So there yo go – the before.  It is really not “me.”

The mission began to look for pics and ideas for how I could renovate this without spending $30,000 – which is low on the “total overhaul a kitchen” budget.  We did not want to spend that.  I like the arrangement, sans the island.  That is on casters though, so it can roll out.  I do not like the flooring so a flooring change is high on the list.  The appliances are very old and could handle being replaced.  Just my first observations….

Here are some of the pictures I love.  Looking for similarities I continue to see wood, white, exposed dishes, simple ideas, and they look easy to cook in.  I do not love an overly modern kitchen because it seems hard to rough up and live in.  I need to be able to get the thing filthy!  I need to be able to have red sauce splashing around and flour all over the place.

So based on what we have and what we would like to add, here is the plan:

• Paint everything white.  This includes scraping the ceilings, removing the drop down ceiling soffits, and of course saying goodbye to the wallpaper.
• Keep lower cabinets.  I like the arrangement.  Of course they will be so pretty with some new hardware and shiny white paint
• Get new appliances.  I am excited about having a double oven!
• Remove upper cabinets.  I am going to give the open shelving thing a shot!  If I regret it, one day I can add cabinets.  The one over the peninsula is especially obtrusive and once you remove that, the others are crying out to come down too.
• Wood Countertops.  This could have a post of all to itself!  In fact, I could probably talk for days about the pros, cons, techniques for sealing or finishing… it is pretty crazy how I obsessed over this decision.  It came down to this:  My quote for quartz or granite was FIVE TIMES the cost of butcher block.  I figure we could replace them 5 times if we needed to!  The good news is, wood lasts forever.  If you get a stain, you just sand it off and rub more mineral oil on it.  I am going with the mineral oil technique rather than sealing them because I want to use them as a functional cutting surface.  That is the nutshell version.  Google it if you are interested, but be forewarned that you may get sucked into the abyss.
• New Lighting Scheme.  We are removing the fluorescent light and just putting cans in a freshly sheetrocked ceiling.  Over the peninsula will be 4 pendants.
• New Backsplash.  I am still mid-battle on this decision.  It is down to 4 options:  1″ white hexagons (pic above with red pot), white subway tiles (seems like it is everywhere but it IS a classic!), white penny rounds, or bead board.  To be continued…
• Replace the floors.  We are going to do wood floors that will match the rest of the house.

Here is my little attempt at sketching out what the new one will look like!  Thoughts??

And yesterday, when I dropped by to drop off some things, I discovered that a work crew had ALREADY STARTED!!!  We had no idea they were starting yesterday!  It was the best surprise ever.

Day 1:

The sites I wanted to highlight are One Kings Lane and Joss & Main.  These are sites I visit daily.  I have bought rugs, mirrors, artwork, accessories, and have never had one single hiccup in customer service.  How it works is you sign up (free) and receive daily emails about their sale events.  These sale events are very random, but mostly home stuff.  The catch is that the sale events only last about 72 hours and they sell out fast!  You have to keep an eye on them and snag things with a quickness.  Rugs are crazy cheap here!  I mean, there are the occasional “sales” that seem like they are only for the rich and famous, but for the most part you can find some amazing deals.  The best way to describe these sites is a TJ Maxx on steroids but you do not have to stand in line and they have way more stuff

Today, at One Kings Lane, I found these beauties.  They are framed pieces of art made of ribbon and fabric scraps!  I am so very excited.  Hanging on a white wall, I think they will be perfect.  The bold colors layered on the muslin colored background with the black frames is exactly what I am looking for as far as combining the oldness of the house with the newness I love.

Another thing I snagged was this little table set for Sullivan.  He has a little table and chair set from Ikea that is adorable, but honestly has not held up.  I only paid $19 for the set, so I got way more use out of it than I thought I would get.  This will sit in a little nook space in the big family room and will be a place for him to color, eat, and act like a big boy at his fancy table!

Well there you go!  I hope you will all find some great deals at these sites.  There are wonderful gift items, random things like beach chairs, towels, glassware, and just some serious awesomeness

XOXO

This has become the forerunner of many inspiration pictures for the family room. I makes me know that white walls, ceilings and trim are the way to go!

The house is OLD.  It is full of old details and character that I do not want to try and replicate but also want to be mindful of.  I want the house to be fresh and new and modern, but framed by its history.  This really will not be too hard to achieve.  The plan is to paint out all of the walls, ceiling, trim, doors, and cabinets WHITE!!!  Yes, WHITE!!!  I have researched white paints over and over and honestly, you can try to decide on a white until the cows come home – it is pretty overwhelming.  I decided on a standard combo of Benjamin Moore “Ballet White” for all walls and “White Dove” trim and ceilings.  Whew.  Decision made!

I cannot wait to see the house painted!  Right now we are dealing with a good bit of wallpaper and actually a lot of blue.  The previous owners loved blue!  I am excited to brighten it up with white paint and let all of the dark wood floors keep us grounded.  Fun times.  Here are some pics:

This is the view when you walk in the main front door.  I am standing in a cool little room that will be a sitting room / living room without a TV, but instead with a beautiful fireplace.  To the right you see the breakfast/dining room, and beyond you see the big family room.  I cannot wait to see this after it is painted! I will be taking the doors off the hinges and keeping those as cased openings.  Maybe one day they will be enlarged?  Not sure.

The white fireplace.  It is just to the left of the pic above.

This is the family room.  Most of the house has 8′ ceilings, but this one makes up for it easily.  Imagine this all painted white!!!  Walls, ceilings, all of the wood around the French doors, the doors themselves, the fireplace, the mantle… ahhh… cannot wait.

Here is the kitchen – definitely cannot WAIT to see the cabinets painted white and the wallpaper removed and replaced with paint.  I will probably be removing all upper cabinets and opting for open shelving but that is a different post.  We are fairly sure there are wood floors hiding under that stick down vinyl, so having that restored will be another part of the plan.  Wood floors in the kitchen?  Yes, please!

Thanks for following along.  I am very excited!  We should be closing before April 30 and then the real fun will begin!

XOXO,

Ash

First, lets talk about the land.  For quite awhile we have been looking for what I have realized is a needle in a haystack.  We have been looking for a piece of land that is from 4-10ish acres but is still an easy to commute to our jobs in BR.  This is SO hard to find – especially in our price range!  Everything is either a small lot in a development or a huge 100 acre farm!  Geeze – hours were spent digging online and asking family friends.  Everyone said the same thing – “Good luck.”  In our minds we would build our “forever home” and so we looked mostly at pieces of land rather than land with houses.  This was even more scarce.  We stumbled upon this listing on realtor.com one day when I was mindlessly looking and eating shrimp shish ka bobs.  I’ll never forget that!  We always mindlessly search(ed) real estate sites.  This house was in Central rather than Zachary which had been our first choice all along.  It still seemed like a good thing so we went and looked.  It is on 4.5 acres.  That is basically all we knew.  There were not man interior pics online which is usually (always!) a bad thing.  Kyle called the listing agent and we set up a time for me to go the next morning to check it out.  He had a meeting so I went by myself.

So lets talk about the house.  When I drove up, I loved it.  The outside is great – as is the landscaping.  The inside is… well… how should i say this??  Let’s just say it was SCREAMING my name to renovate it and give it new life!  The house is 75 years old.  Through this I have realized I am 85% an old house person.  15% of me would love to build one exactly like I want it, but 85% gets so much true genuine joy out of giving back life to an old house.  It has so much charm – original old wood floors, beautiful baseboards and trim… so so pretty.  You cannot get this character from scratch, and when you try, you are left with something that is not genuine.  If you have a new house, embrace it as new.  If you have an old house, love it for its quirks and character.  The kitchen and baths are really really out of date, almost all ceilings have popcorn – some of which is falling down, and it was pretty dirty.  No one has lived in it for over a year and a half.  It was great for the previous owners, but very far from what we would like.  Another perk of being an old house person is that you can usually do it a LOT cheaper than building.  So, this is what we are doing!  I have realized through this that I do have quite the frugal side.

I called Kyle afterwards and told him “you need to see it.”  It was interesting enough in my mind that I wanted him to come see it, but I was not totally sold.  It was just sort of a weird house in a lot of ways – no closet space, wallpaper on the ceilings, and keep in mind that at this point we were primarily looking for a place to build new and this one was going to be a project.  He, Sullivan and I met the realtor later that night.  We brought our rubber boots and walked the land as well.   This can only be described as a spiritual experience

We brought our rubber boots and walked the land back to the river.  It was so so so great.  I could not believe that the land literally bordered the Amite.  I have it running through my blood to live on the water – growing up on the lake just spoiled me.  I felt so good about moving there but at the same time I was super worried that we would not move fast enough and that someone would snatch it away!  As the night and next day went on, we decided to make an offer the next day.  Having the perfect kitchen and popcorn-free ceilings meant nothing to me after I walked back to the river.  Now we are dealing with all the logistics as far as setting up the closing, appraisal, and all that so it is almost a done deal.

A little side note – I was baptized in the Amite river and have so many childhood memories of that river.  A little extra caveat that is pretty priceless.   I get so excited thinking of Sullivan and his friends playing here.  He seriously has run around non stop the whole time every time we have been out there.

Some pics:

This is the front of the house.  I think it is so pretty.  Picture some white caladiums and red geraniums all over the place!

Some fig trees in the back yard.

The back yard.

The field where the previous owner kept horses.

Standing on the back of the land looking at the river.  The sandy beach is across the way!  Apparently this is the good fishing side though

This is a little background info on how it all went down.  I am a country girl.  I grew up in the sticks.  I am also a city girl.  I could live in a 500 square foot apartment in Manhattan or on a farm.  I love both – just not a fan of mid-sized subdivision style set ups.  I cannot see Kyle moving to Manhattan, but he’s great on trips there  Basically, if we have to drive into the city for work, ideally we would like to be able to spread out.  Kyle has lived in Baton Rouge most of his life, but like me, he has a special place in his heart for the country being the outdoors-man that he is.  This is quite the conundrum when planning a life that is totally immersed in BR.  What to do??? At some point families just have to make a call and decide what they want their life to look like.  We did that.  We want our lives to be one of gardens and fruit trees and 4wheelers and even a few chickens.

A whole other aspect of this is that I am a public school girl to my bones and really want Sullivan to have a “Friday Night Lights” type of school experience.  I mean, if Tami and Eric and Julie moved in next door things would be even more than I could dream for!  She could be our babysitter!  Oh well, I guess that is probably not going to happen.  Ha!  The town we are moving to has a fabulous public school system and I think it will be perfect for our him/us and any future Hawthornes.

More to come on the house and the land and our adventures in renovating this house that is so loudly calling my name!  As a preview, this is the back yard… so peaceful.

Before Pic:

Step 1: Wipe it down to remove dust and who knows what else may be lurking on your old furniture.  Also, remove the hardware and drawers.

Step 2: Prime.  I did not sand this piece and jumped right to priming.  It was not a “slick” finish, and I was on the clock since Sullivan was banging on the door wanting to get into the room, so sanding got the boot.  I honestly think that is okay though, because the primer was a good quality and seemed to really “stick” to the wood well.  I used this Sherwin Williams “Multi-Purpose Latex Primer.” As far as application method, I used a brush and a roller and just sort of switched back and forth to get as smooth of a finish as I could.  On the big flat surfaces such as the top and sides, I rolled it out and then went back and brushed out the texture left by the roller while it was still wet.  None of this really matters as long as you get good coverage and don’t have any bit streaks.

Step 3: Paint.  I used Sherwin Williams “ProClassic Interior Acrylic Latex Enamel.”  It is great for trim and doors, and so that translates well to the durability and finish I wanted for this piece.  The color was SW6484 “Meander Blue.”  I was going for “the perfect robin’s egg blue,” and I really do love this one.  It is not too green, not too gray, and not too baby boy (although I do love baby boys!).  A quart was far more than enough for this piece.  In fact, I have almost half a quart left and may use it on my kitchen table.  I used a brush for drawer faces and all of the trim, and rolled the paint out on the larger flat surfaces – top and sides.  After rolling, I brushed out the roll texture while it was still wet.  I really was in a huge rush, so I used a breeze box fan to dry it real quick so that I could do the second coat.

Step 4: Replace Hardware.  I bought some contemporary hardware from Ikea in brushed nickel.  After painting the dresser, I opted to replace what was originally there.  For some reason, the new hardware seemed phony.  The old sort of tarnished brass hardware seemed to be just enough to tie it back to being an heirloom.  Another big plus is that I did not have to drill new holes!

After Pic:

The dresser is in our master bedroom, and is styled simply with a lamp, mirror, and a few accessories.

Sources:

Lamp – From Red Door Interiors in Baton Rouge

Ceramic Bowl – From LSU Ceramics Arts Sale

Mirror – Hand-me-down

Little White Ceramic Box – Garage Sale

White Picture Frame – Wedding Gift

Candle – Niven Morgan “St. Tropez” (a splurge but I LOVE it).

Chair – From Honeymoon Bungalow in Baton Rouge

Pillows in Chair – The gold one is so old I have no idea where I got it.  The black and white fish is from West Elm.

Drapes – Ikea Kajsa Panels

A few tips to take away from these pics.  Just be who you are.  If you are drawn to the simple and like to keep things neutral, that is totally okay!  If you like flamboyant things and lots of color, that is okay!  I recently found myself trying to fit into a style that just did not fit.  It was such a frustrating thing for me creatively.  I decided to kick those ridiculous expectations to the curb and embrace the things I love even if they were all mis-matched and very un-catalogue-like!

Another tip- try and steer clear from being stuck with a color scheme.  The color scheme should be just things you like.  When you start out with a color scheme it is hard to break out of it, but if you start out just selecting things you love, the schemes sort of follow.  I know this can be hard, but just try and not set a list of rules before the design gets going.  If you have questions, leave a comment or email me!  I love to talk about these things.  Enjoy the pictures!

“I don’t believe in minimalism. There are no rules when it comes to mixing styles and colours. A house should give you a happy and warm feeling. With this in mind I create my art and my products.” -Mariska

XOXO