hail, tornado sirens & the garden

when we arrived home from our road trip, we were greeted to a yard full of hail. it almost looked like it had snowed.

the hail was large gum ball size.  luckily, my plants weren't destroyed. my makeshift greenhouse really worked to protect them and they are helping the plants to grow!

my 1st harvest of the season!

since hail is pretty common around here, we decided to make a larger greenhouse to protect all my crops.

i'm so blessed to have a husband that helps me with all my crazy ideas!

saturday night we had more hail and the tornado sirens were going off...just a little funnel cloud in the sky!  the storm passed and no tornado touched down, but we had to hunker down in the basement for awhile.  my poor little lady was crying and worried about her chickens, but they survived the storm too!

my new kitchen

our kitchen is almost finished, just a few random things to paint.  we had such a nice weekend, that we worked outside instead of inside.  i'm very thankful we saved our pennies for this, because i love it!
 
my husband did an amazing job on all the shelves he built!  thanks to Mr. Haney and all of his great advice!

all of our paint came from Sherwim-Williams. the gray paint we use on the cabinets is called mineral deposit and the white that we used on the upper cabinets, shelves, breadboard, etc. is called alabaster. i'm in love with my smooth countertops...we went with silestone.   it's called norte blanco.  
eventually, we need a new stove, but we will have to save up for that.
A few things i learned...
kitchen redo's are a ton of work and your whole house it disrupted because of it.  let me refresh your memory...here and here.

it's not for the faint-hearted.  we spent 3 months on it and at times, i was so ready to be done, but you just have to keep going or be content with living in a disaster zone!

painting cabinets, takes so many steps...sand them, clean them, prime them, paint them, sand them again, paint them....it's really not that much fun, but i do like the end result!

sharing at...
tatertotsandjello

craftberrybush

one day

on wednesday our kitchen looked like this...lots of demo.  and one day later, it looked like this.
 
the countertops were installed.  i know it might not seem that exciting to you, but i was thrilled!
 
we also started putting up the bead board on the backs of the walls. my new sink is one of my favorite additions.   i really wanted an apron-front sink, but it was out of my price range, but i'm very happy with my big sink.  it is so deep...i feel like i could bathe the kids in it! lots more work to be done...but i'm so blessed and happy to be to done with the demo and painting the cabinets.

kitchen demo

it's been WEEKS of sanding and painting cabinet doors and drawer fronts.  i'm so glad we are finished with this part!  the process is painfully slow, but i'm very happy with the finished product.   my two guys were hanging the doors back on the cabinets.   i love watching my little guy work with his daddy!  there is something special about the father/son bond.
next up, removing the upper cabinets. these guys will find their new home in the garage.  we will be building shelves instead of having cabinets.


there's nothing better than a little demo work!   bye-bye nasty white tile...my new countertops arrive on
thursday. yippie!

working in the kitchen

here is the kitchen as it stands so far.

 the bottom cabinets have been painted gray. we still have to paint the doors and drawer fronts.

the upper cabinets were painted white, but you can see from the picture above, most of them are not painted because they are the ones that are being removed.

we picked out our stone. we went with silestone and it will be one big slab, no grout...hallelujah!

we picked out the pulls for the doors/drawers and corbels for the shelves.

and we ordered our sink.

lots of works to come, but i can't wait to see the finished product!

weekend randomness

this is what my living room and dining room looked like this weekend.

we sanded the cabinets and prepped them for painting. i really hate sanding, it's my least favorite thing to do when it comes to any home improvement project!

it made a huge mess in my house! now you know why i covered everything in sheets...to protect it from all that nasty dust!

my man and i got to go out on a date. we saw this movie...

it was amazing!  i can't stop thinking about it!  i'm a sucker for based-on-a-true-story kind of movies.
it's a tear jerker, but more important i'm in awe of God's amazing miracle in this one particular story!

i also attend the True Woman conference held at my church.  it was great and God really spoke to me about the importance of being a life-giver.

how was your weekend?

kitchen makeover

it wouldn't be january if there wasn't some type of home improvement project.  i think because it's the beginning of the year, i feel motivated to do something new.

since, we have fixed all the leaks we had, early this month and the one in november, it was time to get started on something we want to do rather, than a repair we had to do. this weekend we were testing color choices for our kitchen cabinets. i would have loved to put in new cabinets, but that is definitely not in our budget, so we will be content with painting them. alabaster is the color i picked for the upper cabinets. most of our upper cabinets are going to be torn out and we are going to replace them with shelves. alabaster will be for the remaining upper cabinets and shelves that we will be building.

the lower cabinets will be the mineral deposit (gray).

the kitchen walls will remain white, because i love white...it makes everything look crisp, clean and bright.

we are in the process of looking at different counter top choices.  i know, i don't want tile or granite...i don't like the look of either one.  who knows what we will end up with???

i'm excited to get the process started!