The Unveiling.

My apologies for waiting so long to post this, I've been a bit busy (story of our lives, right?)

BUT.......

I feel like the Target Lady!

Hooray!

Why? Because it's finally done!! 

I have a working kitchen!!

No more washing lettuce in the bathtub!!!

This happened.  More than once.

Soooo, I guess you want to see it?

Here it is!!

BAM.

Some cruddy i-phone panoramas for you.

I LOVE my kitchen.

I'll do some specific posts later about a few of my DIY projects, but here's a few photos to tide you over until then.

Oh hello, hidden microwave!

I had to spring for the brass faucet.  It was 100% necessary.
It also took Dave almost a month to realize there was a sprayer built in here.

Giving myself a pat on the back for this one- I made 2 pendant lamps for $66 total!!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
I won this penny tile on ebay.
(It's in the side door hallway).

Side hallway.
Not much to see, except my new floor and light (which needs an Edison bulb, btw.)

This sink is almost 12 inches deep.  Sigh.

Handmade walnut shelves!
And no, nothing on here is "staged" for this post.
I have actually been able to keep things looking like this for over a month without any problems!

Walnut butcherblock countertops, finished by yours truly.

I searched for WEEKS online to find this rug.  Thanks Etsy!!!
It has the perfect color combination for my house to tie everything together!
Also, caaaaaan you spot the dishwasher?
It's there!

This is the glass globe from the original outside light above the side door.
I followed a tutorial on vintagerevivals.com, and made it into a planter!

Of course Margot needed updated bowls and a tray...she's gotta fit into my glamourous kitchen, too!

Can you spot Margot?

We've still got some work to do- a few things to wrap up in the side hallway, touchups on the organizer wall, and now a domino effect has taken place that means the dining room will end up getting a mini-makeover later this month (think new paint and curtains, as well as a new light).

I'm so excited to finally have a working kitchen, though- it's pretty glorious!! 

Finally! My Very Own Gallery Wall.

I spend a lot of time in my living room.  Especially this winter, with the crazy weather we've had...the couch, a quilt, and Netflix have become dear, dear friends of mine.  When I spend a lot of time in one room, my DIY wheels start turning and churning on what I can do to make it better.  Couple that with a trip to Europe and some fantastic art finds, and you're looking at a girl who wanted to create a super amazing gallery wall above her couch.

Yes siree bob, I caught the gallery wall bug.  For months, I've been typing in "gallery walls" into the Pinterest search box just to sigh and yearn over the beautiful walls pictured, hoping for one of my own.  You know what those sites don't tell you about gallery walls, though?  Unless you've got some serious DIY to do, they are E.X.P.E.N.S.I.V.E.  You really need a lot of art to occupy even a smallish wall if you want to have any type of dramatic impact.

You, dear readers, all know by this point that I'm going to create a gallery wall if I decide that I want one.  And I wanted one.  I won't make you read through my step by step process before showing you the finished product.  I'm too excited to wait.  Here it is!!!

BEFORE

AFTER!!!!!

WOW, right?  I'm so in love.  I keep standing in the doorway to the living room, just sighing with love.  If I could hug this wall, I would.  Yay!!

Ok, now for the deets.  Here's how I got this party started:

First, I gathered all of the art I was going to put on the wall.  Several pieces were ones I had just bought at a small antique book/map shop while in Amsterdam.  I had them framed, knowing they would be hung together on my living room wall.  I decided not to frame them in the same frames, as I wanted a look that said, "I've been gathered lovingly over time".  So, I chose frames and mats that complimented each other without matching each other.  

Once I got these home, I began the hunt for other pieces to include on the wall.  I pilfered a piece from the dining room, and replaced it with a new piece of art that deserved its own spot not on the gallery wall.  I also printed off a few snapshots from our travels to Napa Valley and South Korea, and chose one that complimented the rest of the art once it was all grouped together.  I had a plain wooden frame in the basement that got a quick coat of gold paint, and it was ready to go.

Painted gold with charcoal grey underneath.
Pretty much the same process that I did for my travel boxes.

At this point, I only had 6 pieces- I still needed more art.  Off to JoAnn's I went.  Not to buy ready-art, but to buy some canvasses.  All canvasses were already 50% off, and coupled with my 20% off the total coupon, AND the $20 discount I asked for because one canvas was slightly frayed on the edge- I got three deep mount canvasses for less than $20.  The 2'X3' canvas alone was $60 full price!  I don't play when it comes to craft discounts- that's serious business.

Never hurts to ask for a discount!  The most they'll do is say no!

Now, OF COURSE I already had acrylic paints at home- what DIY'er doesn't?  Using a few online pieces as inspiration, I got to work.  At this point, I am willing to straight up admit that I did not just dream up these pieces of art.  I'm creative, but sometimes starting a whole art piece from scratch is too tedious, even for me. There's sketches that have to be done, mock-ups, etc.  I just don't have time for that.  I was on a gallery wall mission. So, I used my inspiration pieces, my paints, and got to work on those canvasses.

Layers...

And layers...

And layers.  Here's where I put down the camera and really got to work.
No more pictures til the finished product.

Sorry, no step by step DIY instructions for this.  If you want some, go to a Painting with a Twist or Paint Party event. They'll let you sip wine and paint a canvas in the adult version of paint by numbers.  This isn't that:)

While my canvasses were in the process of being painted, I began to lay out my frames to see where I wanted them to be hung.  Before doing this, I measured the wall space that they would fill.  Several sites told me that nothing should be hung less than 10" from the top of the couch, so that was my starting point.

In order to keep my frames out of harm's/feets way, I used what little floor space I had in the guest room to lay out my pattern.  I used a few stand-ins for my big canvas, and began moving things around.  It probably took me two hours of moving pieces, walking away, coming back into the room with fresh eyes, moving things around again, etc, before I got everything where I thought I wanted it. 

Now, I needed a way to transfer this jigsaw puzzle of frames onto the wall.  I took a shower curtain and put it under the frames (with some cutting and taping to adjust it to the right gallery wall size).

Frames with a few stand-ins for sizing.

Next, I took a black marker, and traced the outline of each piece onto the plastic, and then hung the plastic on the wall with painters tape.

Be CAREFUL...don't get that marker on the frames!!
If you're wondering, this piece is a child's textbook map insert from Holland.
 It shows, in small picture form, the natural resources of the country:)

Using the black outlines as a guide, I was then able to make nailholes in the appropriate spots in order to hang each piece with minimal fuss.  Even with this step, I still ended up making one or two small changes once everything was up on the wall.  The plastic and outline tarp definitely made things MUCH easier, though.

Can you (barely) see those outlines?

So, here's my wall again.  Isn't it lovely??  I just can't stop staring at it.

Margot is becoming quite the little camera diva.

Sending a special shoutout to my "took five minutes to paint this" canvas of the Detroit skyline!

All of this art were less than $100 total.  The framing I didn't DIY?
Shh...we won't talk about that, alright?  My love for oddly sized pieces apparently knows no bounds.

A little lamp light romantic glow for you...I'm going to go blind from reading in this room in low light!

This is becoming a bad habit to leave you with a picture of Margot, but I'm going to do it anyway...she's my fur baby and I love her!  While she may appear to be giving you, dear readers, a disapproving look, she's actually beaming inside with pride for having had her picture taken in front of such a pretty gallery wall.  Seriously.

Yep, that's a piece of rawhide stuck on her nose.  Not classy, Margot, not classy.

Peeling Back the Layers

Sometimes when Dave travels for work, my mind starts to wander.  (Ok, it wanders when he's here, too, but at least he's in the vicinity to snap me back to reality, right?)  The other day, my mind began to wander towards the kitchen.  Specifically, the kitchen floor.

When we moved in, the kitchen floor was a glorious 1970's gold vinyl.  I lived with it for a few months, until one day, I just couldn't take it anymore.  The footprint of the kitchen floor is small (the whole room is only 8'x12'), so I ran to Lowe's to find something, anything, to cover it up.  I ended up buying the ever popular peel and stick vinyl tiles, because:

A.  They were cheap
B.  I knew that somewhere down the line we'd gut the kitchen (still waiting on that one); and
C.  They were cheap.

During a sunny summer afternoon, I stuck those tiles on, hoping to give my kitchen a bit of a lipstick facelift.  It's worked for awhile, but now the tiles are starting to slide and gap a bit in some places, and push together too tight in others, causing them to pop up a bit.

Too close.

Too far apart.

Dave tripped over one of these tiles last week, looked at me, and said, "We have to refinish these floors".  Which, in theory, is an amazing idea, but Dave doesn't really understand that there are rules and timelines and order of events for such things.  In order to refinish the floors, we have to gut the kitchen.  Why, you ask?  Simple.  I have an amazon sized stove in my tiny little kitchen.  At some point, this stove will be replaced by a normal sized range, which will also mean that the cabinets next to it will need to change in size and shape.  Changing this also means pulling out the upper cabinets in order to install a vent hood.  While we're at it, that means that additional cabinets would need to be pulled out/moved in order to put in a dishwasher.  See what I mean?

There is no reason a stove this size needs to exist.  Period.

There's a domino effect here, that once started, can't be stopped.  The whole footprint of the kitchen has to change once any of these pieces actually happen, which means the floor is a no-go until then.  This job can't be done piecemeal.

Despite this huge letdown, my brain didn't stop moving.  What exactly, I wondered, would be under those floors once we started peeling back the layers?  Would I find layer upon layer of linoleum?  Would I have the shock of my life and find untouched, beautiful virgin wood floors?  In a house built in 1949, you've got to be prepared for surprises. 

Sooo...I decided to pull the refrigerator out from the wall.  I looked at the corner and thought to myself, Hmm.  With a little elbow grease, I could definitely pry some of the flooring away from the corner there.

Oh yes.  Destruction without ANY plans for reconstruction. 

Using my brute girl-strength, I pulled off the quarter-round moulding to make access in the corner easier, and got to work. First, I pried off the corner pieces of the peel and stick vinyl.  Then, I started off by using my paint scraper tool and a hammer to gouge out a small piece of the gold flooring.

Too late to turn back now!

Innnnteresting.  Underneath the gold flooring appeared to be a layer of subfloor/luann board.  Hmm. 

Margot ran away from the noises of a hammer and chisel at this point.
She'd had enough.

I kept digging, and got down to the next layer of floor, which I'm not quite sure how to classify.  It appears to be  some type of vinyl/plastic flooring, but I don't know what to call it.  I kept digging along a 2" strip on the back wall, just to see if this flooring was one big piece, or if it appeared to be tiles.

4 layers of floor.  Ugh.  How many more are there??

Hmm.  What IS that flooring?

It looks like it's one big piece.  Anybody out there know what this stuff is called? It looks like square bits of stone floating in Jell-o.

It feels plasticky/vinyly.  Yes, I know those aren't words.
It's fine.  You know what I mean.

At this point, I decided it might be in my best interest to stop digging at my floor.  I was worried that when I pushed the refrigerator back into the space, it might start to tip backwards due to the deep hole I was creating!

So...it looks like this treasure will have to remain only partially uncovered, and the surprise will have to wait for another day. 

Unfortunately, after moving the fridge back into its space, I can't stop thinking about it.  It's almost like having a zit you've been told not to pick.  You know it's there, you keep looking at it, and you want to pop it SO BAD.  (Yuck.  What a gross analogy.  Sorry for that.)  What do you think?  Should I keep digging back there, or leave it alone for now? 

Such a dilemma.