Kitchen makeover revealed

The girls had a vision for our kitchen that would make it brighter and more cheerful than before, and spent quite a few hours stripping, preparing, and painting to change the wall and cabinet colors.  The finished product is amazingly brighter and it's hard not to smile when you enter the room.

New wall color, cabinets painted white instead of stained natural, new stools, new bunting over the window, window frames painted white instead of stained natural, new drawer pulls, and new trim and sill on window.  Otherwise, most everything else was here before.

Karen thought red accents would look good.  We all agreed.  We've got lots of other ideas for red accents, but we're trying to restrain ourselves.  Yes, the coffee maker is new too.

The pantry near the fridge was existing, but it got a coat of paint like all the other cabinets, and crown molding (re)applied.  New baseboard to match the window trim.

This little shelf has held aprons for a few years now, but Lily thought it would look better if it matched the wall color.  I think she's right.

Just the kind of items Karen was looking for at antique stores.

The stools are slightly taller than our old ones, more firm in the cushion, and look a lot more stylish!

We couldn't help but notice bunting in just about every English town we visited last year, and we thought it added a spirit of festivity wherever it was found.  Now we can find festivity in our kitchen!

Granted, the appliances are modern, as is the counter top, and the cabinet style, but the overall look is supposed to remind you of a 1950's kitchen.  You know, in our 1950's house.  The same house that we are trying to make look less like a 1950's house in some respects.  Sound confusing?  Don't try to figure it out.  After all, we never claimed to be consistent.

Special thanks to Kathryn for taking all the Pinterest-worthy photos of our new kitchen!

Corn in the backyard 2013, weeks 10, 11, 12, 13, & 14

Since I've got five weeks worth of photos to share, I thought sharing the same views together would help us get a better sense of the progress from week to week.

July 28

August 4

August 11

August 18

August 25

July 28

August 4

August 11

August 18

August 25

Although some stalk drying is starting to be noticeable, it has been much slower than I expected, especially since our rainfall has been minimal this summer.  The ears have filled out nicely in the last week, and will probably continue to add mass before the drying process begins.  Thankfully, the temperatures have not been as hot this summer as last summer, so the effects of the drought are not as severe as last year. We'll continue to pray for a good harvest for Farmer Wagenbach and all our other farmer neighbors.

A new look for the kitchen...

After our success in the hall, the girls tackled the kitchen. The project is not complete yet, so we can't give you the grand tour, but here's a teaser.

Corn in the backyard 2013, weeks 8 & 9

July 14

This was the first glimpse I had of the tassels this year, and I had to uncurl the leaves a bit to see this much. After a couple days, the tassels were out on almost all the plants.  Height = 92 inches.

July 21

Lots of changes in just a week! The tassels popped out, and less than a week later the ears are growing by leaps and bounds. We haven't had significant rain in almost two weeks, but the corn doesn't appear to be suffering yet. Height = 102 inches. Changes in the ear and stalk should come pretty quickly now!

Hall cabinet project

When we bought our house back in 2007, we weren't enamored with the 1950's style and we felt that several of the features were undesirably "dated." We liked the location, however, and felt that the move was positive overall. One feature that was handy, but dated, was the hall cabinet. A collection of shelves, drawers, and hanging space, it provided wonderful storage, but screamed "1950's!" Since we've been pushing the style of the house in a more craftsman/prairie direction, we thought it was time the hall cabinet participated in the transformation.

We're not very good about taking "before" photos of our projects, so here's a shot of the cabinet after the doors, drawers, and hardware were removed.

I found this shot in our archives that gives you a better idea of what the cabinet and hardware looked like. The fact that the handles are all identical and all horizontal was a neat touch, and even though the wood grain was very pretty, it was time to move on. Given that we've been converting all the trim in the house and painting it white, it was obvious we would paint this cabinet, but that didn't seem to be enough.

New hardware was necessary to match the brushed nickel we've used in other rooms, which unfortunately meant new mounting holes for most of the hardware. Here's a closer shot of some of the drawers while we were in the process of filling the drawer pull holes.

The rounded edges on the doors and drawers didn't fit the craftsman/prairie look, so we decided to add some accents to the edges of most of the components. Pine lattice 1/4" thick by 1-3/4" wide seemed to be proportioned appropriately, so that was applied to most of the faces while wood putty filled the gaps between the lattice and the drawer fronts.

Several coats of paint later, this is the finished product. Like any project, there were a few changes made midstream, and a few errors corrected, but in the end we like the change.  The style is closer to other elements in the house and this project served as a nice warm-up for another, bigger project...