Lilley of the field

So we've been cooking in the kitchen for a while now, but I haven't posted pictures because I have been waiting for the counters to be clean and the light to be right which equals letting weeks go by before I take pretty pictures. So let's revisit the old kitchen first.... And now for the kitchen reveal..... (If you want more info about stages of the project, visit my  home projects page. ) The big question: Would I do this again? YES! Actually- it only took about 2 and half months of our life on weekends and some week nights and it was SO worth it. We saved a ton of money doing it ourselves and learned a lot along the way. I love every aspect of and we LOVE cooking.  We see God is making, creating, and redeeming. Restoring and fixing up our house is one of the many ways we do this together. We want our home to be a safe place and a refuge for people and although I know it's the love and the people that mak...

I made up a new song "All I do is trim, trim, trim no matter what. I got moulding on my mind I can't ever get enough." This post is long overdue and I didn't take as many pictures as I should, but I will come back and add details about it soon. I mainly wanted to get the "finished" pictures up, but still have my blog posts in chronological order. More to come soon.....

Warning this is long and detailed. Probably my most detailed post yet about the kitchen because tiling is hard and I don't want to forget what I did. This step has made the kitchen really look like it's coming together! I definitely learned some things along the way and a few things I would do differently in the future. I am in LOVE with glass subway tile. I thought that since I had tiled our shower with white porcelain tiles, I could step it up to the big girl glass subway tiles. Well.... it is stunningly beautiful, but I may go with the white subway tile next time even though I love this look. It was a lot of work. I would probably be willing to do it again if Aaron said yes, but seeing as how he was the one cutting all the tiles and getting a few glass shards stuck in his hands... well I am not so sure he will say yes :\ And I got a couple shards in my fingers and we had to sweep really well after. So we thought we could tile in one day. One day sandwiched between our ...

So we decided to go with butcher block countertops. At first we were going to go with laminate because they are durable and we thought they were pretty inexpensive. But when we went to get a quote, I apparently wanted all these things that were custom that I hadn't realized so it was much more expensive. So we just decided to go for butcher block. We ordered American Cherry from Lumber Liquidators. We also paid for delivery which I highly recommend. They are HUGE pieces. It was delivered in 7 days by an enormous Fed Ex truck. They come unfinished. Aaron cut them on the floor after I measured a gazillion times. Then we made sure they all fit. Aaron sanded them with a random orbital sander down to 220 grit. Honestly, it's still a little grittier than I would like in places, but it's ok. It will wear with time. Then we had debated how to protect them. I am paranoid about water, but whatever, I will get over it with time because we use our kitchen hardcore and other peo...

And now... the stage that has been the most fun and most rewarding so far. In one day it went from a big ol' space with pretty flooring to something that resembled our future kitchen. Also, this step required the least amount of physical energy. Every other Saturday we've been crawling into bed exhausted. After this day- we went for a canoe ride and paddle boarding adventure with some friends. Oh yea. Have I mentioned before that I LOVE Ikea? The assemble was awesome and now I can say the installation was awesome. They use a rail system. So you measure and screw the rail into the wall. Then you slide the cabinets in, make sure they are level, and tighten these little screws at the back and screw them into the cabinet next to it. I was kinda scared they wouldn't hold up, but they are sturdy as ever. Our first cabinet in! Success! They come with super easy to follow instructions. This was my kitchen drawing with the Ikea program and all my mea...

Wow... we are so behind in the kitchen blogging here... but who cares really? Mom, dad, Nana- I know you are enjoying these. Ha! This was a fun day (see pic below)... NOT! We saved lots of money by purchasing materials through ebates on Lowes.com and then having it shipped for free to the store- or  if it is was already at the store, just picking it up the next day. It's nice because someone else gets all the tons of materials on a cart AND loads it in your car! Yes please. Sign me up. BUT once upon a time, a Lowes employee pulled the wrong size window and we realized Sunday evening at 6:50pm when the old window was already out and Lowes closed at 7:00. Oopsie. Luckily the Lowe's one town over closed at 8 so Aaron rushed over to buy the right size window. Oh my. Hello summer bugs- come on in please. Note- when you go to Lowe's more times in a week than you take a shower- you should maybe be concerned.  Moral of the story: Double check every single thing your buy...