Let's talk about ... Kitchens!

Since working on the old house and vowing to make our current house feel more like "home", I've been on what feels like a project overload.  Even though I haven't actually done any projects.  Figure that one out.

It's just that I have so many ideas swimming around in my head of what I want to do with this house to make it work better for us, look better to us, and just feel better to us.  But friends, I don't even have the Christmas decorations down yet, so I have no business starting a project until that happens.  And until my dining room table is no longer covered in piles of clean laundry.  (Does that happen to anyone else?  It's just so big and clear and close to the boys during the day.  The perfect spot to fold laundry.

Anyway, I thought that while I tackle those things, I can at least dream about what I'd like to do with the house.  My kitchen is definitely on that list.  It's not as high on the list as I'd like it to be, because what I'd like to do is going to involve knocking out walls, which requires time.  And money.  We don't have much of either of those things these days.  So instead, I'll dream and plan so that when the time comes, I know EXACTLY what I want.

After Pinning a few things to my "Kitchen" board the other day, I decided that it might be worth sorting through a few Pins to think about what I actually like in each picture.  Care to join me on my little journey through my board?

source

I'm a sucker for stone work, so that column is making me drool.  Also, I love the use of space above the cabinets.  Wasted space above cabinets drives me nuts!

source

This shows a relatively narrow island, which may be the direction in which we go for our home.  The kitchen is fairly narrow as it stands, and depending on which walls we knock down, we may need to go with a narrow island.  I also love a good bookshelf on an island end.  I think it cozies the place up a bit.  

source

I just love this space.  It feels open and airy, yet cozy and inviting.  Banquettes scream coziness to me too.  Also?  I love the concept of a cupboard that comes straight to the counter.  It could play the roll of an appliance garage, or simply to house dishes.  Regardless, it leaves counter space while maximizing storage space.  

source

The butcher block counter is beautiful, although I'm not sure it would be right for our family.  The shelves on the side of the island and the cabinets up to the ceiling earn bonus points :)  The extra oven in the island also intrigues me.  Maybe a convection/microwave combo?  Either way, it's a way to squeeze in an extra oven if you lack the wall space for double ovens.  

source

Another great option for a long, narrow space.  It doesn't feel cramped!  In our last kitchen, the refrigerator and wall ovens were next to each other and I really loved it.  The set up just felt natural.  

source

The decorative panels on the back of the island are super, super cute.  The black/gray window and door are really visually interesting as well.  

source

Drawers.  Drawers are essential.  I really prefer them over cabinets.  The are just all around easier.  That's all I have to say about that.  

source

Lights on the cabinets surrounding the sink bring so much charm and warmth.  I also love a good barn-ish light.

source

Hello, beautiful.  Stone wall!  Pendants!  Open, airy, yet cozy.  

source

Look at that wall of cabinets!  Beautiful and smart use of space. 

source

I feel like a broken record ... cabinets to the ceiling.  Again, great use of a relatively narrow space.  

source

This is the motherload.  Cabinets to the ceiling.  Lots and lots of cabinets.  

source

A narrow space, and yet that wall of cabinets makes up for it.  

source

This sweet kitchen has so many of my favorite things crammed into it.  And if you've made it this far, you can probably pick them out yourself, so I'll spare you the list.  

The nice thing about needing to wait to remodel a kitchen?  You have the time to research and plan and make the right decisions for what will work for your family!  

Memories {Selling the Old House}.

Radio-silence here on the blog lately has been caused by a PLETHORA of home improvement projects.  Sadly, none of it is all that exciting.  Why?  Because we weren't doing anything to our house.  Well, technically, it's our house, but not the one we're currently living in!  

Back in 2010, when Brian was hired by his current company and we were planning our move from MI to FL, we had to decide what to do with our home.  The simple answer would be to put it on the market, but that wasn't an option for us.  We bought our home in October 2006, when home prices had dropped a bit and everyone was all "Buy now!  Before the market increases again!  Get in while the gettins' good!".  ::sigh::  We were young, about to get married, and had no crystal ball.  So we found a sweet little house nestled on about 2.5 acres in the country.  It was the perfectly in-between our jobs, giving us each a 45 minute commute in the opposite direction.  Built in 1930, it was full of old-house charm, but needed LOTS  of updates.  The house was just perfect for us.  

Foyer

We bought it for what was a steal at the time, and proceeded to fix it up and make it our own over the next 4 years ... while the market kept dropping.  We weren't worried at first, because we planned to be there for 10 years or so.  Eventually the market would rise and our family would grow out of the space and all would even out in the end.  

Family Room

A new job and a cross-country move were not on our radar, and certainly threw a wrench into our plans.  So, after speaking with a Realtor and learning that we could probably only sell our home for $30-40K less than we owed, we opted to lease it out.  

Dining Room

(Fun Fact:  This room was a deep, dark red.  I chose that color because I'd always wanted a red dining room!  But we didn't feel like the red was very market-friendly, so we painted over the red with the same color as the Family Room.  I was so sad to see that red go, even though I would never paint my current dining room red.  Funny!)

While Brian went to Florida to begin his new job, I stayed in Michigan and met with potential renters, packed the house, and made all of the necessary preparations.  We leased it to a family who ultimately stayed for 4 years before moving on to purchase a home of their own.  Now that it's empty, we decided that it was time for us to sell.  The market has improved and there is somewhat of a housing shortage in that little farming community, which will hopefully work in our favor.  

Kitchen

So the last few weeks have been full of cleaning, painting, and repairs to our old home.  Brian and I both agreed that it was odd to be back in it after 4 years.  In many ways, it feels much more like "home" than our current home.  But I think that is because we spent 4 years in that house.  It's where we started our married life together and brought home our first baby.  We sunk a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into making that house "ours".  And we simply haven't had time to do many things to our current home yet.  I have no doubt that in another few years, this house will hold just as many sweet memories for us as our old home does. 

Downstairs Bathroom

Downstairs Bedroom

One thing that was definitely not lost on us is how different my our my style is now than it was all those years ago.  Back then, I loved deep, cozy jewel tones.  The original 1930s wood trim that is scattered throughout the house just looked better when surrounded by the warm paint colors we chose.  Now, in our current home, I cannot get enough light blues, greens, and grays -- cool, fresh, airy colors.  And they fit perfectly with the bright white trim of our 1990s home.  Funny how tastes change and certain colors and tones fit better with the age of a home.  

 

Upstairs Bathroom

We're so sad to say goodbye to our first home, but also glad that we were able to have the last few weeks to work on it together again.  While it was definitely a lot of work, it was also really good closure for us.  Now we're excited to sell it to someone who can make some great memories in it for themselves!  (And to be without 2 mortgage payments!  Because .... yikes.)  

Upstairs Bedrooms

Once it's sold, we can continue our mission to start making our current home feel as much like "home" as our first!  

Half Bathroom Feature - Remodelaholic!

Happy New Year!

Remember when we re-finished the bathroom counters?  And some purty new faucets?  And I wrote a gushy post about how much I loved them?  Well,the folks over at Remodelaholic thought they were pretty nice too and are featuring the half bathroom makeover today!!

I took some photos of the bathroom all fancied up for Christmas, which are included in the post.  I'd LOVE for you to head on over and check it out!  It's so exciting!!  

Foot stool re-do.

During the weeks before Christmas, Brian was working hard building shelves in the basement to organize our storage area.  While sorting through all of our stuff, it became painfully obvious that my "project" shelf was going to be, um. large.  So in an effort to clear it a bit, I grabbed this sweet little thing from the shelf.  

I snatched it up for $4.00 one day and bolted out of the store before anyone else could grab it.  I mean, $4??  A steal!  

The base was in really great condition, other than a few scratches on the metal.  I decided to just give the cushion a makeover for now.  I mean, I know that floral is pretty, but it wasn't screamin' my name.

My first thought was a faux sheepskin throw, but it wasn't quite wide enough to cover the whole cushion.  Instead, I grabbed some gray arrow fabric from my stash.  My Mom would say that I should iron it first, but ... I hate ironing.  So I just measured the fabric and rolled with it.  

First step, lay out your fabric, place the cushion on top, and be sure that you you have enough fabric to cover each side of the cushion.  

At this point, you could remove the old fabric and such, but I was going for a quick project, so I left the flowers live and just covered them up.  

So, now begins the stapling!  This project is really very, very basic.  Two things to remember: #1 Always staple into the wood edges of the cushion (too far into the center and the staples won't stick!) and #2 - Pull taught, but not too tight.  

Now, let's get stapling.  First things first, staple one side of the fabric with one single staple in the center of that side.

Then, pulling the fabric taught, put one staple into the middle of the opposite side.

Same deal for the other 2 sides.  Once all 4 sides have at least one staple in them, start the stapling process down one side, then continue to the opposite side, followed by each of the other sides.  Stop the staples about 2 inches from each end.  Don't forget to keep the fabric pulled taught the entire time!

 

Now it's time to tackle the corners.  Pull the corner piece toward you.  

Then, pull it straight up toward the center, and plant a staple into the corner.  

Next, pull one side to the side to make a nice, straight line of fabric on the corner.  Plant another staple to secure the fabric.

Last, pull the other side taught to make a pretty corner and plant another few staples in there to make them secure.

Repeat til you have 4 nice, pretty corners.  

It'll look pretty frumpy at this point, so trim the excess fabric to make her look nice and slim.

See?  Isn't she pretty?  Then I popped her back in the frame.  And BOOM - pretty little ottoman.

The whole process took 10 minutes at the very most.  And for such a cute little foot stool!

 I still love to throw a little faux fur over it, so I might explore that option some day.  But for now, I think she's really cute, fur or no fur!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Happy Holidays, friends!  I hope that this season finds you well, whatever your family may celebrate. 

Our family is drowning in snot and holiday parties.  Only one of those is fun.  I'll let you decide which one.  

All kidding aside, the sweetness of this season is never lost on me.  And this year, the boys are the perfect ages for us to see that magic really come alive.  Of course Santa is fun, but teaching them the real meaning of Christmas wonderful too.  

I just want to say THANK YOU to those of you who visit my little corner of the internet.  I love having you here.  You.  Yes, YOU!  

Merry Christmas!

I'm Flying South Social Media

We have been busting arse on house projects lately.  So quickly, that I have a giant backlog of unfinished posts sitting in my drafts folder because I can't seem to finish a post before starting a new project.  So my goal for the next few weeks is to get writing!

I've also been thinking a lot lately about expanding the blog's social media presence.  Plenty of my IRL friends would love to see updates on the house, but I don't really want to get all spammy on my personal page.  So I decided to finally publish the I'm Flying South facebook page that I made a year or so ago!

And then of course while I was thinking about social media, I realized that I left out links to everything when I redesigned the blog earlier this year.  So while I get something up on the blog, here are links to all of the fun places that I post pictures of my kids and house projects and like!

• Facebook - facebook.com/imflyingsouth ... I'd love it if you'd pop on over and "Like" the page!
• Instagram - instagram.com/imflyingsouth/ ... I'll be honest, the majority of my IG posts involve my adorable offspring!
• Twitter - twitter.com/imflyingsouth ... I'm not a big "tweeter", but my FB and IG posts are usually auto-tweeted, so it's an easy place to find everything!
• Pinterest - pinterest.com/imflyingsouth/ ... Ah Pinterest.  We have a love/hate relationship!

So there's the list!  See ya 'round!  

Gray walls and a coconut monkey.

The living room/dining room walls are finished and I could not be happier with my color choice.

It is the perfect neutral gray.  I took my custom-mixed swatch to Sherwin-Williams to either see if I could find something that was close or to have them custom-mix some paint.  

It turned out that SW 7649 Silverplate was pretty much the same.  So I took home 2 gallons and got to work ... a week later.  Because, life.  

I just love love love it.

You can still see a bit of peachy-beige peeking out above the base-molding, The carpet is going to be ripped out and we'll do something with the floors, so because we'll have to remove the molding anyway, I just painted almost down to it.  

 

It's insanely refreshing to have one tiny corner of the house looking slightly put-together!   Curtains, furniture, and even a few fall decorations make it feel so much more like home.

Especially the coconut monkey.  He knocks it all outta the park.