What the heck?

Not sure what happened to me on Wednesday morning but I had a burst of energy and cleaned out some kitchen cupboards?????  I have been thinking about doing this for a while.  So after I had blown out the bottom of the driveway I set about doing them.

Got rid of some instant coffee with a 2014 (???) expiry date on it, that I found wwwwaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy back in the cupboard.  Seriously, how did I miss that?  

I now have some bags of things to donate to the charity shop.  Threw out numerous plastic lids that didn't belong to anything. I mean it's like having numerous socks with no partners, right?

I still have more to do, but this was a great start.  I need to be more aggressive with; "If you haven't used it in ages, get rid of it."

Still puzzled though where this burst of energy came from....😄

One year later (before and after photos)

and I am still happy with our decision.

I wasn't happy with the kitchen cabinets, BUT there was nothing actually wrong with them other than them being oak and it dating the house.  Plus I really couldn't be bothered gutting the whole kitchen to put new ones in.  I neither wanted the mess nor the expense.  So we decided to get a company in to spray/paint the kitchen cabinets.

Not that you can tell from the photos, but the big stand alone unit and the unit around the fridge were added later by the previous owner and are a slightly different colour to the other units.

Here are some before photos:

Here are the after photos:

The company took all our doors and drawer fronts to their workshop and primed and sprayed them there.  They primed and painted the rest of the units in situ and came back and forward once a week for four weeks total.  We bought new handles and so they filled the holes and installed those.

One year on and it's holding up really well.  I did notice a small chip on a drawer we use all the time.  I have nearly a gallon of paint they left me so I just need to touch it up. 

Would I do this again; without a doubt yes.  It cost us I think around $3 thousand Canadian, so a whole lot cheaper than putting in a new kitchen.  As I said there was nothing actually wrong with the cupboards or the layout.   We had put new countertops in a year or two before hand.  The change in colour has brightened up our kitchen considerably.  The colour we chose, was the colour of the year for Sico paints last year. 

I had posted back in 2021 here about how we had our vanity "wrapped" by a company.  I am super happy with how that turned out and again that is holding up great.  I did get that company out to quote us for the kitchen, but I can't stand the guy....LOL  Really I don't like him, he got on my nerves.  So for the sake of my sanity, as I knew this was going to take time I couldn't/wouldn't hire him. 

Some people do this themselves, painting their kitchen units.  Good for them, I just knew I wouldn't do as good a job as the professionals.

The company we used works in our area, and is not a nationwide company.

Quick and easy

I love hand knitted dish clothes.  I had bought this 5 pack of antibacterial dishclothes from Lakeland Plastics when we were in the UK earlier in the year.

(photo credit)

Now while they are okay, nothing beats my hand knitted ones, so I spent a couple of hours knitting this one yesterday.

This one is called the Mossy Dishcloth from Mockingbird Knits.  It's a free download from Raverly, here is the link to it.  All you need to know is how to knit and purl.  I will never be a great knitter, but I can do the bare basics and this is a perfect pattern for me.  I find I cannot knit for too long, as the arthritis in my finger joints get very unhappy if I do too much.

I purchased the large ball of yarn from Michaels.  I worked out it would probably made 8 or 9 dishclothes and with the coupon it worked out a whole lot cheaper than buys the smaller balls of yarn.

I know my kids don't often use dish clothes in their homes, I personally could never be without one by the sink.

Is a dishcloth something you use in your kitchen?

Learned something new this weekend, handy tip.....

We went and bought a new dining room set and had it delivered last week.  The only problem we had was we had to sell our old set:

So I put it on various online selling sites as a set.  Nothing, no interest at all other than someone asked if the chairs were available separately?  I had never thought of selling the chairs separately from the table.  

So I ended up listing the 6 pine chairs, the two end chairs and the table separately and ended up making $100 more than if I had sold them as a set.  Who knew?  It turns out chairs on their own are harder to find..........

Here is our new set, totally different from the old set and it fits better in the area:

Love the frosted glass top and the chairs are actually comfortable!!

Menu Planning and lots of photos:

I actually got my menu plan written out on Monday morning.  I am sort of organized for most of the week, which I count as a success in my books. Now whether I stick to the plan we'll see.

Here are some photos of the front hall, kitchen and breakfast area that we just decorated.

We were given some money at Christmas so we put it towards this rug for the front door.  It's from Pier 1 and despite the fact it looks green in real life they reckon it's blue?  Here is a link to the rug.

This is our breakfast area at the front of the house.  You can see my bird feeders in the front garden. 

Did you notice the oranges in the bowl in the middle of the table?  Well they are my $50 oranges!  You can read more about them here.  I got them when we were selling our last home.

This is looking into the kitchen from the breakfast area.

This is looking the other way and you can see the chalk board on the wall.

It all looks lovely and clean and very neutral, just the way I like it!

Kitchen backsplash........

One of the jobs we had to do with this house was install a tile back splash in our kitchen.  To get the builder to do it was going to cost around $900 and that was just using a white or cream subway tile like this one:

(image credit)

There is nothing wrong with subway tiles we have used them in the past, but we wanted something timeless and would stand the test of time.

We went with a natural stone mosaic.  The variety of stones and sizes made it an interesting tile that came in 12" x 12" tiles, that didn't need grouting.  As this is a natural stone it is a lot more expensive than a man made tile.  It should have been $15.95 per square foot; we got it for $13.50 per square foot.

We did have to seal the tile and should reseal it once a year; but that is a quick and easy job to do that doesn't take a lot of product.  It is however expensive as we paid $50.80 for 1 quart; but as I said it will last us years:

It did take us a couple of weekends to complete the job, only due to dh's lack of time as he works generally one morning on a weekend.

 Yes we do have a "junk/drop" area in this part of the kitchen.

Although I wasn't 100% sure on my choice, the more I live with it, the more I like it.  As it is natural stone and marble, there are "odd" things happening in the colours and everything is not perfect.  However I think that adds to the character.

I pulled out the bill and in total we paid $788.06 for the whole job.  We bought everything from Faiola Import Company in Brampton Ontario.  We have bought from them a few times now; despite the fact we have moved away from the area.  They always have a variety of tiles and at prices that are comparable too other tiling stores.

We ended up getting a far superior product for less money than the builder would have charged us.

Kitchen, Powder Room, Laundry Room and Front Porch Photos

The one thing I love about this house is the open plan layout.  Plus I have a huge kitchen with ample cupboard space, and I finally have granite counter tops and under cabinet lighting.  There are a couple of things on the counter tops that shouldn't be there, but I have decided to keep as little as possible on top of the counters and it looks so much cleaner.  Everything in the kitchen came as standard there were no upgrades here, other than the pot and pan drawer and a hinged door on the corner cupboard.

 This photo is not in true focus, sorry.  All appliances are Frigidaire Professional; just have to figure out how to use them.  We are going to do our own back splash, as what the builder offered was very expensive for what it was.

Oh there I am taking a photo of the microwave.  My one gripe about this, is I can't see what is happening in there, as the controls is on the bottom.  My last one's controls were on the side. 

 Fridge and pantry area.  It's a counter depth unit, so not as big as my last fridge/freezer.

 To the right of the photo is my catch all area.  If in doubt plop it on that counter top until I can figure out what to do with it.  I think everyone has one of those areas, right?

 Looking at the dishwasher, sink area, into the family room.

 Here I am standing in the breakfast area looking into the kitchen, then family room.  There are three pot lights over the breakfast bar, which again we got as standard.

 Here I am looking from the family room into the kitchen.  We paid extra for the matching panel under the breakfast bar.  It finishes it off nicely, don't you think?  I love how I can be in the kitchen and still be part of what is going on in the family room.

 Just off the hallway is the powder room.

 The two big doors in the powder room open into my laundry room.  Again I love the convenience of having everything on the one floor.  There is plenty of storage in there.

 I picked up these two chairs for the front porch on clearance from Canadian Tire.  I paid around $36 each with the taxes.  They even came with the two cushions on each chair.

 They are metal and I will have to bring the cushions in when the weather is bad.

Hoping to get some photos of Our Little Munchkin and Our Little Princess tomorrow as the family is coming over for lunch.

Before and after photos of the kitchen

A couple of before photos first:

Here is the after photos, can you see a difference!!!

It feels a lot more modern and of course lighter.  It was a lot of work but well worth it I think.

Love this song:
 

I'm still around and the bloody kitchen....

just been busy and didn't think I had anything really to talk about.

Dh has been off this past week and has spent most of the week in the kitchen .  What started out as me wanting new counter tops has turned into a major kitchen reno!!!  When we took out the counter tops there was no drywall behind them, or behind the cupboards themselves.  So we decided to pull out the bottom cupboards and get them sent away to be professionally painted. This is the colour we are having them painted.  That was a cheaper alternative than having to install new kitchen cupboards, as remember, all we wanted to do is replace the counter tops; so hadn't budgeted any money for a full kitchen reno.  The kitchen cupboard with the blue tablecloth on it would not go through any of the door openings at all.  So the end was pulled off that needs painting along with the doors and they went with the rest of the cupboards.

Where the hole in the floor is, underneath that we found some rotting wood.  So that has all been replaced and sorted out and we found some "new" wood for the hole in the floor that matches the rest of the floor.  All the electrics have had to be replaced as they were wrong.  The plumbing has had to be replaced.  New pieces of wood have had to be installed to make the wall straighter, so when we install the counter top it will fit properly.  All new insulation has had to be installed, along with a proper vapor barrier.  Then new drywall .  The window ledge is having to be replaced as that had rotten wood on it.  Then of course everything was covered in mice dropping...........icky, icky, icky.

Once I get the cabinets back, hoping for the end of next week, we'll get them installed and I am hoping by August/September to be able to have the upper cabinets taken down and have them sent away to be refinished.  When we take down the uppers we know we are in for a lot of trouble again, so again poor dh will be spending his vacation in September in the bloody kitchen again.  We went up to the place on Friday to pick out new hardware; even that was an issue and we were there for an hour trying to sort that out.  Everything the guy we bought the house off has touched is an issue it seems.

Meanwhile I have been trying to keep up with the grass outside, as it's on bloody steroids and is growing as fast as I am cutting it.  There is so much to do outside it's crazy, plus I am super tired and still not 100% well at the moment.  Keep thinking I need to go back to the doctors but keep putting it off.

We did have a day out on Tuesday to St. Jacobs and on Thursday we did some running around, so it hasn't been all work and no play.  We are off to dd today, so that will also make a nice change, and are at ds tomorrow for a BBQ; so a lot of family time also this weekend.

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

For anyone in the Alliston/Barrie/Orangeville, Ontario area, this is the place we are getting our kitchen cabinets refinished, they do beautiful work and we will be using them for other things as well.  The do custom kitchens and all/any wood work.

Homemade remedies, cleaning windows and Crazy Daisy

If you didn't know me you would think I was a two pack a day smoker with this rotten cough.  As I have finished my ten day course of antibiotics (thank goodness), my mother suggested lemon juice, honey and hot water.  Between me and you I think she is trying to poison me!!!  I do not like honey, unless it's heavily  disguised.  Suffice to say drinking this is nasty.  Not sure how often I have to drink this, must ask her when I talk to her this weekend; and believe me I will be whining.  Though as she says, I'm not happy unless I am whining about something!!!

I did have more energy than I have had in a while on Friday; or it could be we have company coming this weekend and I just got off my butt to tidy up a bit!!!  Anyway I cleaned some of the windows inside and out.  Which upstairs means me sitting on the window ledge and hanging out of the window.  What it does do, is make my stomach muscles groan in agony at being used!!! 

I love having clean windows, just like I love seeing straight lines on the grass when I cut it.  Does that make me a Crazy Daisy?  How often do you clean your windows?  One friend once said to me, she cleaned her windows once a year whether they need it or not......and she meant it!!

Talking of Crazy Daisy I love this new Portmeirion Crazy Daisy Line:

This toast rack is just so flipping cute as well:

Still haven't got around to writing about the kitchen..............

Opening a big can of worms..............

It all started when I said to dh I would like new counter tops for the kitchen as ours are made with small mosaic tiles and I think are very unhygenic.  How I wish I had kept my mouth shut!!

THIS SHOULD HAVE NOT BEEN POSTED AS IT WAS THE START OF THE KITCHEN SAGA...............SORRY.

Sorry..........

I said I was going to post today about the kitchen and although I did make a start on the post, I didn't get too far. 

I spent most of Wednesday outside cutting grass as it wasn't as warm and it was over cast.  The grass is on steroids and I swear is growing as fast as I am cutting it.  Anyhow I ran out of gas around 2pm, so had to come in.  By the way despite it being over cast and despite me putting sunscreen on I got burnt to a crisp!!!  I didn't wear my hat as it was over cast, but did have my sunglasses on.

We're not putting much of a veggie garden in, as dh is too busy with other projects to give me much help; plus his other knee is giving him problems.  He had the right knee scoped last August and the surgeon said at the time he could have his left one done anytime he wanted, but dh wanted to wait until he can't stand the pain.  He has/had a torn meniscus in both knees.  He needs knee replacements, but is much too young at the moment.  I would think he'll be having his second one done by the end of the summer, as the spasms are getting more and more painful for him.

I am also trying to get dd table runner completed before they come up on Saturday.  So last night I sat and hand sewed half the binding on, and will get that finished today.  I will take photos when I am done, really pleased with the fabric choices.  Must say my hands were complaining about all the hand sewing last night.

Dh was watching the Maple Leafs versus the Boston team hockey game.  The guy who sang the national anthems was good.  He sang at the last game and is a soldier.  He actually didn't muck it up like the professional/famous folks do.  Also the sheer joy and pride in his face when he sang was a Kodak moment to my mind.  Dh was saying one of his co-workers had got tickets for the game.  They were sitting in the nose bleed section, so right at the top and paid $250 a ticket.  What a flipping waste of money!!  The tickets are generally $90.  I will say that the Toronto Maple Leafs do deserve to win, only because they have the most devoted and enthusiastic fans out there; that support them through tick or thin - and it's generally on the thin side!!!

Gosh that was a lot of writing about hockey, a game I can't stand!!!

Finally I wrote another book review on a really good book called, Mennonite Girls Can Cook - Celebrations.  You can read it here.  The book is a keeper and would make a wonderful gift, even a great Bridal Shower gift.  As I said in my review, I'm not donating it; its going on my book shelf.

Just a quick update.......

I am feeling a lot better.  Still coughing up ick and still tired, but at least I can do some things without having to sit down every half an hour.  I am now into week four with this, (SIGH)

Trying to get all the grass cut by the end of today before it rains.  Already broken the tractor once this week (SIGH) A spring broke on it so it wouldn't cut.  Dh has managed to get it to work again.  Yeah to dh for being so handy!!!

Our kitchen is now in an up roar.  We started to do one job and now it has turned into a huge nightmare of a problem.  I honestly don't know where to start with it all, but it's a mess.  I think I will compose a post to try and explain what happened.  Suffice to say I am washing dishes in the downstairs bathroom sink.

On a more positive note I lost ten pounds in weight, as I finally shaved my legs!!!!  Yes I was at the braiding stage and yes it took me three days to get it all off....LOL  Now instead of my legs being soft and hairy, they are now prickly!!!  So I guess it'll be a daily job of bloody well shaving them?  With it being shorts weather I guess it's necessary? 

So there you go, nothing much to say, sorry!

Finally got one job crossed off my list.......

Now the only problem I encountered recovering these chairs, was there was no distinct central pattern that I could use to centre on the seat.  Regardless they look so much better than before and I hopefully have enough fabric left to cover the footstool I bought.

I would love a new kitchen but it's not in the budget.  One thing I had thought about doing was painting all the kitchen cabinets.  From what I have read the prep is very, very important.  I was concerned about durability though.  Has anyone done this and if you have do you regret doing it?  Also did you use latex paint?