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???

Stained Wall Art

I have had an almost empty frame in my dining room since we moved in. I have changed it out for Holidays... and all summer it held artwork I made for my son's 2nd birthday (in April) that was all about cars!!! And its been on my to-so list to make something more permanent for the space!

AND I wanted something different!

I had some left over wood veneer from another project and thought this would be the perfect place to start! I stained the veneer the same color as my dinning room table (since it was going to be in the same room....)

Once my stained dried, I cut out a design with my Silhouette Cameo.

I was a little nervous with painting over the stain, because if there was bleeding I would not really be able to fix it.... BUT it turned out perfect!! I did use a wet paper towel to clear a little smudge

I am really happy with how it turned out!!! (And I can cross another item off my to-do list!!!! YEAH!!!)

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.

Table Refinishing Project

We inherited a solid oak table from my husband's grandma which I love! But it showed some wear and the color was not exactly my first pick of color, so I refinished my first ever piece of furniture!

This is the table before, shown in our old house!

A close up of one of the table leafs.
I was nervous about refinishing this table since it has family history, and I have never refinished furniture before. I knew I wanted to stain it a darker color, so I started sanding...

And sanding and sanding and sanding! I did not realize how long this would take me! But it took a lot longer than I thought it would take! I found having a beer while sanding helped make the sanding easier to deal with! I drank a lot of beer while refinishing this table (and beer is not my first choice of drink!)

An original compared to a sanded leaf.



Once I was finished sanding, I was WAY too excited that I was done, that I did not get a completed picture of the sanded table! I was so excited to be onto the next step of cleaning up, wiping the table down, and picking out my stain color.

Picking out the stain color was A LOT harder than I thought it would be! I thought I would just run to Home Depot and pick out a color and be on to staining the table. Well I was wrong, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with the stain.

I ended up getting two Minwax stain colors: Ebony and Jacobean.


I did some experimenting with color on the bottom of one of the 3 leafs until I found the shade I wanted. I figured I had 3 leafs and if I ruined one I would be fine with the other two.

I ended up using 2 cans of jacobean to 1 can of ebony Minwax stain. I combined them into a plastic container and later transferred the mixed stain into an empty paint tin.

I wiped the mixed stain on with old t-shirts, and wiped of any excess.

To get the color I wanted I put on 3 coats of stain, which I experimented with in my sample.


I then gave the table 3 coats of spray polyurethane. I was not happy with how that covered, so I also gave it an additional coat of brush on polyurethane.

I am so happy to be done with my table!!! HOWEVER, the chairs that originally matched the table and as seen in my first picture, are way too detailed for me to sand down and re-stain. I do not have enough patience's for re-doing those chairs! So that lead to the next problem.... what to do about chairs.

So after lots of searching on Craigslist, I was able to find 4 chairs that will work with my new table. The finished table and my new chairs I will post as soon as I finally finish 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!!

Dining room chairs

These are the very pretty new chairs I am in the process of re-doing for our dining room chairs. I liked their shape and their smaller size, but they are taking a lot longer than I thought to re-finish! I just love the fabric seats!


My goal for the weekend is to finish these chairs!! We will see if I can met this goal!