Kitchen day two

Its a slow process but it will get done soon. We decided to save $80 and reuse our hinges from the cabinets. Why spend the money if ours are perfectly fine? Only problem is they are brass. Nothing a little spray paint can't fix. The fun part was spraying all the screws. I also ripped out our backsplash to get it ready for our new one. Am I leaving you in suspense?

Kitchen redo start

                                 Before - 1980's oak, dated green and just a tired kitchen. 

We started by getting rid of the green. We painted it the same tan that we are using in the rest of the house

The new paint made the oak cabinets stand out ever more, awesome! not! So the cabinets need to go. 

Remove all the cabinets and prep for painting. The bad part is you get to clearly see in all of your cabinets and now clean them.

More to come......

Have you heard of ReStores?

I have a hidden secret I am going to share with you. I love this place. It is a mess and most of the stuff is used but you can get great deals if you are willing to dig and maybe clean the things when you get home.
There is a place called ReStore. It is owned and ran by Habitat for Humanity.

What ReStore is, is a store where they sell anything from lights, doors, tiles for your roof, old kitchen cabinets, desks, couches, old appliances, fabric, sinks, windows, screens, knobs, old windows, stair rails, everything that goes into building a house. Most (about 95%) of the stuff is used. When they acquire and old house that they are going to redo for a needy family they take all the old stuff out of the house and sell it. I am talking EVERYTHING.
I have gone to the local ones around here for the last 4 or so years and I am never disappointed. I always find something and it is usually dirt cheap. A little elbow grease and imagination and you get great stuff. Best of all is that almost all of the money you spend goes back to building more houses. Go to this link to see if there is one local to you http://www.habitat.org/cd/env/restoreUS.aspx
My latest trip I actually tried a newer to the area one and I didn't love it as much as the one I typically go to. If you are in my area the one in Azusa is great. Montclair, not as much. I did however some home with a new lock and handle for out back sliding door that I spent $2 on and it was brand new. The coolest thing in my treasure hunt was a new to our house old screen door. It is the real deal. It is all metal screen and in pretty good condition. I got it for $5. I need to fix a few screws but nothing hard to do at all. So my projects for the day were fixing our door handle and when it cools down a bit I will get the new screen up and working. I wasn't sure if it was the right size but it is spot on exact once I got it home. So now that I gave away one of my hidden gems go check it out. If you do, share what you found.

Living room small redo and my Mother's day gift.

One of the benefits of people knowing you redo and fix furniture is they give you stuff. Sometimes this backfires and you get crap but today my neighbor gave me this little white dresser. It was filthy and has paint scratches and a broken drawer but it was exactly the right size to put next to our couch and happened to be a place we have been looking for something anyways.So here it is. This was after a good scrub down. 

Also tell me how great of a match it is to the dresser we got from our good friends? Funny, right? 

For Mother's day my kids and hubby got me a new rug. I loved our other rug a ton but it was a braided rug and was falling apart. I was over sewing it with fishing line to try to save it so the new one was a welcome treat. The bad and good thing was I HAD to buy new pillow to go with it, right? Yes, the answer is yes. So when I was out getting new pillows I found a cute little ottoman for $30 on clearance. It fits great as a little extra seat on the wall. Love! But this evil little thing lead me to a room redo of sorts. New pillows, a new little end table freebie, new pillows that were on clearance and the rug of course and I have a new feeling room. Isn't it pretty? We also painted the coffee table a few weeks back, as well as the little table on the side of the couch. All of the furniture matches now and I think it looks great. The best part is I have a new pretty room for my recovery time in July. 

Last but not lease I had to show off my laundry room since I updated it a bit. I found this sign at Kirkland's for super cheap and decided I had to replace the vinyl. The vinyl was cute but Ali didn't think about water and moisture going with stickers. Much better to be framed. I also added an old place mat to cap off the cute stuff. Nothing major but it is something. 

Mothers day fun, putting my kids to work.

Love the after. No more 1980's orange oak. The splinters and peeling varnish are gone. I wish I had a before close up of the rail, it was downright unsafe. You couldn't grad the first section without getting wood in your hand.

What a difference a few hours and a bunch of paint can make. or Mother's day my boys, Hubby and I spent the day painting all of my stair spindles, stairs, railing, cabinets and trim in the entire stair area and upstairs hall. I am so tired but the result is so clean and pretty. To have my kids help was of course interesting but they are so much fun. Now the stairs are totally ready for our wood stair project. That carpet will be GONE!!!

We added hooks in the hall by the kids rooms so they have coat hooks. 

We added new hinges and knobs to out linen closet. Now if the stupid hermit crab didn't live in my hall I would be a happy person. I would love some vintage mason jars in the pale teal on that little shelf or a vintage pitcher and other cute trinkets. Oh and the carpet. I cleaned it a week ago with a steam cleaner and it is beyond nasty. The hubby and I both agree it needs to go. Now to start saving the $1000 plus that it will take to do it. I can't wait to get the stairs done, the rest of the doors done upstairs and clean, fresh, non stained, non smelling carpet. Hey, at least the walls and rails, etc. look Amazing! Happy Mothers day to me:)

Dining room

A few weeks ago I posted a dresser that I redid for our dining room. Here is the one I am talking about. http://thecaliforniafarmhouse.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-to-us-dresser-hutch-all-dolled-up.html

Well they say once you start painting furniture you won't stop. They are right! I decided that I loved the white and brown look so much on the other things I had done to take on my dining room table. We have been toying with the idea of getting or making a new table but we decided that the one we have is in great shape and fits the space well. We were over the oak look so why not paint it. Here is the color of our table and chairs before. Just dirty oak.

A ton of primer and paint and here is the end result. The chairs were a pain in the you know what and need like two more coats of paint but I can out of paint so until I go get more here they are. 

The Great expanse

Do you remember back in February when I was debating on colors for our great expanse? The area above that is basically seen from every area in our home and touches almost every wall. I woke up this morning and after I got a last minute day off decided to start painting. 4 hours later and an exhausted me and this is what I have. One coat on everything. I even found a duster in the garage that had a handle that extends to reach all the way to the ceiling. It wasn't fun at all and even worse is I have to go back and do a second coat. I need to do all of the doorways, cabinets, railing, and baseboards white as well but one step at a time.It isn't that noticeable in the pictures but it looks fresh and clean.
Can I also point out my awesome new clock. I saw it at Kirkland back in February for $100. There was no way I was going to pay that much but I waited until it went on sale for $49.99 and used a coupon and paid just under $30 for her. I love her and I am thrilled at the price. Plus you can see the time from my work space which is a bonus.
So in the next few weeks I will do a second coat of tan, add the white to everything and add handles to the linen closet to liven it up a bit. Oh and we are painting the hand rail for the stairs a dark brown. I can't wait to see it done!