Home Renovations Are Not for Sissies

 

Happy Friday, My Lovelies!  It has been a gorgeous spring week here in Central Alabama.   I hope it has been nice in your neighborhood, too.

Home renovations are not for sissies.  No.  They.  Are.  NOT!  

We started the process a little over a year ago, and then we put the brakes on when my mother had to be hospitalized.  We eventually finished our daughter's room and the library (for the most part) before Christmas.  Then after Christmas, my mom was better, so we decided to continue with the kitchen reno.  About two weeks in my mother declines rapidly and goes on hospice care.... while we were in the middle of the kitchen reno.

Because the upstairs went so well, I was expecting the same for the kitchen although it required a different crew.  

The kitchen reno was not very delightful (the drawers had to be redone three times), and we're still waiting on a couple of things to be fixed.  But in the interim, I wanted to share a little bit of the kitchen with you.

We have a new backsplash.  They are Moroccan Zellige tiles, and the color is oat.

from Tiles of Ezra

Another improvement is we raised the upper cabinets all the way to the ceiling to give us more storage and display area for our MacKenzie-Childs collection.

One thing that I'm having to get used to is the electrical under the cabinets.  You can barely see the strip in the first kitchen photo.  Most new kitchens either have them like this or pop-ups on the counter.  I chose to go up rather than down!  

I hate seeing cords, so I purchased cord covers.

  

I wish I could capture the color of our walls with my phone, but I can't seem to be able to do it.  They are Benjamin Moore's "vintage taupe," which has a lot of pink in it.  

New bar-height stools  

The kitchen island was also repainted in Benjamin Moore's "Gobi Desert."

Probably the best thing we did in this kitchen is organize it.  Our kitchen lacks cabinetry, and we do not have a pantry.  So what we did was add Rev-A-Shelf organizers in EVERY single base cabinet.  It has changed my life!  The organizers do take up more room, which means there's less space to shove organize your stuff.  I had to make some tough choices and only keep the things I use.  So far I have not missed one thing that is no longer in here.  I will post more about kitchen organization in a later post.

Because I was so busy during the end of March, I didn't really decorate for Easter this year.  I did put out a few spring pretties, though.

I also bought a couple of maidenhair ferns.  I love them, but I always kill them.  If you have any pointers on how to keep them alive, please share!

Hopefully soon I will be able to get my act together enough to share our library here on the blog.

On Monday I will be sharing some special book mail, so please come back then!  

Until next time...

Blessings!
Ricki Jill