Sigh... here they are

 

Here they are, I'm experimenting with how to "dress" them

 

 

and all naked just as they were completed

 

 

 

We started with this

We have a ton more storage now.  It was one of those projects that went anything but smoothly and was filled with frustration.   Going from the baker's rack you can see here to built in cabinetry is a serious upgrade so I'm trying to move forward from a sour experience and enjoy the end result.  I'm toying with how we'll deal with the back splash area.  We have some left over butcher block material, I was thinking of hanging plates...  I'd love some under cabinet lights.  It will take some experimenting and time to get it just right.  I want it to serve as a command center of sorts so we need an area for a calendar and keys and all that good little stuff.  

I'll be back with more progress and details. 

Now that's some paper!

We decided to avoid calling the electrician and try to move our doorbell chime in the kitchen to free up the wall space for our new cabinets.  Much of the electrical wiring in this place has proved to be a little wonky.  Turns out to move the chime box it would be more work that it is worth.  So we wrapped the wires and jammed them in the wall and instead bought a wireless doorbell that is working perfectly thus far.  I'm glad to have avoided a pricey electrician visit.  

Our house was covered in wallpaper, well IS covered in wallpaper.  Most of it is painted over and the only rooms that actually have the paper removed are the kitchen and the bathroom.  It was a torturous process trying to strip all the wallpaper in our kitchen and I will never again heckle those couples on House Hunters who complain about wallpaper in a house.  I used to yell "oh stop it!  just peel the wallpaper and move on!"  but now I see what a fool I was.  Anyway, I actually like wallpaper but we probably won't be adding any to this home.  Especially since we'd be papering over painted paper, can you even do that?

Look at this paper we uncovered when removing the old doorbell chime.

and a close up

Wow!  Avocado green, orange and metallic gold.  Looks like we have a royal lady, a coach, something about perfume?  An interesting choice for a kitchen.  Can you imagine facing a whole room of this in the morning?  Funny enough the green is rather close to my green accents in there but I think I'd skip the orange and gold. 

We toyed with the idea of wall papering the kitchen.  When I was removing the old wallpaper and finding some imperfections in the walls we thought it might be nice to cover them up with paper.  I still think it would look nice but the mere thought of doing it makes me tired.  There is no doubt wallpaper can look great in a kitchen though.  I'll leave you with this pretty image of a kitchen filled with trees.  Happy Monday!

Source: dreamyhouse.tumblr.com via Carissa on Pinterest

storage!

When I talked about my home goals for the year I mentioned we wanted to replace our baker's rack with real cabinetry.  I showed a picture of it like this.

Looks pretty tidy and not half bad but it generally looks more like this.

and this is after I removed the empty dog food can and assorted crud off the counter top.

It pretty much always looks like a sloppy mess and so I'm a glad to say that we will be replacing this with more cabinets!  An upper double cabinet that goes to the ceiling and some open shelving too.  Some lower cabinets, a little spot for a stool and a garbage drawer.  We'll be putting a butcher block counter there because we don't want to spend the money on more granite and I like the way the wood looks on the bakers rack so I think it will be a nice touch.  We're not excited to spend money but really excited to have more storage because we truly don't have enough room for food in this place.  I can deal with being minimal with kitchen dishes, pans and gadgets.  We have a spot in the basement for overflow and things we don't use all the time like the crock pot but not having enough room for pasta and canned goods is a serious problem!

So it will be about a month or so and in the meantime we have to move that pesky doorbell chime up above the bakers rack that you can see in the first picture.  This may be beyond our limited electrical capabilities so a call to the electrician will be in order. 

I'm excited.  It is another big step in making this house more functional for us like I talked about in my Home Goals:

7.  Work on making this house work for us.  Our house is on the small side but the truth of the matter is there is more than enough room.  The more we can fine tune the way we live in our little house the happier we'll be.  We might have to be creative and resourceful but this is and can continue to be a great home for us.

I'll keep you posted!  I have to get matching hinges, knobs and pulls for the new cabinetry.  It was only a year and a half ago I got everything so I'm assuming it is all still available.  Fingers crossed!

backsplash complete!

Here it is all grouted.

It's been hard to get great pictures.  We enjoy lots of afternoon sun in the kitchen in the summer but the winter has the sun falling behind the trees before I can snap a decent picture!  We are so happy with the finished look!  The grey grout is a very soft grey so while there is contrast it isn't extreme.

It is the finishing touch that the kitchen has been needing!  I'll be working on getting some nice photos of the whole kitchen when the sun will cooperate!

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

look!

It's happening!  I'm so excited and it does so much for the room!  I'll be back with photos once it is complete.

In other matters, we've never discussed the walls that separate the living and dining room.  There are two half walls with open shelving on top.  They at first looked really dated to me but once we painted them white things started to improve.  I've struggled with them still because although I want to accessorize them a little I don't want to clutter it up or block the light.  I found these simple white urns at good old A.C. Moore, popped some moss spheres I have in and placed them on top of books.  I think it is the first thing I've done with the walls that I like.  What do you think?  Honesty please? Pardon the photos, it is awfully murky out there today and we are lacking natural light.