Dining Room Storage

`A while back... yes a month ago almost while.. I wrote this post about the dining room china cabinet I purchased at a garage sale. After all of the travleing was over, this was one of our first projects to complete! I am using what is left of my summer to not only soak in some rays, take some naps, snuggle with my Ella bug... but also to get this house organized and ready for a new school year with me teaching on a new school calendar.

I started off by removing the drawers, handles, knobs and doors from the cabinet. I then got out my handy mouse sander and gave each piece a good sanding so my paint would adhere. After the sanding came the cleaning with Simple Green. Then.. the painting! I painted the piece black to match my dining room chairs.

I ended up doing 2 coats, with a light sanding on some areas after the first coat. I didn't do a clear coat or polyurethane though. I am scared that I will change my mind and decided to repaint the cabinet n the near future and it would be A LOT of work to sand through the clear coat.

As I was painting the cabinet I realized ALL of the wonderful items this cabinet can house. I grabbed the camera while the paint was drying and walked around the upstairs looking for items I have hiding through the living, dining room, and kitchen that really just don't have a home and now can be housed in this cabinet. Here is some of what I found:

Platters hiding behind pots and pans

A griddle sitting on top of the fridge and covered with junk that has nowhere to go!

The fridge holds a lot of stuff that can't fit anywhere else as you can see

Serving bowls hiding on top of games in the living room armoire

Appetizer plates and caddy hiding behind photos in the living room

more cute dishes hiding in the pantry

 Wow! Lots of things that need to find a new home! This doesn't even include the shelves of serving pieces hiding in the laundry area of our basement.

So, here it is.. all finished (almost) and full of platters, bowls, serving spoons, spreaders, ice tongs, ramekins, etc.

I am sure there will be a lot or rearranging of items on the shelves on top. This is how the shelves looked the first night after moving the cabinet inside.

The space before the cabinet was moved inside

Empty cabinet

Cabinet all moved in and filled!

Still missing doors.. need to find the new handles and also need new knobs for drawers

3 days later what the cabinet looks like

Closer view

 On the shelves:
Top Left: a monogrammed cheese platter with the letter "L" and a vase holding sea glass I have collected over the years (this is the one item I am not sure will stay)
Top Right: collection of old white pitchers my grandmother gave me as a wedding gift
Middle Shelf: a hand blown green glass pitcher, simple additions square bowls from pampered chef (they are used daily in our house), 3 ball jars; 1 containing sea shells and sharksteeth we have collected on the east coast the past 2 summers
Bottom Left: Salt and Pepper shakers, bamboo napkin holder (these are every day items we use)
Bottom Middle: Simple Additions rectangular platter and basket from Pampered Chef holding fresh fruit that we eat so it will change each day.
Bottom Right: Simple Additions appetizer plates with appetizer plate caddy from Pampered Chef
So.. you can see I have somewhat of a Pampered Chef addiction! I had a Pampered Chef wedding shower which helped me LOAD up on items.. and my best friend in VA used to sell pampered chef so that also just fed my addiction! I use a lot of it daily so I can justify it to myself :)

Loving it.. and yes still no doors on the bottom

So, there it is! The best new addition to our house! The storage is wonderful, the depth of the cabinet is perfect in our small dining area. You can still pull the bench out easily and sit to eat dinner.  I can't lie, I am just dreaming of the fall when I can break out the fall decor and change up the theme of the cabinet as well as during Christmas time. The possibilities are already running through my head!

 Let me know any suggestions of items to add/take away. As we make some changes in the living room I am sure I will do some more house shopping and change up the shelving a bit.

Enjoy!

                                                                    Tatertots and Jello

Traveling.... we are finally home!

My husband and I were done with our school year on June 2nd, I had graduate class June 4th and 5th and June 6th we began almost a month of traveling! We left Minnesota and headed west on our first trip.. driving.. we drove through Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, stopped for 3 days in Salt Lake City, Utah to visit my sister-in-law.. then she hopped in the car with us and we all headed to the Reno/Carson City/Tahoe area of Nevada for a family gathering (on the way home we went through South Dakota instead of Nebraska and Iowa). My husband's grandmother passed away in the fall of 2010 and we all met up to give our last respects to her ashes, to see her home in Carson City, and just spend some time as a family. All 5 of my husband's siblings were there along with each of their families, so all 8 grandchildren were there! Tons of fun together!

For a fun way to document the trip, I created a t-shirt for Ella to wear in each new state we drove through on our way out and back. It was fun taking pictures at each stop in a new state. I can't wait to make a book about the trip using the shirt pictures as well as the scrapbook the trip, and finally use all of these shirts along with other shirts I have made for her for special days and create a small t-shirt quilt for her.

The shirts were very simple to make. I printed out a picture of each state in black and white from online in the size I wanted for the shirt. I found a scrap of fabric to fit each state, used fusible interfacing on each scrap,traced the state backwards, cut out the state, removed the paper backing, ironed on the state and then used a tight stitch to stitch around the edge of each state. I love how they turned out, I did 7 states in about 30 minutes. 7 new shirts in a half hour! Not too shabby!

Enjoy the pics! And come back and visit.. I will be posting about all of the fun things we have been doing around our house since returning from our east coast trip in early July. That's right people.. coast to coast in the car this summer.. with a dog and a toddler! woohoo!

Minnesota

Iowa

Nebraska

Nebraska

Utah

Nevada

South Dakota

Happy Traveling!

Cheap and Easy Outdoor Table-runner

One of my favorite local shops has a large dollar store section. Whenever I stop in, I always have to browse the dollar store section. The last time I was there I found these cute colored bamboo placemats for $1.00 each! I bought three of them. I used three pieces of floral wire to connect two together on each side. Quick and easy and only cost $3.00!

Love that price!

pinch together seams to thread in the wire

back of tablerunner

you can see the silver but barely

With the weight of the bamboo, this is a great table runner for outside, the wind can't take it away!
This looked GREAT on our outdoor black metal table... however we went on vacation and I left it out and now.. its nowhere to be found.. odd! So, I unfortunately have no pictures of the table-runner is use! I will probably make another soon though!

A quick, easy and cheap way to decorate a table for a bbq! Have a Happy Sunday and Happy Father's Day to all the father's out there!

A month and four days later...

Yes, I am still alive, yes I am still maintaining my blog! WOW! is really all I can say about the last month of life. Being a teacher, the end of the school year is always full of odds and ends to be completed but this year was even more crazy than usual. Our building had to have major construction done over the summer so we had to pack up and have classes for the last 10 days at a local community college. On top of that EVERYTHING had to be moved out of our rooms onto semi-trailers in order to accommodate the construction. Let's just say there were lots of late nights spent packing and planning. After school was out, I still had a weekend of class for my master's program. Once that weekend was over I left for a 10 day road trip out west with the hubby and baby girl. We drove through Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah where we made a 3 day stop to spend time with my sister-in-law, then headed to the Carson City, Reno, Tahoe area of Nevada (even snuck into Calinfornia for a few hours so we can say we went from one west coast state to an east coast state this summer). We had a great time with family but we were very excited to return home on Wednesday. Thursday our baby girl woke up at 4:30 am throwing up and continued to do so for the next 8 hours. Therefore, we stayed in our pjs and took shifts on sleeping/cuddling with her until all of the throwing up was over. Today was FULL with me getting a hair cut (finally!), the window guy coming so we could seal the deal on our new windows and a meeting with an insurance person. On top of that the unpacking, laundry, cleaning, organizing, grass cutting, etc, etc, etc had to get started and oh yea, we are leaving on Tueday for our East Coast adventure when we visit my family out in VA. So.. WOW is really all I can say. I will be happy to be back at home around July 1 and stay here for a LONG time!

Before leaving I got a few small projects done which I will show through a few separate posts over this weekend. For tonight I will post pictures of projects pieces we purchased at yard sales before leaving. They will hopefully get some attention as soon as we return home. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things and get a post a day going! Thanks for bearing with me!

Bought this little beauty from a neighbor one street over at a garage sale.. for $15.00! 

I am imagining it painted black and displaying my collection (only 5 so far) of pitchers as well as a small platter with our monogram on it. Maybe a few of the "L"s from the living room could find a new home. The larger square areas on the bottom shelf would be perfect for baskets holding cloth napkins and possibly place mats. The left drawer could also work for place mats and the right has an area for silverware and serving spoons. The very bottom is going to be the new home for all of my serving platters, trifle bowl, cupcake carriers, etc. This way I can get them out of the basement storage area and maybe I will remember what I have then! It is the PERFECT width for our dining room. I think the deepest section comes out about 15 inches, we had something there before (dresser in our master bedroom) that was around 25 inches deep and it was TOO deep to use the bench at the dining room table.

Here are a few more photos; I can't wait to get started on this in July and get it decorated!

That is my hubby using a two-wheel cart to move the cabinet over from the neighbor's house

Getting closer... quick! The rain is starting again!

Almost there!

So close!

YAY! Inside the garage!

Left drawer: perfect for placemats

Right drawer: perfect for silverware and serving spoons

Bottom storage area: future home to serving platters and bowls

Needs some sanding

Has an area for 2 large glass sliding doors, we have the doors but I am not digging the doors

So, there is one summer project and an explanation of where I have been! I hope you come back and check on the progress of the cabinet as well as a new coffee table in the works, a $3 table for an outdoor table, update to ikea plant pots.. and more!

outside play area

Since I am already sad to be away from my wonderful hubby and beautiful daughter tomorrow I am posting about our fabulous day last Saturday. I not only a mother, wife, teacher, and beginning crafter, sewer, diyer.. I am also a graduate student! I am finishing up my first year of graduate school which includes one weekend a month devoted to graduate class. I leave home at 7 am and arrive home around 5 pm each night. Boo! But.. moving on as to not dwell... last Saturday was wonderful!

Ella was up early, the weather was BEAUTIFUL here in southern Minnesota so we were off for the community wide yard sale! Yep, hubby went with which is usually best because then I don't go overboard and he also gives me the confidence that I can do something great to someone else's junk. 

Not such a successful morning of yard sales, but it was fun to be together as a family. We came home with:

2 grocery cart toys for Ella (1 for outside, 1 for inside-she loves them!), a nice gray book for a future project, the hubby got a weird movie, a glass canister (not pictured) and a few bags of sand picked up at Lowes. 

We are building our outside toy collection for Ella. She LOVES being outside so we predict a lot of outside time this summer. We don't want to spend a lot of money on these toys.. so yard sales and craigslist are our new friends. We recently bought a small climber with slide from craigslist and someone from hubby's school gave.. yes GAVE us a sandbox.. LOVE FREE STUFF!

We now needed the right spot for the sand box. In the shade, in a easily viewed area, and preferably not on the grass. Well.. this led to a quick project.. we have an awkward area behind our dining room window (which is also awkward) that has pavers down that run across most of the back of the house. We decided to use some large pavers we had left over from a project last year to extend this awkward area and make it a play area for Ella. Hopefully we will get a little picnic table soon and that can also go in this area. 

Here is the process in photos:

Hubby getting ready to start digging

Notice view of pavers already there and the odd dining room window

More digging!

And where are Wojo and Ella during this?

And then it was nap time.. which means I also had to dig and get dirty.. no pictures of this since Ella was napping, Wojo has no hands, and the hubby and I were both dirty and digging. 

We dug down 6 inches, laid the weed/grass killing paper, then spread some dirt down, leveled it off, laid pavers.. filled in with dirt.. topped with sand box and then filled sand box with sand.. and now we have a much better looking area and a great place for Ella's free sandbox. I really like the way this free project turned out. As soon as we get a picnic table it too can go on the pavers. Also, we now have an idea of where a garden could go if we decide to grow one. We are traveling a lot in the summer so I am not sure when we can commit to this..but at least we have a place now! 

Garden idea: in between adult patio and playtime patio

The playtime patio

I am hoping that grass grows back quickly...

 

Well, she sure likes it!

So, a GREAT Saturday! A new play area for my love bug, time spent with the hubby on a project, a few good deals at the yard sales, beautiful weather, and yummy coffee along the way. I am sad to be away from my family tomorrow, but at least I can log on and read this again to brighten my day tomorrow! I know Ella will be playing on her new playtime patio! :)

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mather's Day to all of the mothers, mommas, moms, and mommies out there! 

I am so lucky to be celebrating my second Mother's day tomorrow! I love my little Ella more than I ever knew was possible! A little over 15 months ago my life was forever changed, in the best way possible. I thank her for making me a better person and making me want to be a better person! I love each day watching her grow and change. Each stage is my favorite!

Mommy's Girl!

My Sweet Girl!

BEFORE I WAS A MOM

Before I was a Mom;
I made and ate hot meals,
I had unstained clothing,
I brushed my hair every day,
I had quiet conversations on the phone,
I slept as late as I wanted and I slept all night long.

Before I was a Mom;
I cleaned my house each day,
I never tripped over toys or forgot lullabies,
I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous,
I had never been puked on, pooped on, spit on, chewed on, peed on, or
pinched by tiny fingers.

Before I was a Mom;
I never thought about immunizations,
I never held a screaming child so the doctors could give shots,
I never looked into teary eyes and cried,
I never felt my heart break into pieces when I couldn't stop the hurt,
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.

Before I was a Mom;
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put it down,
I never sat up late hours of the night watching a baby sleep,
I never got up in the middle of the night to make sure everything was okay,
I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.

Before I was a Mom;
I had complete control of my mind, my thoughts and my body,
I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside of my body,
I didn't know that having something so small could make me feel so
important,
I had never known the warmth, the joy, the love, the heartache,
the wonderment, or the satisfaction of being a mom.

Before I was a Mom;
I never knew that something so small could effect my life so much,
I never knew that I could love someone so much,
I never knew I would love being a Mom,
I didn't know the bond between a Mother and her child,
I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much.

~author unknown