I Love Keep Cup.

Have you heard of the Keep Cup? It’s the cutest DISHWASHER and MICROWAVE SAFE (!!Cue those angels!!) coffee mug that actually fits in my Mini Cooper’s cup holder. You can customize it with almost any color your heart desires:

However, it’s expensive to ship over to the US. I was honestly trying to convince myself to order it anyhow, cause I’d never seen anything like it. And those colors! I loved those colors.

Then one day we randomly decided to go to Ross and see what they had in stock. I needed some new work appropriate dresses, and Hussy was looking at the mens clothes selection. We both came up empty, but of course ended up in the Home area. And Drew, with his super spectacular, x-ray, superhuman vision saw this:

The packaging is a little arrogant calling itself “The Perfect Not Paper Cup.” I mean, who does he think he is? A Keep Cup? Not quite. It’s so boring, and blindingly white. But I couldn’t stand my big, bulky, non-MINI Cooper Friendly coffee mug, so I studied it a little. I flipped the box over, ready for sticker shock. I got that, but it was the good kind, not the bad kind I expected. I mean, I was at Ross, I should have known better!

$7 for something that will make my life a whole lot easier. Mornings a little brighter. Hand washing more bearabl- I mean non-existent. Who was I kidding, I simply must have this thing in my possession. So I made it happen. I’ve been using it with my beloved Kuerig coffee (I feel like such a home-barista snob) for several weeks now and I have to say, this was one of the best purchases I’ve made in a long time.

Aside from everything else in the kitchen remodel, of course. If you happen to spot this at your local Marshalls/Home Goods/Ross/TJ Maxx or whoever else in that chain may possibly have it, do yourself a favor and pick it up. I can’t think of a single moment you won’t think it’s worth every cent.

A Kitchen Renovation: Well Hung.

We are finally getting to the fun part. Maybe assembling cabinets from scratch (well, flat-packed IKEA boxes) aren’t everyone’s definition of fun, but I LOVE THIS. LOVE IT. Honest to goodness, if I could assemble Ikea Kitchens everyday, I think I would be in heaven. It’s fun, it passes the time, it gives a good excuse for some rockin’ Pandora, and it’s rewarding when it’s put together and functions properly. I seriously love doing kitchens. Now if only every room in this house was a kitchen, I would be floating on air. So since I can’t do that in real life, I had to pick one style, and although I picked many different things along the way… we ended up with Nexus Brown-Black Ikea Akurum Cabinets with Avsikt Frosted Glass Doors. That’s a mouthful and a half, isn’t it? Basically black and frosted glass cabinets.

Taking it back old school, our kitchen came with the original 1950’s steel cabinets. They were cool, but they were old with old cabinet problems. And being somewhat caring of what exactly holds our food and keeps it fresh, storing our food and dishware in something older than my parents didn’t really sit (or hang) well with us. Here’s the original hung cabinets:

Luckily we already had some of the uppers already hung in our hold-me-over kitchen update:

So the bar was ready to go back up to hang those cabinets back in place. Super easy.

The fun part was measuring for the other side of the room that had NO upper cabinets. It wasn’t that bad with two hands. Oh, and 4 paws. We’re so lucky to have such a great helper.

And while we were at it, we hung up our Ikea Wine Rack and installed some token bottles of wine including one from my last wine tasting a couple years ago, our honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, and a special honeymoon wine we planned to drink ON our honeymoon, but still keep forgetting to drink :)

Here’s a little sneak peek at what the cabinets look like now, with the curtains I made out of Target Napkins. I can’t wait to show you how I made them!

Long Time No See.

I know it's bad blog ettiquette to state the obvious: I've been away. Or apologize for being missing for so long. Especially when I have like 2.5 readers. But I'm breaking the mold, and saying I Sowwi for disappearing, because since I have SO MUCH to tell the internet! Like the kitchen is coming along and it looks AWESOME! And I missed like 2 Thrifty Thursdays, yet I have so many goodies to show you! Oh, and I pretty much chopped almost a foot of hair off!

I have been in a great funk. A funk of "I don't want to blog, I'm so bored all the time since things have been so slow, and I hate this whole stand-by waiting for items to ship and can't keep renovating." So what do I do? Obviously, I just chop off all my hair. I always grow it out, then when the mood strikes, like, say, during an epic time in my life, I sit in that salon chair and don't think twice. I did this when I first started dating Drew. I did it when got a great job offer. I also did it when a hairdresser ruined my hair by chopping off random chunks and thinning it out with a razor. I looked like she blow dried my hair while I sat in a bath tub, and not a chair. Electrocuted people, I'm saying I looked like I was electrocuted. And this was a mere 4 months before I was going to get married. Wouldn't most people panic about this? I didn't. I don't care what I look like, I'm here to party. On my wedding day, I put my hair half up, slapped on a little eyeliner and shadow and walked down that aisle looking like ME. I didn't hire a hair dresser, or even a friend, nor a makeup artist or any other fancy money-wasters. I simply don't care how I look THAT MUCH.

Well today, I kind of looked more like a middle aged newscaster. No offense if you are one, but hey, I got that great volume like you! Everytime I cut my hair, I forget HOW MUCH hair I have until it's gone and what's left is extremely thick. It's a lot, guys. My normally stick straight hair is now curling under because there's so much freaking hair sitting on my shoulders. I was actually mildly upset I had to go to work looking like a volume junky. Until I actually got to work, that is. Maybe it was the classic pencil skirt mixed with the button down, also classic, white top that helped me out, but I got compliment after compliment all day long. Needless to say, I feel better about how it looks, and it finally inspired me to blog. I know it's just hair, but it's motivating hair!

To be perfectly honest, I have about 5 posts already written. I've literally had literature ever since my last post. I've been so lazy to post them though, because I haven't edited the pictures to go with them. How sad is that? I really plan to post them all starting tonight. I'm going to make Thrifty Thursday come not on a Thursday. I'm going to update you on kitchen stuff that's long been finished. But you know what, if it takes a bad turned good hairday to make it happen, I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I'll leave you with a photo that perfectly portrays my littlest niece's second birthday party that I attended while I was avoiding my blog. Sprinklers and cupcakes, people. What more could she have asked for? Oh, I could just eat her to pieces. Not just cause she's covered in chocolate cupcake. Ok, so that helps a little.

A Kitchen Renovation: Laminated Part 1.

Why is this labeled part 1? The floors are finished, so part 1 is obviously about the floors. Part 2 is our decision to cut costs after all the surprise work we had done on the electrical and plumbing, and the fact it’s a small kitchen,and although people gather in there, it’s not enough to justify $2,000 for a luxury item. I’m sure you can figure that one out.

But onto our floors: they’re amazing! They were a mere $1.60/sf from Lumber Liquidators. We went in there to browse and get an idea on the cost of floors. We had been to Orange (HD) and Blue (Lowes) to get an idea, and were quickly turned away with the $3 and $4 pricetags attached to the very attractive options. Although we wanted something that LOOKED expensive, we didn’t actually want to buy the expensive stuff. We didn’t want to sacrifice durability for a cheap pricetag either, since the kitchen is our main entrance to the house being that our carport is in the backyard and our friends and family can pile cars up back there.

Yeah, we have a lot of room for parking. So we spotted this amazing pricetag on these amazing floors and decided to scoop them up with an added bonus: there was an odd-lot in the same flooring where only the top plank was ruined, but it was being sold for $.89/sf! So we went home with a truck bed full of flooring and asked a friend/contractor for a price on installation. We got him down to $2/sf, but Drew was convinced we could do this ourselves. Much to my dismay, I agreed, and we borrowed my dad’s table saw and got a $15 floor laying kit at Orange (pull bar, spacers and some floor risers), and grabbed a handful of tools from the shed:

Even while I was sick, we got it done this weekend. It was SO easy. Of course, I’m terrified of saws so he did all the hard work.

Here’s a picture I snapped ALMOST finished. Aren’t they spectacular?:

I can’t leave out our little helper, Rupert. See his paw dangling in the photo above? Here’s him supervising when he’s not pawing at our tools trying to help us:

Here’s a little before and after of putting our cute little 20” stove back in it’s place. I miss having all that room to run around in already (and I don’t know why the first shot looks so orangey! The second shows the true floor and wall colors):

And lastly, our new washer/dryer stack. We had them side by side since we moved in, but little miss 4’11” here needs more lower cabinets to reach anything, so stacked these must be:

We started on the cabinets last night. I love the dark black/brown with the warm colored floor and walls. I just need to hunt for the perfect curtains to pull all the shades together!

A Kitchen Renovation:: Plumbing, Electrical and PAINT!

There’s only so much you can budget and plan for before a proverbial wrench is thrown in the mix. We ended up pretty much replumbing and rewiring the entire kitchen and half the house. This included the necessary: setting the washer and dryer hookups into the wall (FYI, free dangling pipes aren’t up to code!) to the optional: garbage disposal hookups! We also put up the new paint color (which, as you may recall, was inspired by The Wine Loft. I just need to get pictures of that place!)

First, the real life “mood board”:

Then all the painting and professional work:

Stay tuned for our beautiful new floors!