Kitchen Pictures, Before and After

The first time we looked at this house, I was overwhelmed by the kitchen. I was overwhelmed because, wow. Cabinets. There are so, so many cabinets. And drawers! There were like twelve drawers. Remember, at that point we were still living in our hold house, which had exactly one drawer in the entire kitchen. I stuffed more utensils in that one tiny drawer than should have been possible. You can't imagine how difficult it was to open.

But when I stepped into this kitchen, I was also overwhelmed by...ivy. It climbed the walls in a seemingly never-ending trail of wallpaper, coating every inch of sheet rock, every outlet, every switch-plate cover. It had a rather familiar feel to it, because my childhood home had the same wallpaper in the kitchen, but even that warm nostalgia was not enough to convince me that the ivy would get to live in the house at the same time we did. Other weak points of the kitchen included awful light fixtures and brass knobs on all of those many drawers and cabinets.

As you know, we ended up buying the house, and we went straight to work on removing the wallpaper. It took hours. As I tore down wallpaper, I thought about potential blog posts on the subject, but I knew that I could never write one without a prodigious amount of profanity. 

We looked into replacing the brass knobs on the cabinets, but there were nearly fifty of them, and they cost kind of a lot. It was going to cost $100-$300 to fix them, depending on which replacement knobs we chose. Instead, we took the knobs off and sent them to work with my father-in-law, who sandblasted the finish off of them. Then I took them outside and spray-painted them with a metallic, dimpled paint. They look better than any of the knobs I'd chosen at the store, and the grand total was $7. Much better. 

Before I go into any more detail, here are the before pictures:

See all that wallpaper? That isn't even including the wall behind me.

There's even more wallpaper, and a glimpse of the horrible pendant lights that were hanging over the island.

Great sink, but a very sad, broken faucet.

We set in and we worked and worked and worked on this kitchen. Jeff and I had a few late nights peeling wallpaper, and our family helped some, too. He sanded the walls and I painted them. We walked all up and down those counters! We chose a new faucet and new light fixtures, and by the time we put the new knobs on, the kitchen was beginning to take shape. This is how it looks now, several weeks after we moved in:

Our new faucet, new wall color, and all of our stuff.

Jeff ordered this light for me from West Elm as a surprise, and it was meant to go over the island (there are two of them),
but  it ended up being too big. It's okay, though, because I love it there.
The other one is now in the dining room.

I thought it odd at first that there was a desk in the kitchen, but I love having my laptop in there.
 It makes it very convenient for cooking Pinterest recipes.

This is the island, which houses the stove. Those are my new pendant lights, which came from Lowes. 

There are still projects to tackle in the kitchen. I'm not loving the linoleum floor, which shows everything, so we will probably tile it eventually. I'd also like to replace the laminate countertops , but that is obviously not in the budget. I'm not sure it ever will be, really. That's a lot of countertop to replace! The appliances are pretty old, too, but they work, so there's no need to spring for new ones for awhile.

While this obviously isn't a shocking, HGTV style makeover, I think it's a pretty good example of a kitchen that was remodeled in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable budget. I am thrilled with how it turned out, and I love spending my mornings drinking coffee in here. Annalee eats three meals daily sitting at that little table, and I wash the dishes in the sink approximately a dozen times a day. Alabama sits in her highchair and mushes bananas, and Jeff comes in occasionally to drink his sweet tea. 

This room is very much lived in, and we are enjoying it so much.

CrawlWatch 2012 Complete: Army Crawl Edition

She's crawling! Sort of!

This video is a few weeks old, actually, but I've kind of been waiting for her to start a more conventional crawl before I posted a video. At this point, though, it looks like she's going to be belly scooting for the foreseeable future. It's effective, energy-efficient, and it gets her clothes extra dirty. I can't think of a single reason why she'd ever try to crawl properly. I will alert you, however, if she does.

(Not that army crawling isn't proper crawling. It's just not what I think of when I think of a baby in the crawling stage. I'm still very proud, and I think it's a very cute, amusing, caterpillar-like way to get around.)

Breakfast with Tootles

Annalee and I are sitting on opposite sides of the table. We're both eating oatmeal out of pottery bowls, drinking milk and sporting our bed head. We always have messy hair in the mornings. 

I tell her that her cousin's birthday party is tomorrow. This begins a conversation.

"But what about my birthday? My birthday is October 20th."

"Yes, it is."

And she asks me questions, half a dozen at least, pertaining to family members and birthdays, activities and dogs that used to live down the street. By the time she is done with her grand inquisition, we have finished our oatmeal. She gets up and puts her bowl in the sink, because although it's a stretch to reach it, she insists on putting away her dishes every morning.

She walks into the living room, leaving me standing at the sink and pondering our breakfast conversation. It's still odd to me that she speaks so well, remembers so much, and acts so grown. A few minutes removed from our morning meal, I look back over it and can't help but think of how it seems to be only moments ago that she took her first bite of rice cereal.

Children are amazing creatures. In two and a half brief years she has learned to be a person, a daughter, a sister, a friend. Though I miss the baby she once was, I am so enraptured with this child she is now. She is remarkable, and I love to see her becoming her own person.

I hope we have hundreds, thousands, millions of these breakfasts together. I am beginning to realize what a treasure it is to have her company.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

In what will possibly go down in the history of my blog as the most unoriginal post ever, I'm going to share with you guys a little information about homemade laundry detergent. Maybe you don't read blogs like I do, or look up cleaning recipes online, or spend far too much time on Pinterest. Personally, I have heard dozens of stories about people making their own laundry detergent, and that is why I feel like I'm just hopping on the bandwagon and giving everyone information they already have. 

But, of course, you might not be like me, and you might not hear testimonials at baby showers about how this stuff works fantastically and is super cheap, in which case you do need me to tell you about it. If you already make this detergent yourself, or have absolutely no interest in ever doing so, go ahead and skip this post. Otherwise, keep reading, because I am about to change your life. 

No, I'm not. This is not life-changing in the slightest. But I am going to change the way you do laundry.

Maybe. You might think this is stupid or boring or a waste of time. In that case, I am going to change nothing and you will continue with your current laundry habits.

To begin with, I'm going to share this site with you. This is the exact recipe that I use, and I follow the directions word for word. I'm not going to attempt to recreate that here, especially since the author is very clear that she doesn't want anyone to do that, so I'm just going to tell you my experience with the stuff. 

These are two of the three ingredients, other than water. The third is Fels Naptha bar soap (Wikipedia page here-- I finished mine off with the last batch of detergent I made). I have seen all of these in the laundry aisle at the grocery store. They aren't hard to find around here, but if you have trouble, I think they're all available online. Like the site I linked to says, they're very inexpensive. The author there breaks the pricing down for you there more specifically, but I got all of the ingredients for less than $15. It might have been significantly less; it was months ago and I really don't remember anymore.

The process of making the soap is really simple. It probably takes about half an hour, and then it has to sit and gel for awhile. Mine is usually ready with an hour or two. It's sort of a gel, sort of a liquid by the time it's ready. 

I've been using this detergent for about six months now, and I've been pleased. It gets the clothes clean and doesn't fade them any more than regular detergent. I'm not going to say that it's any better than the stuff you might buy at Target, but I am going to say that it's just as good. There's also the added benefit of knowing exactly what you're washing your family's clothes in. I started using it in part because I can use it on baby clothes, rather than buying Dreft, since there's no fragrances or artificial colors to irritate Alabama's skin. It's nice to be able to throw her clothes in with everyone else's if necessary. 

One note: On the first batch of this, I put in lavender essential oil to make it smell nice. It did smell really good, but I noticed a few oil spots on our clothes. I don't know if I didn't mix it well enough or what, but I have skipped the oil the next two times and really haven't noticed a difference in the scent. 

So, there you have it.  That's my two cents on homemade laundry detergent. I love this stuff, and it's all I use now. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, but I'm not an expert. I've made this three times and I really like it--those are my only credentials. Keep in mind, though, that I do laundry for a man who always manages to get dirt and grease on his pants, a toddler who is constantly spilling her juice, and a baby who has more diaper blowouts than I had previously thought possible for a single child. It's possible that I am kind of qualified to give advice on doing laundry.

Happy Mother's Day 2012

I love Mother's Day. I think it's an awesome holiday, and it celebrates a group of women that are often taken for granted. Mothers do so much. I would know, because I've been blessed to know some wonderful mamas in my life. My mother, of course, has been a true anchor in my life. She is always there when I need her to be, and I trust her explicitly. I have wonderful grandmothers whom I've been blessed to spend time with, and I've learned so much from them. My stepmother is another great woman in my life. And of course there's the mother who raised my husband--the best man I know.

I can't help but think, too, of my husband, who gave me this gift of motherhood, and the two girls that I'm raising with him. I love being their mother, and I love being a parent with Jeff. This is the blessing of my life, and I am so thankful to be celebrating my third Mother's Day with my own family.

My heart is always heavy on this holiday for the women who hope to be mothers but are not, and mothers who have children who aren't here to bring them dandelions every time they step into the yard. This can be a difficult day for many, and it's my prayer that there is joy to be had for everyone today.