Kitchen Debut

So far, our kitchen is our only completed room. We are thrilled with it. The floors are now pretty level. It now has a very open feel. It has clean cabinets with doors. And it doesn't smell like cigarettes or dachshunds (enter shout-out to Katdog here). Despite being a pretty small kitchen, it has plenty of countertop and cabinet space. It just makes you wanna cook in it. We used to say that cooking was our #1 hobby together, so the kitchen was important for us. Lately, that hobby has lost rank to tiling and painting. But, last Friday night we cooked up an amazing steak and wine feast in honor of our very first owned kitchen. And then we sat back and were proud and thankful.

Again, the first two pictures are from when the previous owners lived there. The cabinets were nasty inside, the floor was cracked, and it just felt gross.

Straight ahead is the wall we knocked down. It made the kitchen feel very small.



After knocking it down, we felt much better about our purchase. We just realized that every time we have guests over for dinner, we all end up hanging out in the kitchen or some sitting at the bar. So a small kitchen that's closed off to the den and dining area wasn't optimal for us. We really wanted to create an open atmosphere.

We completely gutted the kitchen. Pulled up the tile. Tore down the cabinets. Stripped the wall paper. Hosed it down.

The sheetrock guys built it back up into a bar.

We covered every surface about 6 times with paint then the cabinet guys came. My mom and dad designed the cabinet layout, and it is great.

Then came the undercabinet lighting and granite. Carson was a big proponent of the under-cabinet lighting because of knife safety:) When he was a Cutco salesman, he learned the importance of good lighting. In his very first demo with a customer, he sliced his finger.

The floor was tiled in this pattern to give an illusion that the kitchen is wider than it really is.

Ok... here it is. The finished product. This is the view from the "cove". The pantry door is on the left. Guest bathroom is on the right.

One Load at a Time

I've kinda always liked doing the laundry. Well, I just really like pulling the warm clothes out of the dryer. Carson actually likes to fold the clothes, so that's probably why I enjoy it. Well, now I really like it because our front-loaders are so stinking big and clean and white and entertaining. I've watched them like a T.V. many times the past few weeks, mesmorized by the show of soap and water streaming in and suds forming.

When we bought the house, the laundry room was in the master closet (see previous post) and there was an unused half bath at the end of the main hall. So, we decided to transform it.

Had to patch the toilet hole up and re-tile a little bit. Painted the walls and celings white and then bleached the tile and grout. Ain't no thang though.

Done deal...

Closets continued

These are just some more boring shots of the closet. But, here ya go...

This is the closet in the Master Bathroom. Again, these first two shots are before they moved out.

They used it as Laundry Room. We turned one of our half-baths into a Laundry room so we could make this a full closet in here.

Took out all of the shelves and primed it.


Then we closed off and sheetrocked over the water connections in the wall.


We had some floor guys come and repair the wood that had rotted from the leak in the washer.

We are big fans of The Container Store.

And here's the finished product!

Closet control

So... I'm hesitant to post pictures of everything yet, because if I took pictures now, there would be too many boxes in the way to really see anything. I will start to do that as I slowly put things away though.

In the meantime, I'll entertain you with our closets. We like them a whole lot. I think one of us brings it up atleast once a day. Kinda sad to admit that. Anyways, we went through Atlanta a few weeks ago on our way to Macon and stopped at The Container Store. They asked us a few questions and then designed them for us. Then we loaded up the car with all the poles and shelves and put that together ourselves.


O.k. Remember that these first two pictures were taken before the previous owners moved out. (Don't freak out, Parks:) This first picture shows both of the master closets.

This is the one in the bedroom...


We ripped down their yellow doors and primed everything multiple times...

The bars they had were fine, but just a little rusted. But we decided if we were redoing the other closet we should just redo this one too.

We tried everything in the world to get the top shelf out, but finally had to take a saw to it.

We patched and painted the walls again...

Then you just bolt these bars into the wall and follow the directions...

And then... voila!