Kitchen, Dinning Room and Family Room Reveal

Since I have showed pretty much every other room in our house, I should probably show you the living room, dinning room and kitchen combo in our house. 

It's not an all blogged out designed area. It is a practical (with two young children) space where we live. I do love this space. This is the first house we have had with this open concept and there is no going back from this. It's so awesome being in the kitchen and knowing what is going on in the living room! 

One of the first things we did when we moved in was hire an electricial and have them put in an electrical outlet above the fireplace, behind the TV and install an HDMI cable behind the wall. It was the best money spent and it was less than $150 dollars!!!

It took us almost 3 years in our house before we finally got a proper sectional in our house!!! Before we moved in this house we always had a sofa and love seat, so my husband and I could both lay and watch TV. When we moved in here we moved those to the basement and had a small sofa in here. I think everyone in the family was very excited when we replaced it with this sectional! SO much space for everyone!

Some of my artwork on our back wall. I love my University of Wisconsin Subway art and my artwork I made using my Silhoutte Cameo sketch pens on veneer! 

Something we never have in our house, fresh flowers! Fresh flowers and kids do not mix! Enough said!

I might have an issue sewing pillows.... though I did not make all of these.....

Then I give you the kitchen! It is a good layout and worked well! I have always had on my to-do list to paint the cabinets white, but never got around to it! (And oddly, with picking out things for our new house, I found out my husband really really wanted white cabinets, he didn't care about anything except having white cabinets!!!!!)

In the dinning room, I re-stained this table. And painted the chairs. And reupholstered those chairs two times (even though they could already use a third time!!! Kids are messy,,,, my kids are messy??)

And our "mudroom," Or where all of our stuff is tossed after we enter the house through the garage. This space needs to be a million times bigger and needs a door..... oh new house???

Kitchen Junk Drawer Organization

My brownie boxes to washi tape inbox mail sorter started with my procrastinating about my wedding duties and the fact that organizing when you have more important things to do is so much fun!

I love my house and I love my kitchen. But the one problem my kitchen has is the lack of drawer storage, so that means no junk drawer! I don't have a picture, but often my counter would be over flowing with junk that had no place to go. I had a small basket on my counter full of junk and the bottom shelf of a cabinet. I did a bit of rearranging and was able to free up another shelf in my cabinet.

I found these great plastic containers from the Target dollar aisle that were black and blue. Once I spray painted them with a nice coat of chalkboard spray paint I had pretty organization.

Six of these little containers fit perfect on my shelf, but I needed to create a second shelf to hold up the top layer. Since they are not that heavy I used a piece of foam board.

I added chalk vinyl to two drawers I also found at Target for more organized storage.

I am so happy with how organized my "junk" space now is! Combine this with my DIY inbox, this upgrade only cost me $26 plus the cost of spray paint which I already had :)

Brownie Box to Washi Tape Mail Sorter

In my procrastination for my wedding duties, I decided I needed to organize my kitchen (there will be more on this later!!!) I decided I needed an inbox for bills and things that needed attention. Yes I could have gone to Target and bought one, BUT this was SUPER easy to make and really took me less than 30 minutes!

I started with 2 brownie boxes and NO plan, just a vision!

I started by cutting the top 1/3 of my box off and then cutting down the front of both sides of the box.

I then drew a diagonal line on the side of the box from the top to the bottom (see the picture on the right) to allow for the angled shape I wanted.

Fold on the line and cut off the extra little flap (Don't cut off the extra from your fold line, this is how you attach the two sides!)

Repeat this for the other side of the box.

Then, repeat the above few steps for the other box! I used the first box as a template for the second (see the image below on the left) Then to assemble, a little hot glue on the flap side, press and hold.

Glue both sides, and assemble the second box. SO easy! Then hot glue the two boxes together.

A finished, yet ugly In Box!

To decorate I used my Target Washi tape. As long as you don't look at the back.... I just applied layers of the tape until I had the design I wanted! (I changed my color from this picture to my final pictures!!) 

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out two fun shapes with Chalkboard vinyl! A couple Command Adhesive strips on the back and I have a new organized in-box!

It feels so much better to be organized!

Kitchen Bar Stools Upholstered

One of my most FABULOUS and AWESOME Craig's List finds were 4 brand new bar stools that were un-assembled for ONLY $50!! For all 4! (Seriously might be my best CL deal so far!!!) Target sells ONE similar chair for $70! And these were from a furniture store, but the original owner only wanted the table and it came as a set. So lucky me I am the owner of the 4 new chairs!

When I first bought them I knew I was going to upholster them (they came with a hard wooden seat) and originally I was going to paint them black. I decided not to paint them and am very glad I did not, I like the color as is - plus less work!

Once I had the chairs assembled, I had the very difficult choice of picking which fabric to use! I was debating between 3 fabulous patterns I got while in New York at Mood! (Seriously I want to go back to New York just to go to Mood!!! Such a fun store!!!!) I decided on the pretty grey fabric (the others will be around at some point... just need to figure out one what!!!)

I purchased 2 inch foam square cushions from Joann Fabrics. I debated on the 1 inch but thought that seemed too thin and ended up with the 2 inch. At first it looked like 2 inches was going to be too thick, but I think they turned out great.

I used one square per chair and had some help cutting them out!

Little man had to make sure they were going to be comfortable enough... it is important to test out your hard work before you put in all of the hard work!!

I traced around the seat with a sharpie and used a fabulous orange handled scissors to cut right through the 2 inch foam.

The most important step I did (I don't have a picture of) was to cut a small amount off of the top of the foam at an angle so the seat was not so square looking when covered. I was not neat about it and once the fabric was on and stapled down you could not tell that I was not neat, but it does help to make the upholstery look like it was meant to be there and not something I added on at the last minute! (You can see the curved edge in the final pictures!)

I then found my staple gun and stapled the fabric to the chair pulling the fabric tight without stretching the fabric "pattern." I also had help on this step! But this time little man thought it was fun to jump off of the chair seat.... I guess the extra foam gave him more lift...

I made sure to do my front corner the same on each chair so they would look consistent - the back on mine did not matter as much because that part was screwed into the base!

Then I screwed the seat to the base and we have fabulous new bar stools!

I love how they turned out and the fabric I decided to use! We have used these stools every day for the past 3 plus months and they still look just as good as they did when I made them.

Kitchen Chalk Board Wall

By our garage door and kitchen, we have this small wall that as soon as I saw it, I knew it would be perfect as a chalk board wall!

I used Rustoleum Tint Base Chalk Board Paint which I had the paint counter tint to Coffee.

This was my first time using the Chalk Board paint. I was a little nervous at first, but I am very happy with the final product. It actually took me more coats than I thought it would. I put a good 4 coats on to get the dark brown paint to look consistent.

I am so happy with how this wall turned out! Since this wall I have bought 5 more cans of this paint for various projects in my son's playroom!!