Island Colors

Aaron spent a good part of last night working on our island and he's doing such a great job! We aren't sure what color to make the island though. We can just paint it the same color as the cabinets or we can branch out, maybe stain it a dark stain color, or paint it a completely different color. I've been looking at pictures online to get some inspiration and I love what Thrifty Decor Chick did with her kitchen island.

The idea is the same with the beadboard and even the countertop color looks about right for what we are going for in our kitchen. The only difference it our island is more like a peninsula, situated under the kitchen window.

Aaron has also decided, and I agree, that we don't like the normal run of the mill window shutters. We are missing a couple in the front of the house and I'd just like to replace them all. Right now the one's that are on there are just black vinyl, normal looking shutters but I think I've decided that I like the Board and Batten shutters. They're wooden and I also think instead of buying them for about $40 a piece we could make all of them for almost that much. They would look similar to the one I found below, we would likely paint them a different color though, maybe some sort of slate blue since that is what Aaron is thinking for the siding.

Well I think I'm back in the swing of blog updating so I hope everyone has a wonderful Labor Day Weekend and fingers crossed Hurricane Earl doesn't ruin out plans. We're shipping up to Boston to do some exploring so I'll let you know next week if the rain and wind threw a wrench in our plans!

Autumn Aroma

I walked into the grocery store today to pick up a few things at lunch and as soon as I walked through the door the aroma of cinnamon pine cones filled the entrance way. I almost stood there for a few minutes to smell the air but didn't have time to waste so I took a huge gulp of air and savored it :) The calendar says 24 days until Fall...I say it's wrong, so it's still 90 degrees outside, September means Autumn therefore it begins in 2 days in my world.

We went a little overboard on purchases last week, it all started with a Craigslist find. A couple was selling their Crate and Barrel Havana Table and Chairs and we were in definite need of a better table for our oversized dining room. The table is beautiful and has the plank look on top.

We also saw an 'antique' hutch on craigslist but discovered after visiting the seller the hutch was intended to be a tv cabinet. I did however love her decorating style full of very bold colors and odd but strangely intriguing color combinations. So the trip wasn't a total fail b/c now I have a ton of ideas floating around my head for what to do with the walls in our house.

My birthday was this weekend, and in the words of an old friend, high five to two-five, it's time to get serious at my age (no more hand me down furniture) haha. Aaron took me to Home Goods and we picked out a few needed items as well as a rug which we found a Furniture4Less.

The colors look a lot brighter in person but I'm working with an iPhone camera. This is under the table and chairs in the dining room in the picture above. Aaron tried for the more traditional looking rug but I think I won that decision. He is working diligently on our island with the time we do have right now so he is commended for that <3

Here she is so far, we bought the beadboard to go around it as well so that is getting put on today. Once this island is finished or at least the outer shell we can get countertops!

Happy August!

So it appears I failed at being a blogger in July. I can't even say it's because I was completely swamped with home renovations (I wish that were the case) it's more of us stalling out and summer taking hold. In the beginning of July we took a little vacation down to the Outer Banks with family and friends, it was much needed beach time. However, I think that beach mentality stuck, at least on me, not so much Aaron. He accomplished more than me this month with beginning to build our kitchen island, working on both the jeeps, and beginning the physical therapy on his knee. I had a lot of attempts but not to many successes...

The track was taken off from around the dining room entryway where the "folding closet doors" use to be. They didn't really fit in between the living room and the dining room. So I sanded the doorway and put two new coats of paint on it...doesn't look the best but the sander broke on me so part of it was sanded by hand. My second attempt was removing the paint off the big outside dining room window. The window has paint peeling all over it because too many layers have been painted on it. We've tried scraping it, striping it, and using a hot air gun (which was a fail since I cracked the window). I got some of the paint off but it's just a really tough job...so now it's sitting there partially paint removed :(

Hopefully August shows more progress, even though each and every weekend this month is booked with outside the house activities. The government should be sending the credit soon so my hands in the mailbox waiting, 14 weeks and counting. They weren't kidding when they said it would take up to 16 weeks. We ended up buying all of the kitchen appliances right off the bat since the refrigerator decided to die with the move. Now we just need countertops, backsplash, and molding :) oh yeah and we still haven't finished painting the cabinets. We did however buy a spray gun for the compressor so hopefully we'll test that out and get the doors painted so we can put them back up and hide all those dishes..

So don't look too closely, but under the cabinets still needs finished, the doors are clearly missing since they still need painted and yes those are plywood counter-tops, and no backsplash. It's a functioning kitchen though so at least we can cook in there.