One Room at a Time :: Kitchen

I shared with you a few weeks back some of the projects that I wanted to work on around the house. 

The problem is, there is actually about a gazillion projects that we have. Some were started on (but weren't finished). Some were "finished" but needed tweaking. And most of them weren't started at all. 

We moved into our house last year and even though we unpacked a long time ago, we are not really "settled in". Aside from the Family Room and Dining Room, our house basically looks like we just moved in. We have art still waiting to be hung and random objects in need of a home. 

{It's kinda a deep, dark secret}

I think the problem is we are trying to make all the things that worked in our last house, work in this one. 

And they don't. 

When packing up to move here, I sold or donated a lot of items that I felt like we didn't really like anymore. Great idea in theory, but now our house just looks undesigned and naked. We have been waiting to decorate our home until we can really do it the way we want, but at this rate I feel like I just cant wait.

To top it all off (womp womp), I keep rearranging things and moving things (trying to make it all work, people!) that everything is just an insane amount of unorganized. 

I originally got into interior design because I saw the power that our environments have on us. I honestly believe the state of our lives are reflected in the way we live. 

And right now I am feeling like one hot mess.  

During our trip to Wisconsin I really contemplated this whole situation. Jason and I had both agreed a few months back that we wanted to travel more; nothing big - just small weekend trips once a month. (And aside from December we've done awesome at that resolution!). As more of our "extra" money is going towards that, less is being put into this house - a space I am living in all day every day. I knew that something had to give with the house. 

I started thinking of projects I could do, one room at a time, to fix things up and organize them. 

We have boxes of random things (like frames, curtains, etc) from our last home that didn't have a spot here, but I just couldn't part with. I think with a little bit of work I can really pull this ol' space of ours together!

Here's the deal: 

I am giving myself  1-2 weeks to finish one room in our house. This is big for me since I tend to bounce from project to project. I must stick with the one room until it's finished. 

I reeeeally have to utilize things we already own. Some thrifting is fine (duh!) as well as a few small purchases. No major purchases {yet - we are in talks on buying a new television}. 

Each room has to first get a deep clean {think curtain washing, fan dusting - things I don't do ever regularly}

A main objective of mine is organize & DECLUTTER. Once upon a time we were organized. I swear it. 

I'm kinda super excited about this. It really is getting me to think outside of the box and get crafty and creative. The end result should be an organized, clean, pretty cute & pulled together home. Not our dream space, but a good foundation to live in until we can start really fixing up our house. 

So are you ready for some ugly? I mean, pictures of the first space I'm conquering : the hub of the house, the kitchen:

So, not entirely offensive, right? Just really, really boring. (the cabinets, etc will just have to wait until we buy the house)

Here are the things I plan on doing or fixing up for the space:

*Paint the tops of the flour & oatmeal jars (right now they are worn wood)- with paint we already have

*Get a stand to hold all the dish soaps

*Paint the tray I plan on bringing into the space (it's one I already own that currently needs a home)

*Paint the cart (not shown, but you can see it here)

*Add curtains using fabric I already have (I hope). 

*Pretty up the storage container 'drawers'

*Add more modern/clean elements. Sub them out with some of the more rustic ones. Maybe art?

*Add a backing inside the cabinets

*organize the drawers that hold our cooking utensils - build drawer dividers?

So yeah, I have my work cut out for the next week or two :) 

First things first, I needed a little inspiration to put this plan in action, so I bought a few new pretties to get it all started (of course - I mean some habits are hard to break!):

If you follow me on instagram, you saw me post this:

(the jar holding the dishwasher powder was originally unused in our laundry room, and the tray was a Goodwill purchase a few weeks back for a couple of dollars)

Tomorrow, I'll show you how I have conquered our drawer troubles and other cluttered areas so far with some DIY drawer organizers, but for now here is a little sneak peak of a project in progress:

I hope to post every week with a bit of an update. 

Have you ever decided to go through your house room by room? Did you stick with it? 

xo,

Rachel

House on the Left :: Pantry Overhaul

Hi!

Things have been crazy {as always} around here, and it's really had me thinking ahead to fall when the kid's go back to school. {more like dreaming and counting down....ha!}

There's a little list of things that I want to get organized and projects completed *hopefully* before life really starts to get busy with homework and soccer games.

One of the top projects is our snacking situation. I don't know about anyone else, but my kids would snack all day if I let them. It's a fairly big issue over here since portion sizes have gotten out of control and snacks have begun to eat up too much of our grocery budget. I showed a sneak peak of our new plan last week, and hopefully will get to share all the details with you next week.

Before a plan can go into action, though, organizing must be done. {and not just done, but done pretty, right??} Enter our pantry.

It's been a work in progress for a few months now, and this week I have finally gotten the bulk of it done. Wanna see??

Of course, we must start with the ugly. Keep in mind, this picture was taken soon after we moved in, so at that point, we would 'unpack' our food and just throw it on a shelf.

First things first, everything came out to leave a blank slate. So basically, for a solid 3 hours, it looked like our pantry threw up all over our kitchen:

{keeping it real! :)}

Next up, I gathered all our "organizing supplies" (misc. jars, baskets, and tubs I had gathered from the dollar store, thrift stores, and our own personal stash)

I had a plan to upcylce the pasta jars, but in the mean time, I just wrote what was inside on top of the lid.

While I was at the dollar store collecting anything I thought might be helpful in organizing this space, I stumbled upon decorative rolls of contact paper. You must know- I love me some contact paper. As a renter and lover of all things removable, I could come up with a hundred different uses for the stuff. In this case, I knew it would make the perfect (and cheap!) decorative backdrop for our pantry. In a perfect world, I would put beautiful wallpaper or paint inside, but since we still don't know if we want to buy our house, I don't want to do anything too permanent. So up it went, and in went the containers I bought.

Already looking better, right?? The thing on the door was a great find at Target and really increased our pantry space.

And this is how it has looked for the past, oh, four months :) Finally, I got my rear in gear, and fixed up some of the uglies that were in there. First up, the cheap, black, plastic tubs I picked up at the dollar store. I taped off the top and spray painted the bottom and then added some of the DIY blackboard labels I made.

This was one of those little projects that was so easy and the transformation was really just amazing.

Next up were the random glass jars I had been collecting. Paint for the tops, labels for the front, and voila!

Ready to see the results??

During the whole redo, Ollie stood ground in front of his wet food, like he was guarding it ;)

Here's a reminder of how it started off:

I am pretty excited with how it turned out!

Make sure to come back tomorrow for a tutorial on how I made the labels. It was such a quick and easy project, that I just know you will love it!

xo,

Rachel

Linking Up.......






House on the Left :: Color Dipping

Hi everyone!

We are FINALLY almost, super close, nearly D.O.N.E with our banquette area.

Phew. I mean, seriously, we have been without a dining table for two weeks.

I am putting the finishing touches on the area this weekend, but until then I wanted to show a little sneak peak that shows ones of the new trends out there {and a personal favorite of mine}, Color Dipping.

Here are some beautiful examples that certainly served as an inspiration for me:

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This one is my favorite, and I am kind of making it my mission to find this style chair to duplicate this look in an area of our living room.

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Pretty simple, but WHAT a way to bring in a pop of color!!

Here's what we were working with:

These lovely {and by lovely, I do mean ugly} chairs came courtesy of our dining table that we bought for our kitchen nook. Since they have such a traditional look, I really wanted a more modern paint job to jazz them up a bit. So, color dipping it was! To contrast with a lot of the dark we have going on in other areas of the room, I wanted the chairs a soft cream color. Since we loved the paint that we used for the table so much, we decided to use that for the accent color of the chairs (the 'dipping' part). It's not quite the splash of color as seen above, but for this space it is perfect!!

First we started with the cream, and then lots and lots of taping. Tedious  "make-sure-it's-straight" taping.

The chairs already look a ton better, right??

Then came our accent color. Of course (as you can tell in the pictures), with that came drips and plenty of things for me to later touch up :)

This was definitely an exciting time, because I could see my vision start to come to life.

Next, I finally got to take off the tape! (and touch up, of course)

..........and just in case you need to really appreciate the beauty of a before and after:

And to think, when we bought the table at Goodwill, I considered just leaving the chairs there since I was sure there was NO way those ugly things would stay in my house :)

And now, there is no way they are leaving!!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

xo,

Rachel

Banquette Dreaming

Hello all! Today was a pretty productive day for me; I finished creating the invitation for Jameson's party (we are printing these up this weekend, along with a little "project" for my boy to do) Hopefully I will have pics up next week! I also made a little headway on a "CraftLand" project we are undertaking over here. That's a fancy way of saying I own a TON of crafting/party/design/art stuff that needs a home :)

Which brings me to a little segment I haven't done in awhile:

Yesterday I promised a peek at a great find I stumbled upon. I had gone to the thrift store in search of storage solution for the new CraftLand, but came home with a little more instead. Don't you love when that happens :)

Last time I showed you a picture of a table we found here. It's currently a pretty ugly table, but I have big plans for it. 

Because of the small kitchen area we have we downsized to this smaller table, and since we did, I have been dreaming of a banquette. A beautiful, casual, comfortable  place to enjoy our anything but relaxing/calm meals.

Like these:

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Although I would LOVE a fully upholster type, it's just not realistic with our crew. So, of course, I thought about having Jason built something. Great in theory, although I don't know if it would ever pan out. Plus, we have an air vent on the floor right where it would go, so I wouldn't want to cover that up....

Que, this little gem.

You might want to squint/tilt your head, because it's a bit on the ugly side ( at least it matches the table right now. Ha!). But it's got nothing but potention written all over it.

It was sold as a coffee table. But at FIVE feet long, it's the perfect base for my soon-to-be custum banquette. By placing a deep cushion on top, it will make it the perfect height (it's a little low right now)

I adore the details of the legs and bar. A little paint and this baby is going to be amazing. Now I just need to learn how to sew cushions :)

The best part? Only $14! Um, sold.

I promise, one of these days (if it ever warms up again) I will actually show you an "after" picture.



Hope everyone is having a great day!

xo,

Rachel



Series: The House on the Left

Hello!!

I had mentioned last week that I would be introducing a new series to the blog that would chronical some of the few gazzilion projects that I do on a daily for our house. A new house = a bunch of new projects for this gal, and I just CANT WAIT to get started :)

So, I bring to you:

This weekend was a lot of fun for us (okay, well mostly me. ha!)

As well as doing our normal tour of the few thrift shops around here, the outdoor flea market opened up for the season! a. this means that summer is officially right around the corner, and b. this girl could not be any happier :)

 I LOVE flea markets. I feel like you never know what you will find and that the next treasure is right around the corner.

Total score for the weekend left us with lots to love...

...like this adorable little vintage toy bank for only $4 (!!). I must say, it was love at first sight, and was our first purchase of the day, setting the tone for the rest of our hunt. (and, to keep it real, as proof that everything we own has been drawn on, just look at our poor books!)

This little steal-of-a-deal at $3 was bought for the intent of holding some cute soda bottles and burgers at the vintage 4th of July party I want to hold this summer. For now, it looks quite lovely on our side table :)

Some things we found need a little love...

....like these instument candle stick holders. A little brasso action and I think these babies will look amazing. I found them at a thrift store up here, and had to go back a second time to go pick them up because I couldn't stop thinking about them. They are just such a fun, unique bunch of little acccessories, don't you think?? The placemats I found were only $2 for all 4, which I snatched up, even though I have no idea what to do with them. We are not placemat type of people (plus they are hand wash only--ha! I have 3 kids, so they would last a week in our house), but the design is so lovely, that I just know I will come up with something to use them for.

...And a few of the things are going to need a whole-lotta love:

I am excited to redo that ugly chair in the middle. We bought two of them, and I just know that I can make them look beautiful...I hope :)  

As well as a BUNCH of paint, I picked up some fabric to get started on some projects:

All in all, this was a  successful weekend "hunting" that left me with a lot of projects to fill up the next couple of weeks. I can't wait to show you some 'after' pictures :)

Hope your week is going great!

xo,

Rachel