Kitchen Updates!

Well I am WAAAY behind on posts, specifically house remodeling projects. It’s been a crazy fall and winter season. Lots of traveling and working! So whenever I haven’t been doing either of those things I’ve been doing stuff around the house aaaannnd let’s be honest watching Netflix. It’s cold! But I’ve been doing mostly the other three things. So now that a new year has started it’s time to catch up on the blog. If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you’ve been keeping updated but I still have lots of blogs-ta-write. So here we go!

As a reminder: This is what the kitchen looked like before I bought the house. Pretty much unchanged in 50 years. It was in serious need of some cleaning and cheering up. Since it was the most in need of help it’s the last room I worked on.

    

    

The first thing I did when I started working on the kitchen was I took off the old drawer pulls which were pretty rusty (I had to saw off at least one) and painted the bottom cabinets Benjamin Moore White Dove. I then replaced the knobs with really cute new contemporary pulls.

Probably 3 months passed before I did anything else which was having a friend help me take down the upper cabinets. I patched the holes and primed over the yucky walls. I’m planning to put up open shelves.

   

It already looks so much brighter and bigger with the cabinets down!

I bought this cute skinny blue shelf at a store that was going out of business. I’m planning to put it in the kitchen in the small hallway to use for pantry items.

I decided to paint the ceiling Benjamin Moore Cat’s Meow pink!

Annnnd I finally got the beadboard paper put up! It’s so cute! I painted the walls Benjamin Moore White Dove, the same color as the trim and cabinets. In a few months I’ll have the shelving up. I can’t wait!

 

Say goodbye to the old stove! I finally got a stove right before Thanksgiving!

    

    

    

Officially used my oven for the first time to make brownies for Crème de menthe brownies. Yummo!

It is so hard to believe this is the same room and how much was done in a few months. I can’t wait to see how it looks in a few more months as things progressively get completed. Stay tuned!

Have a bright day!

Chelsea

Holiday Happenings~holiday decorating, gifting, baking, & crafting galore.

Hello Hello,
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is enjoying getting into the holiday spirit. I’ve been so busy working around the house and organizing things I haven’t had time to post anything in a few weeks. Maybe it’s because last year I was working so much that I’m really trying to be festive this year. Last year I worked everyday except Christmas day and didn’t even put up a tree. This year I bought my first live tree just for me. My to-do list isn’t seeming to get any shorter but I’ve gotten so much other stuff done, it’s been a busy holiday season already. What about ya’ll? Have you gotten your decorations up? Shopping done? Wrapping completed? I love getting things checked off my list and my gift closet cleaned out! 

 

Holiday baking has commenced! I made some yummy apple pie and got cracking on my holiday cookie baking. I love cookie cutters:)

 

 

 

 

Some of my annual pepparkakor cookies. I’ve decided to indulge my Swedish side and make Swedish gingerbread every Christmas from now on. So yummy and such great presents!

 

 

Ready to decorate the bird tree with these vintage flashcards I snagged at Country Living Fair 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Country Kitchen Tree

 

 

Redecorated the hutch for Christmas! Santa collection.

 

 

I pulled out all the holiday china we’ve been collecting over the years and put it out to use everyday and for the holidays. This has become a holiday dessert/coffee bar.

 

 

 

 

Pulled out all the Christmas and found our collection of Santa pictures. Poor Santa!

 

 

 

 

I bought these vintage flashcards at the Country Living fair also. Just too cute to pass up…

 

 

..and it’s so true. Instead of a kid friendly room mine has to be kitty friendly. Pumpkin snooped out the Christmas presents early. He knows it’s for him and doesn’t feel much like waiting until Christmas morning.

 

 

 

 

Uh oh. Baby has caught on too.

 

 

Stella has discovered she loves gift wrapping. Or rather finding a nice hiding spot from whence to pounce upon you.

 

 

I love my glitter chapels! These white and blue trees are perfect for my room too. Wish I could find more of them.

 

 

 

Ornaments I bought in Venice while studying abroad a few years ago. So pretty! Felt birds from Star Provisions & Marie Antoinette paper emellishments from Pink Girl.

 

 

    

 

Getting crafty! I found this adorable and easy peasy felt mouse ornament/gift topper from Between Naps on the Porch. I added bubble paint for eyes on mine later on. They are so adorable!

 

Below: Work in progress. I’ve been working all year with the kiddos at the office to make calendar artwork for end of the year presents. They have turned out so cute, I can’t wait for their parents to see them! I’ll post later the full project and images. Be sure to check out my Pinterest page for more ideas like this!

 

 

 

 

Presents for my kiddos have arrived! Can’t wait for them to play with their toys;)

 

 

I spent all day Thanksgiving cleaning out the attic, literally emptied it, half of it was Christmas anyways and needed to be cleaned/sorted/tossed and in the process I discovered stink bugs invaded and were in everything. So naturally I emptied every box into the back yard, shop vacuumed the attic out, and reorganized all the shelving and craft items. Finally finished putting things back into the attic yesterday. I was very glad I got to sit down to this tasty turkey dinner. Thanks mom!

 

 

So I convinced my mom to go Christmas shopping with me on Black Friday this year. She was reluctant but I did it for the first time last year and it really is not that bad if you know what you’re looking for and aren’t one of the crazies hanging out at Target at midnight the night before or camping out for the one TV that’s half priced. Sorry, not my thing. We actually had a fun day, got lots of things checked off our list, and we beat all the crowds everywhere we went. By the time we finished up and headed home we had been up and shopping for 12 hours and I started crashing and burning. By the time we got home I was so sick, I caught a cold! Booo! But we did have fun, here’s some of the highlights.

 

 

Headed to Anthropologie first, we were basically alone the entire time we were there. Sweet!

 

 

 

 

Snagged some super cute gifts and an adorable sweater for a steal.

Image via Pinterest

 

 

I love this Souvenir vase! The blue and white delft version is my favorite, maybe I’ll save up enough to get one. Or maybe they’ll go on sale!? Fingers crossed!

 

 

Miniature winter wonderland:)

 

 

 

 

Very pretty stemware!

 

We headed off to Lenox afterwards and did more damage. C Wonder has so many cute things! Love those bikes!

 

 

Finally got myself a tree. A live tree! It’s so pretty and smells so good. I wish I could have gotten that giant tree but I settled for a more reasonable 6 footer.

 

    

 

 

Time to pull out the Barbie extravaganza of ornaments. Barbie tree 2012 is ready to commence!

 

 

Aww. I forgot I made these. Cookie Dough, Willow Snow, & Thackery Binx. This was pre Pumpkin & Stella. Maybe someday I’ll make them one.

 

 

 

 

{Let them eat cake!}

Well after all this decorating, cleaning, organizing, baking, crafting, and so on…we’re pooped.

What have you been doing to prepare for the holidays? Any fun plans for the upcoming weekends?

Have a bright day!
Chelsea aka Bright Girl