Cabinets, Counter Tops and Giants

We received a phone call yesterday from the truck driver delivering my new kitchen cabinets.  He was about 22 miles away and was calling to notify us that he would be here in about 30 minutes and wanted to make sure someone was home to accept delivery.  Mr. Fix-It (hubby) informed him that yes he was here.  The driver then asks a question that we were not expecting.  Did we have enough room for him to get his TRANSFER TRUCK  turned around?  Uh, NO....we were told that the cabinets would be delivered on a 24 foot box truck.  We have room for a box truck to turn around back here (we live back in the woods and still have no real grass in the yard yet and it has been raining here for the past WEEK) but definitely not an 18-wheeler.  Mr. Fix-It tells the wonderful gentleman that he could meet him at the end of our driveway and show him where he could park and they could off-load them onto our truck.  We were blessed, really my husband was blessed.  They got the truck parked and two men, sweet kind GIANTS of men unloaded the cabinets and rode with my husband and helped him load them into the house.  I have cabinets and I love them!  


Mr. Fix-It went and picked up the counter tops today and I have to say the counter tops are amazing!  The colors in the tops tie it all together.   We are going to go pick up the bead board panels and sink tomorrow.  


I thought about posting some pics today of everything piled against the walls in my kitchen but I really want to wait and have a big reveal!   I will be posting before and after pictures in the next few days.  Thanks for stopping by!

The Pottery Barn Look At Big Lots Prices

I went rummaging around last night and stopped in at our local Big Lots.  When I came home and I was perusing the Pottery Barn website and had a few ideas.

In the Pottery Barn October Catalog on page 13 there is a beautiful arrangement on a mantle with a round wooden mirror.  Big Lots had some mirrors that looked a lot like this mirror but on a slightly smaller scale for $12.00.

Photo from Pottery Barn

On through the magazine I spotted more similar deals.  On pages 22 and 23 in the same Pottery Barn catalog there is an arrangement with glass canisters.  I spotted some glass canisters like these in Big Lots for $6 and $8.  They were very similar to the Pottery Barn ones.  I have several of these that I normally use in my bathroom to hold cotton balls and the like but I am thinking I may use them for something like the PB arrangement.

Photo from Pottery Barn

Big Lots also had the faux fur throws that looked a lot like the ones on pages 30 and 31 in the Pottery Barn catalog.  The store I was at had them in solid colors and animal prints.  They were very nice and were $15.00 each.

Photo from Pottery Barn

Last but not least, Big Lots also had lots of really nice woven baskets that reminded me of some I had seen while looking through the Pottery Barn magazine as well.

I hope this helps in the search to make our homes beautiful without breaking the bank.  

Halloween Fun

I received the October Country Living magazine in the mail yesterday and after flipping through it quickly (I am saving it for a leisurely soak in the tub) this idea has just stuck with me.  I absolutely LOVE this and it would be great for a Halloween party especially here in the south where it is still hot on October 31st.

Photo from County Living.com

The martini glasses with the eyes are just adorable!  This could be used for a teen's party too.  Just replace the martini with punch and use grapes for the olives.  Just watch that no "spirits" get added into the punch.

Photo from Pottery Barn

Antiquing in Asheville

Mr. Fix-It took me for a day of antiquing in Asheville and dinner at PF Changs.  I found some things that I am interested in at the Tobacco Barn.  

There was a pair of these and they were too cute!  They looked to be about 12 inches wide.  They need a little fixin' but definitely workable.  

This crystal chandelier was amazing.   I want it for my bedroom.

This is the piece I almost came home with.   Love, Love, Love it but can't buy anything for the kitchen till I see how my kitchen will look once I get it put in.  Only 3 more days and the cabinets will be here.  

My Kitchen Layouts.

I finally managed to scan in the pictures of the layouts and options I considered for my kitchen. 

This is the basic lay out I was looking for.  I don't want a lot of upper cabinets because I want to do open shelving.  The Vintage black cabinets on this one were along the wall.  I wanted the area that is over the stove to put you in mind of an old Hoosier cabinet.



This is the one I chose.  The lighter walls with the Vintage Balck on the island. 



This is a view of the island. 

Everybody Loves Fences

"Honey...I love you!"

             "What do you want?"

"Come walk with me and I will tell you my idea"

            "OK let's go see what I am doing now."

Fall puts in mind of rustling leaves, and fences.  Everybody loves fences.  

I now have a driveway that meanders out through the woods.  There is an area that I want to put a fence so that I can decorate it...for fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc...you get the picture. Speaking of pictures, here are a few pictures of fences that I found as I was looking for ideas for my fence.

Re-Nest.com

New Forest National Park

  

A Week from Tomorrow...

I have a week till I have a kitchen!  I am counting down the days.  Oh, I just had a thought....I will scan in my kitchen layout and post it tomorrow.  Remember I am new at all of this.  I have cherry Kraftmaid cabinets coming.  The wall cabinets around the bottom and on one wall will be Antique Oatmeal with an Ebony glaze and the island is Vintage Onyx. 


I chose the best grade laminate for the counter tops.  I had consider granite but it will be rental property at sometime and I would not want to have to replace granite because someone did not take care of it properly.  I chose a laminate by Formica 180 FX that is call Antique Mascarello. 

The floors are Seaside Pine by Pergo.  We found enough flooring to do the whole house at the Habitat Restore.  We got an amazing deal.  I saw them and fell in love.  They were totally different than anything I have ever had before.  The house I just moved out of was very dark with lots of wood and this house is very light and airy now that we have the floors put in.

I love my new floors.  So much nicer than stained dirty dark green carpet.  

My Mother's Day Present...Finally!!

On the very first day we bought this place I came over and sat on the back porch steps for a while just to see what it was like to be back in the woods.  As I was sitting there I thought what a wonderful spot for a sitting area there was right out the back door. My uncle, who lives two houses up, hosts lots of "fish frys" in his back yard and he has this cute little sitting area.  Nothing fancy, no deck or anything just some comfy chairs under a shade tree and that is where we all love to congregate and chat.  There have been lots of fishing stories and lies told under that tree.  

Not knowing at that time that I would be the one living here (remember we bought it to use for rental property) I began to clear out some of the underbrush.  A few days later we got the news that our house had sold and my husband and I decided to move in to what we now lovingly call the Rabbit Hole.  I knew that I wanted to make me a sitting area, a place to take family and friends outside to enjoy the peace and quite of living back in the woods.  

This was all around Mother's Day and my husband I were rummaging around Lowes Hardware.  We were out in the garden center and I found a fire pit that they had built out of the landscaping stone complete with a bench and metal fire pit insert.  I went and found my husband Mr. Fix-It and told him in a half joking manner that this could be my Mother's Day present.  To my joy he agreed!!  I knew we would be moving so I had said to just wait and get it after we move and so  we did,  If you have read my posts you will know that things went downhill from there.  Bu my sweet little Mr. Fix-It did not forget and when we finally have came to a point where we can start working on our house again he went and bought me my Mother's Day present in September.

My dream for an outdoor sitting area has begun.  This was preparing the area,  I had already cleared it but it need to be leveled a little more.  Mr. Fix-It did that...he loves any excuse to get on the tractor and play.  What little boy (man) doesn't?

This is my finished product.  64 blocks later and my back was hurting but it was well worth it!  It was getting dark on me so I do need to go back out today and straighten some of my blocks up but I did it all by myself!

I will post some pictures taken during the day.  I had to wait to work on it yesterday till the weather had cooled off some and it got dark on me before I finished.

I was sitting in my kitchen this morning having a yummy cup of coffee while enjoying the cool autumn air and watching the bunnies play in my front yard (we secretly call our place the Bunny Hole) and it dawned on me that my kitchen cabinets will be here in less than 2 weeks.  I have been living without kitchen cabinets since we moved here in May.  Let me explain a little...

We moved here at the end of May after our other house had been up for sale quite some time.  We thought we would buy this place a slowly renovate it and then have it as rental property.  The week after we bought this place our house sold.  We had no place picked out to buy so we thought we would move in here while we looked. The property we had just bought was a foreclosure that had been sitting empty for 7 years.  It had been stripped of everything.  Someone had taken the heat pump, the water heater, the light fixtures, the bathroom sinks and vanities and the kitchen cabinets!  The only thing that was left was an island in the kitchen and the only reason I think they did not take it was that they would have had to have taken it apart to get it out the doors.  Oh and naturally they took all the appliances too.  The house was just a shell. But the shell was in really good condition.  The only cosmetic problems were that the carpets were a dark green carpet and they had been walked on with red muddy feet and were dirty.  The walls and everything else were in great shape.  So we started moving in and doing renovations all at the same time.

Now here is where things took a huge turn.  We finally got through the closing on our house and started to unpack some and get settled in enough to make things livable.  We had installed all of the necessaries first like the  heat pump (NC is hot in the summer), water heater, light fixtures, and all new appliances.  Things were moving along.  We took a few days off for the 4th of July and went to see my parents in Nantahala.  They have a house here and a log house in Nantahala, NC.  We had the best time and we took my parents to see the fireworks and enjoyed a great weekend.  We came back on Sunday morning. On Wednesday of that same week my parents come home to their house here.  My mother is ill.  I take her to the emergency room and she is admitted with a heart attack.  While she is in the hospital things get much worse.  We were told by the doctors that she was loosing blood and they were not sure from where so they started doing tests.  We find out that my mother has Stage 4 rectal cancer.  When she was released from the hospital she could barely walk, was now on oxygen full time and could not take care of herself.  There was no way at this time that my Dad could take care of her and give her the 24 hour a day care that she needed so I moved her in with me.  My daughter was home from college for the summer and my husband works nights so there would always be someone here with her.

It has worked out great.  The property that we had bought was right below my parents house so my mother would be close to my dad.  He can walk or drive down, which he does many times a day, and visits with mom.   I am happy to say that she is now up and doing well.  She is having radiation treatments for palliative purposes and Hospice comes in through the week and helps care for her.  We have had more "company" ie: friends and family at this house than we ever did at the old house because of my mother living here and her illness.  I have been blessed with the opportunity to help my parents and care for my mother.   Caring for her is now my main focus in life but life for all has to continue at some point.

Which brings me back to my house.  Things that I never thought I would ever have to live without...I have been.  I have pieces of furniture placed around the walls in the kitchen where cabinets should have been, I still have no bathroom sink in the master bath but part of that is because my husband and myself could not agree on one. I have not gotten to paint the walls a bright fresh white and most of my furniture and accessories are still in storage.  I know fall is here and cooler weather is approaching and I have the need to get things in order.  It is time to start "nesting" as some might say.  So begins my journey to do what I can to make my home comfortable for my family.   I hope you will follow along as we work to transform this place from a house into a home.

My First..

I have been told that I should not be working as a secretary but rather that I should open my own business of "some kind."  Craftiness comes to those who have no money but want things.  Things that look nice.  I had to become a "crafty" person.

After moving into a foreclosed property that had been sitting empty for 7 years (and had been vandalized) I am having to become even more frugal and creative.  I will share my adventure of recreating a shell of a house into a home with you.