Somewhere Along The Way

Getting back to basics! Yes, scrapbooking

(Mrs. Heather, working on her projects in our basement!)

I had an epiphany at the Snowflake crop in Sturbridge last month.  Why am I not utilizing the space in the basement to have the girls over for scrap-booking?  Lots of room, well lit.  I decided at Sturbridge to put a day on the calendar.  So yesterday Heather and Ashley came over with their gear and we got to work.  Unfortunately Sara had a tummy bug and couldn't make it.  ( I swear the world is sometimes conspiring against us, every time we make a date something always comes up).

So we had lots of snacks, and called out for pizza, and did what we love to do.  Play with our paper, our photos and talk.  I worked from 3:30pm to 10 pm and worked on summer 2009 photos from Montauk.  Ashley worked on her engagement party photos and Heather, the crafty powerhouse that she is, was working on presents for friends.

Also, got two great packages this weekend! One was a blog to print book.  This blog printed.  (Sadly I can't believe I have almost two years missing, but this book is 400 pages!) I have 400 pages of our life in photos and memories printed in a hardcover book.  It's wonderful.  So many things recorded that I have forgotten all about.

Second package was a set of beautiful vintage scrap-booking papers for my next project our vacation album.  The papers are from Graphic 45. Gorgeous.

In other weekend news, I returned to boot-camp yesterday morning with my fabulous trainer Cheryl and her great gang of followers.  The weather turned out really nice.  I'm still being cautious with my foot.  (still healing from a terrible bout of plantar fasciitis). 

Everyone in this house is coughing or blowing their nose and we're supposed to head to my parents this afternoon for my father's birthday.  We'll see how it goes.

It's been a year. Really?

Well I guess I abandoned the blog in November 2009.  I know why.  I started focusing more on my photography, website and business and something had to give.  So it's time to start writing again. Feature more photography.  Capture memories and recall the little things.

Thought I would start with our kitchen makeover photos.  Our poor kitchen.  We never really disliked the room.  It had a few things going for it.  Good working space I suppose.  It was bigger than the kitchen in our old house.  Plenty of storage, and oh, junk drawers.

We started the research process back in September/October 2010, and started the demo in early December:

 

(aaaah that wavey overhang...uuugh)

 
(the tall cupboard/pantry to the left was nice, lots of room, but falling apart)

 
(mmmm, the tile floor.  Again, it wasn't totally dreadful but the original builders of the home had never put the sub-floor in correctly so there were quite a few broken tiles.)

We orginally thought we'd keep the floor, but then it doesn't make sense to put in a ton of new cabinetry and granite on an old floor.  So we decided to replace the floor too.

Poor Tyler he was so confused.  "What happened to our kitchen Momma?"  Well Tyler this is our new kitchen, the dining room.  eeeeeek! 

 

For seven weeks we lived out of the dining room and washing dishes in the bathroom.  Living off of paper plates, frozen food and takeout.  Boy did we need a vacation!

Luckily we found an amazing contractor from Waterford.  Always arrived in the morning on time, always answered his phone, and worked pretty darn fast.  We decided on a hardwood floor.  Demo of tile took two days, install of new floor took two days.  Cabinet install was about five days.  Granite leadtime was about two weeks.

We decided that since the kitchen was so dark, and didn't get much light that we would go for cream color cabinetry.  Inspired by these two books:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and several UK issues of House Beautiful we decided we wanted to keep the whole scheme in light creamy colors.  We wanted to mix a little modern with a little bit of an antique look.  Still wanted great functionality and robustness.

The result:

 
Since our first visit with our contractor we knew we wanted the corner tower cupboard.  It's super deep, and we love the way the two steps of crown moulding draw your eye upward.

 
Some might find an all vanilla kitchen boring, but for us it's refreshing, easy on the eyes and simple.  The cocoa creamy granite complements the new mocha hardwood floor.

 
Chose an extra large stainless steel farmers sink.  So happy we did.  We used to have a double sink and I never really used one side.  It was small and sort of useless.  I love that we can now put cookie sheets, deep pasta pans and all the evening dishes in the sink ! 

 

 
Opted for a side mount swan neck faucet with pull down nozzle! Works great.  One handle for water temperature.  Opted out of having soap dispenser installed into granite. That would be more little places to clean.  The beautiful little boxwood topiaries are from Restoration Hardware.  I could just go and live in the RH showroom at Providence Place Mall.  Gorgeous!

Hello sexy french door fridge!  Goodbye ugly useless side by side fridge.  No more unboxing all of the frozen groceries to fit in the freezer.  No reorganizing the entire fridge after every grocery shopping!  It all fits!  It's wonderful, well lit,  and has a great water filter that only needs to be changed once a year. 

 

 

New food pantry, new desk !  Now the goal is to keep everything organized and clutter free!

 
These little scallop shell door knobs might just be my favorite thing in the whole kitchen. They really tell the story.  We love the sea and everything ocean themed. Incorporating these into the design was the icing on the cake.  The antique bronze look goes great with the cupboard glaze.

After searching high and low I found the knobs at Lowes, and so inexpensive too.  Funny how it's the details at the end of a big project that bring the biggest smile to our faces.  Bill loves them too!

 
Breakfast bar for the kiddos.  Julian and Tyler are having a ball enjoying breakfast here every morning and I like reading the newspaper and having a mid-day coffee on the countertop. 

 
 
Retired the old oblong kitchen table for a round one! I've been wanting a round kitchen table forever.  Again, I found this one online.  Tabletop matches the floors and can be expanded.  The base and chairs match the color of the cabinetry.  In the corner near the clock, a beautiful dog themed watercolor that Katherine and Jim gave us for Christmas.  They found the artist in Key West.

 

    Details.

Candle hurricanes, my moo cow creamers, M for Mileski and new soap holder.  Treated us to Restoratation Hardware dishsoap and handcream.  The fragrance is called "Shore" and it smells delightful ! 

So there you have it.  A new year.  A new blog post.  A new kitchen!

Stay tuned for BVI vacation photos!

Home Project

Not sure why but I've decided that I'm taking control of the jungle that is my backyard.  How exciting I thought it would be to own a home that was previously owned by a master gardener, knowing nothing about gardening.  Nothing, nada, seriously.  The most I ever did before moving here was mowing the lawn.  ( i do love love love mowing the lawn ).  Anyhow I've been deep into our "jungle" for over a week.  Weeding, cutting, pruning, raking and dragging huge tarps of debris and leaves to the woods.  Now we've gone and ordered six yards of mulch because we think the yard could look amazing.  Well, we still have a long way to go.  I mulched about 80 sq. feet today which does not sound like a lot but I filled the wheelbarrow at least 5 times.  I think we may have bitten off more than we can chew here.  I don't know...looks like the entire holiday weekend is going to be spent outside.  Not a bad thing.  I sort of like the manual labor, and I enjoy the fact that it's something I can be proud of.  Now if I could impress my English friends then that would be a feat.  Fiona kindly gave me several revered English gardening books.  My nightly reading has been the Royal Horticultural Society's manual on Pruning and Training.  It's amazing.  I do love pruning, it's liberating!

Our boys are alright this week.  Julian's doing well on his three medications.  (break our hearts).  He's got just a little cough this week and while he's in bed. I'm keeping the monitor volume on high just to make sure he's comfortable and not struggling to breath.  My husband is so sad about the medications.  I am confident that Julian may be able to outgrow this asthma.  Asthma is a funny thing, knowing all about it myself.  It's hard to tell a four yr old to calm down in the middle of an attack.  Asthma is sort of like treading water.  You just can't panic, it just makes it worse.

On a completely separate subject I've been completely into the Discovery channel's Deadliest Catch and Man vs. Wild.  I've been watching both of these shows since the beginning.  I feel attached now to Bear and to the captains of the crab boats!  Bear is eating more disgusting things this season than ever...more bugs, worms, snakes, lizards...and those crab captains...How do they navigate 20 ft seas for 22 hours straight?  Insanity.

House finished it's season with an amazing two hour episode.  Hugh Laurie is just a fantastic actor. 

Time to delve into the next chapter of pruning and training: Established Hedges and Conifers!

 

10 Reasons Why I Love My Sister a Mini Album

A mini-album for Katherine.