Loving It!!!!

Today I am blogging about my kitchen. I was gonna wait until it was all done before I did but I'm so excited about it that I just couldn't help myself. I'm kind of a nerd like that.

For 3 years, I have been on James' case about doing some updates to our house. I don't love my house, it's a nice house and it has defiantly grown on me but it looks like 1993 powder blue puked all over it and by all over I mean, ALL OVER. The carpet, the countertops, the backsplash, the linoleum, not only in the kitchen but also in the bathrooms and laundry room to match. I've had plans for almost 3 years of what I wanted to do. It was nothing major, just some upgrades but it never got done. At the time to, we weren't sure if we were staying here that long, with James' job, so I put it to the back of my mind until we knew what was going on. Well now that James got the new job and I know I am stuck here for a while, I was ready to move in full force. James?? Not so much. So one night I said to him "tomorrow I'm taking down the dropped ceiling in the kitchen." He didn't say much. Mostly "ok" with the tone of "I'll believe it when I see it". So my good friend Mishel came over and we went to it. It was fun.

Here are the before and after of the ceiling. I forgot to take a before pic of the whole kitchen which annoys me but there's nothing I can do about it now.

Well, opening up that ceiling opened a small can of worms. You see the wood above the cupboards in the picture just above?? Turns out, thats not the wall like I thought. It's just pieces of wood they nailed to the wall so they didn't have to put the dropped ceiling all the way over the cupboards. The bonus part is that the ceiling was finished under them so that wouldn't have to be fixed. Once we realized this, Mishel and I looked at each other and after a little hesitation (on my part) and a lot of convincing on hers, we got the hammer and crow bar, and took them down as well. Hence, the next picture. James came home half way through our ripping down of the wood. He look less then impressed, a little shocked and dumbfounded that his 6 month pregnant wife was up on the cupboards with a crowbar and hammer pulling nailed wood out of the wall. Oh well, he got over it and likes it now. Doesn't it look so much better and open??

Then after that, I wanted to take down the floating cupboards. If you scroll up to the picture above the above picture you can see which ones I am talking about. They are the ones you are looking right at, with the corner cupboard and "L" shape on the left of the sink. I've always wanted to take those down. Open up the kitchen to the rest of the house and there were so many cupboards that getting rid of 3 wouldn't hurt anything. So after some investigation, it was a lot easier than expected and down they came! This is where I just get all giggly inside. I know, I'm a dork. But I just love it so much and it's not even done yet. We had a friend come over and help James take them down and this is them mudding up holes on the wall after all is done.

Then I cleaned it all up and made it look pretty. I was so excited I wanted to make it look like it was done and pretend it was, when it wasn't. It's the inner dork. So here are my after pictures.

Doesn't it look AWESOME??!!!!!!?????

I can't wait for it to be done. The fluorescent lights are going and we are putting in 2 ceiling fans and above the table will be a new light. New hardware is going on the cabinets and then I am painting ( I want green but we will see), new countertop and new laminate floors a long with the little touchups. I am always itching to work on it but I have to buy stuff and the good stuff for a lesser price is all in Lethbridge so I have to make it worth my while. But I'm going Thursday and Home Depot, here I come. So excited. There will defiantly be more pictures when it is done and I've already got plans for my bedroom. New bedding has already been purchased. But that will wait until the kitchen is done and the new carpet is in. I've totally caught the reno bug! It is a dangerous thing!