Changes on Woodberry...Gussied Up Kitchen

Well...the past week flew...we got more accomplished than I thought we ever could, and my Iowa Man worked like a Devil Dawg in overdrive...wow...I love him.
Three notebook pages of To-Do's....crossed out over and over and over...We worked hard...

Just for a summary in a nutshell:

As it turned out, and QUITE THE BUMMER AND LET DOWN for me...we ended up NOT meeting with the first two realtors we had scheduled...



Found out within 45 minutes of the first appt. that they were under Relocation Company guidelines to come in and take their photographs of the whole house inside and out, and exterior buildings, and fill out paperwork and express mail it to the Company in Iowa. THEN the realtors would come back at a later date with the returned package from Relocation people... and sit down and do an evaluation with us!! SHRIEK! we were cleaned and ready for an assessment, BUT NO WAY ready for pics. We were totally blind-sided...

We thought we were just touring and sitting down to get the value of our house and get an idea of what we would be asking....to help us better know what to look for in IOWA!
Plus we have not even "chosen" which realtor we want to serve us in selling this home.
NO GO!! So there is our first experience in working with Relocation circumstances! ppphhhtttt...

That's about all I have to say after confronting a major disappointment last week...BUT, I do KNOW THIS: that all things happen for a reason, and I do KNOW that God works all things for GOOD!!! even when you can't see the good...it's coming...just hang on, as my hubby keeps sayin'...and I keep saying to myself... "hold what ya got, girl"

The words to the Kansas song HOLD ON keep ringing and ringing in my head...anybody else know it?

Hold on, Baby Hold on
'Cause it's closer than you think
And you're standing on the brink
Hold on, Baby Hold on
'Cause there's something on the way
Your tomorrow's not the same as today...



GOD IS ALWAYS WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES.. I'll go marinate in that for a while this week.

I am doing another record in my Ejournal on line..about my kitchen...I mentioned some changes in an earlier post, and this post today is for my personal photo memory file to look back on.

In trying to update and "pretty-up" a room with as LITTLE MONEY AS POSSIBLE because of wallet resources, and because you are MOVING AWAY!....one must weigh and decide what is good enough, and then go for it...and so we tried...



Kitchen walls painted a fresh yellow,(now THAT photo is as close as you can get to the TRUE shade of yellow) ~ below chair-rail, "beadboard look" wallpaper to tie in the rest of the kitchen to the real beadboard put in behind the countertops.


detail look - less expensive and I knew I could do the wallpaper myself. Kurt or my dad would have had to do the cutting and securing of the "wood" beadboard...(this was the best choice for "resale".)


Put these metal scrolly pieces on the faux drawer fronts under the sink. look much prettier than the handles that were there. Only $2.50 at Hobby Lobby. (painted white)


Showing this pic again to record that this solid cast iron sink (SOOO heavy) white all the way through, was a find on Craig's List well over a year ago. Kurt drove out on a Sunday afternoon and bought it from a guy redoing a kitchen....for $20.00!! yep...a fantastic deal...as the sink looked like NEW! The Crazy faucet purchased from Lowe's cost 4 times as much as the sink!!! **that one hurt!


This is the other pair of cabinet doors I had my dad cut out and attach chicken wire to,
sprayed it white and hung two black and white tea towels I found (ties in the black furniture of the breakfast nook with the white kitchen.) The architectural piece over them I moved into the kitchen because it co-ordinated with the little scrolly drawer-fronts....and it added a little attention-getter or eye candy up there on the plain wood.


Including a repeat of the other chicken wire cabinet door changeover (in the out of reach cabinet doors) over the refrigerator. purely decorative and a light source now...


This is the set of doors I got my dad to cut out the center wood panels and install glass into for an updated look.


Another shot of the kitchen sink area to show the one larger glass door my Dad did for me years and years ago. I thought some more glass on the other wall would be good. And also will mention that before,....the wallspace between the countertops and under the cabinets (the backsplash areas) was yellow and also around the entire window space. But after installing the white beadboard, and having the all white cabinets, the yellow around the window up to the ceiling did NOT look right, so I opted to paint that whole drywalled area white, for consistency, and it looks SOOO much better to the eye...Everybody gave it two thumbs up.


Here is a long shot of some of the beadboard my dad installed. This was all done with maybe a little over half of ONE sheet of beadboard from Home Depot.


This is just a "little touch" that I found at a Goodwill in this whole kitchen process. It was a 5x7 mini-poster laying on the shelf beside two pieces of glass, all messed up. I put it all back together and got it for a dollar. It looks like it is just floating right there on the beadboard and adds just the pop of color to that corner. I love this print and it adds a little touch of Country French to the Cottage feel!


Purely cosmetic - changed out what was hanging here for another touch of black tying in the Breakfast nook again...one of my Tole Trays.


New(er) oven than the old dilapidated one I had (one burner didn't even work). Now THIS item needed to be replaced, but could have been a budget buster...I could have paid 4 to 500 dollars for a lower-end-of-the-line brand new oven (or NOT!) or look and look and look and search for a nice used one being sold...ended up Kam and I found this one at the appliance Habitat for Humanity store a little further out in Charlotte...It only needed to be scrubbed and polished. It works great and looks SO much better and has a drawer under it (my old one didn't) and it is a matching brand to the microwave over it. Looks like a set. And yes...I will tell you...it took $130.00 out of our budget. RAH!!! It helps a lot and is shiny and new looking...even the inside that I scoured!!!



New linoleum flooring. (If I had been doing this for me, I would have wanted grey slate larger tile. but NOT!!! ) KEEP THINKING RESALE Julie...NOT STAYING!!! The vinyl flooring was so much cheaper, and my dad and Kurt put it down in one afternoon and it saved SO much time. The touches of a yellow veining in it go with the walls too.


another purely cosmetic minor touch...Took the fan blades off and gave a fresh coat of glossy white, and then exchanged these cottage white cut globes for the old ribbed glass ones that used to be here. SO much prettier and such a small detail. And these globes run around 10-12 dollars a PIECE at Lowes...even the plain glass ones start at 5.99 each.
Found these and two more sets for other fans at the smaller Habitat Restore for $1.00 a piece...RAH!


I had keys hanging on holders on THREE different walls in my kitchen. With 6 people there were LOTS of keys for different things..While I was in TJ MAXX at one point this past Spring looking for a different TP holder for the boys bath...( yes! I was in a RETAIL store...wow) I went to the Clearance aisle before I left, and saw this board marked down so low, I literally grabbed it off the shelf. It was one of those things that you see and you know exactly what you are going to do with it and exactly where you are going to put it....right off the bat. And so here it hangs on the Kitchen/Den door with most of the keys on it. (A place for everything and everything in its place...yes my kids get tired of hearing that...)Less things hanging on the walls now.


For the record, (this particular memory post) a shot of the breakfast nook currently in black.


one change. when moving everything back into the kitchen, and at the same time trying to clean OUT my walk-in, I got inspired to try the RED mirror on the top of the Baker's Rack. (thought it would reflect light and make it a little brighter at night. ) It DID fit. I had originally gotten this at a GW about 2 years ago thinking I would put it out on the deck area under the overhang...but never had gotten around to it with LIFE happening.. turns out it was meant for here... :-)


Last photo entry is pure whimsy. Love this little vintage print. It is either painted or canvassed on a board...not sure how to describe it...


detailed look. I LOVE the art of the past. It is so adorable, and I love animal prints.

so for this ejournal post...closing out.
The Kitchen in my Cottage on Woodberry. May the next family love her and enjoy feathering her and filling her with love and strength and memories as much as we have....

Once again...we have, (I think) proven, that the power of CAN-DO attitude, and pure sweat equity, and shopping with extremely TIGHT hands on your wallet...watching and waiting for THAT SPECIAL DEAL...the Smith gang has done a pretty darn good job on making the kitchen look BETTER!. And of course my DAD is included big-time in that re-do!

Of course ALWAYS talking to God, and asking him to bless our efforts and our desires to do the very best we can...and to provide... God is good...all the time...God IS good....

Any visitor stopping by - You have a WONDERFUL DAY!!! I am TOTALLY vegging out...taking that Margin I read about in a fellow blogger's (Lisa) post today...Think DE-stress.....

I have a gal coming over at 5 today to look at and maybe purchase an ottoman I am selling on Craig's List...Better Scoot..

Many hugs handed out to Blog sisters...and I say today....



And to the Iowa Man....


And to the Marine...
Quit SCARING me about coming upon small alligators while you are out Kayaking!! shriek!

HAVE A GOOD ONE!!!