors, smashing the glass...I am lucky that I didn't need stitches, but now I am upset because of the ruined glass.... I can easily have another glass piece cut, but not so easily the gold on the glass....I am thinking I will replace booth piece with just plain glass....that's the simplest thing to do....my poor dog, She is a black lab mix and she likes to lay right by where ever I am....I am always tripping over her, but have never fallen before.....she feels so bad.

My little kitchen is finally pretty!

Today I am going to show you my kitchen.

Its a small galley style kitchen, but its 10 x's larger than the kitchen in our last house(which was military housing) I don't have tons of counter space, but its workable, and I definitely don't have enough cupboards, but it is enough space for the things I need, just don't get much extra for the stuff I want! lol 

When we moved in this was the color of the walls and counter top. Apparently the counter top, and cupboards are both original to the house and the counter top was orange, and the cupboards were yellow!!! The previous owners just freshly painted everything these colors. 

The first time I painted the kitchen I wanted a rustic orange......this is what I got....and the photos tone it down ALOT....it was almost neon!

You have to excuse the poor quality of the next few phots, these are the only ones I can find from when it was this color......

Notice Thing 1's very purple bedroom off the very orange kitchen......yikes!

These photos were taken during fall...the only time of year the orange looked (almost) good...lol 

The second time ( and most recent) that I painted the kitchen I went with a more softer, cooler tone. This color is Benjamin Moore's Rock port Gray. The photo graph makes it look a little green in a few places, but its not in real life.

 \

I still need to switch out the light fixtures...the one over the sink I am going with a hanging pendant light, and for the other one track lights.

I gave the cupboards a fresh coat of white paint, replaced all the old rusted, paint covered hinges with new shiny silver, soft closing ones. Replaced the knobs on the cupboard doors with handles, painted the back-splash (which is paint able wall paper, that was painted silver previously)white, and my sister painted the counter top (because she does a much better job than me on counter tops) 

The valance I made out of a painters drop cloth I bought at home depot...I got the idea from here.

 The space between the fridge and stove, I am planning on doing some open shelving, and displaying some white dishes, and pottery, as well as a pop of aqua

 The space above the window, I am going to either make a vintage looking wooden sign that says "Grocery" or "Groceries" or get some wooden letters from Micheals and painting them aqua.

 This photo is out of focus, but you get the idea...

I found this old window in our basement this past winter while moving stuff after we had an oil spill

I gave it a light coat of white paint, hung a wreath on it that I picked up at a yard sale a few summers prior, and there you have it! I like how it looks, and goes with the rest of the decor.

 I found this hutch on craigslist this past winter, for a great deal

 Notice Thing 1's now aqua colored bedroom......goes much better with the kitchen color than the last color scheme!

 I gave the hutch 2 coats of Beautitone's Everest in their cabinet and furniture paint

 I am seriously in love with how it turned out!

I love my little kitchen, it makes me so happy now, the whole makeover cost about $300. That's my kind of makeover!! 

Living room goes beachy glam!

Today I want to share with you the many faces of my living room. 

Like many, our living room is the hub of our home, its the space that we hang out as a family the most. 

We don't have a family room or rec room, so this living room is it.....I have given all 3 of our kids a tv/dvd player and a game console in each of their bedrooms, so when they do have friends over, they have a place to go to hang out and play video games ( which in our house just consists of the collection of Just Dance games) or watch a movie. 

Our living room is directly off the left to the front entry way, so its one of the first rooms guest see when entering our home, and for this reason, I like to keep it clutter free, and clean as possible. Because lets be honest, people always drop in unannounced when your house is a mess.....am I right?!?!! 

Anywho, this is what the living room looked like when the previous owners lived here 

This is what it looked like when we moved in........ like a bomb went off!

Ok, all jokes aside...

This is what it looked like after we got unpacked....a mismash of furniture, (the previous owners left us the couch set) 

I liked the color at the time, and it had been freshly painted so I kept the color for a year or more.

Take not of the ugly red brick on this fireplace also.....

Then when I was sick of the color ( and it was chipped and dinged up from kids and dogs and life) I painted this color....and take note of the fireplace mantel.....the ugly red brick is gone.....I painted it black!

I was happy with this for a couple years.....

But we really needed a new living room set, and I was changing all my colors in the house from warm country tones to cool beachy tones

After searching high and low ( or what I like to call Pinterest) I narrowed down a few Benjamin Moore colors and then chose "Revere Pewter" as a wall color and a beachy aqua and white as accent colors. 

The hardwood is original to the house (1950's ish)

We bought 2 new matching couches, and I painted the existing coffee and end tables, and fireplace mantel

Notice the electronics to the left of the mantel.....I had to find a better neater solution to that.....

I also painted the frames of these 3 photos.....My mother said, I am a mean woman with a can of paint! lol 

Close up of the wall sconces....

Little table I picked up at a yard sale a couple years ago....

The coffee and end tables were given to me by my parents, They bought them when I was 5 (i am 32 now) and my mom always had them in her living room in all their houses (My Dad is retired RCMP so they have had a few houses in his career) On the bottom side of the coffee table there is crayon scribbles that was done by either myself or one of my 4 younger sisters....I am so happy to have them in my home now, and love how beautifully they turned out white! 

This grainy photo I took with my iPhone this am when I started to plan out today's post

See the solution I came up with for the electronics....

It looks neater, and it gives me a chance to display more beachy stuff!! Still need to get another grey tote for the bottom block.

I plan on doing the same thing to the other side of the mantel, so it will give the illusion of built-ins. 

The paddle I bought at a yard sale a couple weeks ago for $5 and gave it a distressed coat of aqua.

I am really pleased with how my living room came together. 

Tomorrow I will show you my kitchen......

How I updated ugly red brick in my dining room

Hi there! 

Today, I am going to share a little about our dining room. I have never had my own dining room before...lol. 

In every other place we have lived we never had one, so this being our first house we ever bought, I was so overjoyed that it had a dining room! And not only did it have a dining room but that dining room had a real fireplace!! 

But this is what the fireplace in the dining room looked like.....

When we moved in I added the 100 yr old mantle (that came out of my fathers grandparents house)

and dressed it up best I could......

But that red brick just stood out like a sore thumb!

And now I will show you every angle of the dining room....lol and look there is the kitchen too!!

I never want to actually use this fireplace with a fire because of the mess and soot it makes, but i got this candle holder at a yard sale and its perfect for this fireplace!

So after looking for ways to get rid of the red brick, but I didn't want to just paint over it, I moved everything to one side of the room and got started...

I mixed white semi-gloss paint half with equal amounts of water, as a white wash...the 3 coats turned out like this

then 2 more coats tuned out like this.....

Put it all back together and I HATED it!!!

It looked worse than the red brick! I almost cried.....almost.

The look I was going for was more like this (a photo i found on Pinterest)

beautiful, clean, almost creamy white.....

So back to work I went, this time I added 3 parts paint to 1 part water

The first coat was already so much better!!

This is me, not crying that I ruined my dining room lol

It was finally coming along correctly!

Now that I was on the right path for the brick, in between while the brick dried I tackled the mantle, I went with a red, because, of the fabric on my dining room chairs, I hadn't found the right material to recover them yet, so I had to pick a color out of the existing fabric to match, so red it was!

I also painted the inside of the fireplace and the red tile on the floor black.

I put everything back together again, but this time I was unhappy with the decor....it was lacking something

Here is where I show you all angles of my dining room again!! and OH look the kitchen again.....lol 

If you can see from this photo I changed out the decor for more beachy stuff and I really love it! 

And notice the chairs.....

.I just decided I wasn't going to reupholster these chairs, instead I wanted to replace them with all wooden chairs, so my search started on local used furniture sites and I got 7 chairs for $40!! 

5 matching ones came form one person for $30 then 2 more I found at a yard sale for $5 each.....its a good thing I did because the day before I was going to pick up the chairs this happened...

I love the new chairs so much! It makes the dining room look so much spacious! 

I cant wait to makeover the chairs and the table! 

I have big plans for them!