The Husband's Birthday Party

I forgot to post these pics last month.  We had his 30th birthday at Crabtowne Arcade in Glen Burnie. Lots of friends and family came out to celebrate and we had a good time!

I figure I should include a few pics of the baking process since everyone is asking how I made 2 cakes and 24 cupcakes with no kitchen.  Well we still have our oven working and a card table and with that and my Kitchen Aid mixer I was in business.

I made my own big 3-0 cake stencils using cardstock and big font on the computer and cut them out and sprayed the back with cooking spray so they wouldn't stick to the icing.  A little sprinkle magic and I had a custom cake.

Cabinets Going Up!

We have some progress.  The cabinets are put together and going up on the wall.  It was pretty easy to put the Ikea wall cabinet boxes together event though there are no words in the instructions, just pictures.  However some browsing on Youtube provided some good videos so they were pretty easy to follow. 

Hanging the cabinets was harder than we thought. All Monday we only got one box hung but we worked out a ton of kinks in the process and now its moving fairly smooth.  Some pics of the process.

 The reason why Ikea cabinets are cheaper than other options-all the parts that have to be put together!

 The Husband built all the cabinet boxes before we started hanging ...a good idea but it sure takes up a bunch of room.

 I'm in charge of the measuring and levelness. 

 The Husband realized he nailed the cabinet back on backwards...opps!

The long rail is in place. 

In too deep to back out now.

This sums up my current predicament.  I wanted a new ceiling fan for our family room.  The gold brass and white just doesn't really fit our decor. You can see it in the distance in the photo below. I ususally try to cut it out of pics because its so fugly. However, we have to have a flush mount and there isn't really anything that great out there in our price range (cheap-I would have to love it to spend $$). 

So I googled "painting a ceiling fan" because if I replaced the blades with a wood color and could change the metal to a brushed nickel color, the fan would work with the room.  The motor works fine and it does give off a ton of light.  Also the prospect of not having to totally reinstall something right now has an upside. 

I found a blog post on My Repurposed Life where the author did exactly what I'm looking to do. It didn't look to hard. However, this is where I am. In too deep to back out now. Need to figure out how to unscrew the clear soft plastic wire holder togethers. I anticipated the orange/black hard plastic thingies which I know how to deal with.

Light My Fire

Considering getting one of these for the new family room.  We like the flames and homeyness it would provide.

While I can't afford the 695 British Pounds for this one I found an affordable similar one at Overstock.  Plus I think it would coordinate very well with my new SS appliances in the kitchen.
Gel Fuel Fireplace

Lighting ideas.

Now that we have cabinets and flooring picked out, we are moving on to lighting.  We need to replace the ceiling fan in the family room and   3 lights in the kitchen. 

We are hoping to turn the light over the sink into a pendant and then the flourescent into something else.  And we need a new chandelier for the eat in area. 

Flooring.

Gosh I feel like we've spent weeks deciding about our floors.  We are installing ourselves and I know its gonna be hardwork but we are trying to save $$.  We debated bamboo, laminate, engineered woods and solid hardwood.  We looked at Lumber Liquidators and the Blue and Orange big box stores. We originally wanted a wood product but then got scared with the install and started looking at laminates. 

This one from Lumber Liquidators which I'm so glad we didn't pick. It looks fug looking back at it now but we were swayed by the easy snap in install.

Then we started looking at click in strand bamboo again for its easy install process.

While its nice, I did research on bamboo products and I just wasn't thrilled with some of the chemicals used in the stranding process.  So much for it being a "green" product.

So we ended our journey back where we began.  Hardwood.  We looked at enginneered hardwood but it just felt thin and cheap to me.  Luckily, I found an amazing deal on 3/4" thick solid wood at Orange store.  The Carya Hickory in Natural is only 3.98 a sq. foot in the  3 1/4 " wide strip.  Its a special order product and wouldn't be available until mid January.  But thanks to great customer service, I'm getting the 5" wide planks for the same price and its available immediately.  Amazing!  Some pics from another customer I found online.  She has the 3 1/4 " strip so my wider planks won't be quite as busy looking but we really like it.  Hence, why I'm glad my paint is pretty neutral and I think we are switching furniture around and my white sofa is going in the family room once we are done.

I'm so excited.  The reviews say the quality is really good and very little waste.

Tons of updates!

Wow I've been slacking lately.  We hadn't done that much to the reno due to friends coming to visit, Thanksgivings, the husband's birthday weekend and party the next weekend.  But we finally got ourselves in gear and painted everything, finalized our cabinet and floor selection and actually picked up our upper wall cabinets.  We are ordering the floors today (details posted soon!) and since the husband has off for 2 weeks we are hoping to get a lot done.  Some pics of the painting and Ikea pickup.  Note to self, next time don't pick up cabinets while windy and raining. 

Right now all the cabinet boxes are sitting in the family room awaiting the building process.  The kitchen paint color is Behr Candlelight Ivory, the same as the hallway. Its bright and neutral and frankly I wanted something "safe" in here since I know repainting once everything is installed would be a pain.