Spring Table!

Ahhh spring is in the air!  We have had several days of perfect weather and it has lifted everyone's spirits!  Today we are back to overcast and rainy, but we need the rain for things to grow, right?

I love setting the table in the dining room and pretending I'm having some girlfriends over for a wonderful, lazy-day brunch.  I usually get the urge a few times a year - (summer, fall, winter, spring..maybe??)  It's fun to pull out some dishes and we don't use everyday and make the table look special.  So here's my take on a spring table setting~~

These little bird salt & pepper shakers came with my hubby when I married him.. isn't that sweet?  He actually picked these up somewhere (probably a yard sale) and decided to bring them home one day - love it!

Fresh berries in little sundae cups to start.. then you'll have to imagine the rest of the food ;)  (And, can you see the very cool bronze bust right there on the buffet?  Scored that at Atlanta ReStore! I love it!)

I have so much fun setting a table - finding different pieces to go together, like the ceramic rooster and the small rooster & chicken plates.  The plates were a gift on Christmas from my bestie :)  I found Mr. Rooster at a thrift store (surprise, surprise).

I really enjoy this room, too - in case you hadn't noticed...

Here's the place setting - it's made up of stuff from all over -

The gold flatware just came back into my life after a long time away.  I'm holding onto it for my daughter.  A search of the interwebs came up with nothing similar.  Gold flatware is out there - just none with this shape/pattern
Corn husk place-mat - Wal-Mart - $3 each!
Black & white charger was also a gift from my bestie a few years back - she found them at Hobby Lobby
White dinner plate - Threshold at Target - $5
Red rooster plate - found in Blueridge, GA
Tiny bowl - Pier One has them all day long - $1.50 - I used them in my fall table setting

You know, I really should just call the friends and ACTUALLY have them over, right?  I mean, the table is set.. all I really to do is make a yummy breakfast casserole to go with the fresh fruit, make mimosas, and we are set! 

Hope your first weekend of spring is a good one!  I'll be back soon with more updates on the kitchen renovation :)

Love,

Linking up with My Passion For Decor

 
Sharing and linking up to That DIY Showoff Party!

Kitchen Renovation: Part Two

Hello friends!  I'm back with an update on the kitchen.  You can read Part One here. We accomplished a lot of work last weekend - well, Hubby did the lion's share believe me!  But I helped when and where I could - I did all the cleaning out of cabinets and organizing stuff, and trust me, that's a lot of work in its self!

Okay enough bragging on my work skills, let's get right to it - You remember how the kitchen looked before we started with the big changes...

On Saturday we put in a good 3 hours of work and tore out the oven/microwave unit, the cook top, and all the cabinets surrounding those appliances.

He took good care of cabinet that held the gas cook top - we're going to reuse it later...before he could remove it he had to cut away the counter top that held the cook top.. messy, messy!

With all of the cabinets emptied, the entire kitchen was a mess!

At the end of the day this is what we had.  The pipe sticking up out of the floor is the gas line. 

Kitchen Renovation: Part One

As I titled this post I quickly thought to myself.. gosh, I hope I'm not on here in a year typing "Kitchen Renovation: Part 20"  haha!  The way we do things around here though, I wouldn't be surprised.

If you follow me on Instagram then you may have seen the pictures I posted two weekends ago with the beginning of our kitchen renovation.

We decided to just start.  We didn't even have a new stove yet (which is where we knew we wanted to start), but I knew I wanted that piece of wood above the sink to be gone.  We removed all the stuff from over the cabinets.  I guess a few years ago that was a good look for us, but not anymore.  We want to clean it up and simplify things, so down they came.

Here are a few before pics to show you what we started with.

Hubby removed the crown mould (which we will reuse later) and then he removed that apron piece over the sink.  Behind the apron was a florescent light fixture which had to come down too.  A few years ago he installed rope lights up top and some under-cabinet lights below and connected them all to the same switch.  We wanted to remove the rope lights so he had to re-wire the under cabinet lights and re-route the wires behind the now-visible drywall above the window.  So, we have some patchy spots that need paint.. but when you're doing a long-term renovation, you have to live with imperfections - and I'm so okay with that.

I really wanted to hang my little chandelier that I had in my house in Lilburn - it had been in a box for 5 years!  So he wired and cut a hole for the light to hang from the ceiling - we may have to lower it..  we're just not sure we like it up that high.. thoughts?  I know, it's very hard to see in the pic below, but there's another picture further in this post...

The next weekend we went to just "look" at stoves.  We really just wanted to get an idea of what was out there.  The first place we went was the Sears Outlet, or what folks around here call it - the "scratch and dent" store.  At first we didn't see anything close to what we wanted - a 36" stainless gas & electric.  But when we told one of the very helpful sales associates what we were looking for she walked us right to it.

Stair Makeover

Hello!  How is everyone!  I have been MIA since last October – but I’m back and I’m going to tell you about one of the projects we started at 818 about a year and a half ago~~

Stairs.  Stairs are pretty essential to a two-story home.  And they can either look drab, or they can look stunning.  Ours were pretty drab.  As you can see in the first picture, they were covered with carpeting from the wall over to almost the end of the tread. (And yes, that is my husband on the crazy ladder - men!) The part that wasn’t carpeted was stained oak.  The carpeting was pretty grimy after so many years of kids/adults/dogs going up and down, and the rails were stained oak. (The only “before” pictures I had were from when hubby was painting the foyer!)

 

So one summer day Hubby and I were up at the neighborhood pool relaxing in the sun, talking about the different projects were wanted to do in our house – which by the way, are MANY – anyway, so he says, “when we get home I’m just going to pull that carpeting off the stairs.” It was kind of out of the blue, but hey, I went with it!  It is nasty work and he did it all - he's pretty much the best :)  (see below - still in swimsuit haha!)

And that’s what he did!  He pulled all the nasty carpet and padding up, and removed all the carpet tack strips.  We had no idea if the entire stair tread was oak or not, but we were hoping it was!  Much to our disappointment the majority of the tread was pine with oak woven into the end that was showing.  We knew that we didn’t want to replace them, so it was decided that we would paint them.  Paint them black!  And the posts and handrail, too – I was so excited!

He caulked and primed them – and there they sat.  For well over a year.  This is real-life folks!  Sometimes we just run out of time, or other things take precedence, but we learn to live with the imperfections and just appreciate the fact that we have stairs to someday paint.