Unfinishedlandia

Most days, I sit and drool over the amazing blogs of the super keen, innovative women of this world thinking how I would love to have such a following and feeling utterly inadequate  The problem with this plan is, you have to actually finish your fabulous project in order to have others fawn over them.  Sure I have the vision but I am a big fat F on the execution.

STILL looks like this.

Oh sure, I can paint, saw and prime with the best of them. I started this blog in the faint hope that I could inspire others.  I knew I had that vision to make regular things cool.   Heck I could  make a knock your socks off wine bottle warmer out of a pant leg, or saw a hole in my roof and make a PET bottle skylight.  I even have a fantasy of building my own windmill tree some day.

The reality of completion always smacks me up side the head.  I am a one woman show and my husband would rather watch TV than build a house.  He works hard and is happy with the way things in our house are.  I should be more like him but I can't be.  The paint dings and wear of everyday life makes me crave change. Putting my feet up and ignoring it is not something I can do.  The bloggers of the ineterweb tease and show me that it is possible to achiever amazingly beautiful things with nothing more than some time, a tooth brush and a Popsicle stick with a wad of gum thrown in for good measure and colour inspiration.  And, shame on me, its all achievable while your kid sleeps.

My oldest son screamed for nine months straight and there was no doing anything while he slept because he didn't sleep.  EVER.  You see, my downfall is that I am real.  I am not a super hero of the internet.  I have a job and three kids and my time is spread thin. I love dreaming up projects but I don't love necessarily love finishing them.  I get bored easily and will jump ship or change my mind about where I want to go with a project when its almost done.  I guess you could say I have commitment issues.

I started making beautiful patterned mittens for my daughter three years ago.  I have one mitt.  I have the beginnings of a second mitt which is not particularly useful unless your in a one armed snowball fight or need to stab someone in the eye.  The mittens are just one of the many, not quite finished projects lying in wait in Unfinishedlandia.

Some day, I will get around to finishing all those little details. The island will have baseboard applied.  The crown molding will be properly caulked.  The walls will all be painted in the perfect hue.  The things on the shelves will be just so, perfectly visually pleasing.  It will be a sad day because it will be the day our house is no longer our home.  It won't be perfect until the day we sell it.

In the mean time, I have all those years to figure out what colour grout I really want in the kitchen.

Happy 2015.  May all your projects get finished this year!

The Never Ending Kitchen Project

I am kind of scared to admit this but my kitchen project has essentially sat here semi-finished since the counters went in.  I quite simply ran out of steam. I only have a few small-ish things left to do so it was easy to just live with it ...until this week!

I jumped back on the kitchen horse!  I want her DONE!

Please cheer me on here guys because I can really use some encouragement!

I got the primer out and primed the bulkhead prepping it for trimming out.

The current plan is to tile this space with the white subway tiles and put the shelves that were there back up.

Oh yeah!  Fresh white microwave shelf!  This baby was ugly fake oak.

My kitchen smells of Farrow and Ball paint.  Yummy.  I love the smell of it because it smells like clay class!  Its such a nice smell compared to most paint that is made with  synthetic  pigments.

As Seen on Pinterest - Re-grow Your Kitchen Scraps

One day while browsing Pinterest, I cam across pictures from someone who had re-grown a bunch of veggies from kitchen scraps.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't obsessed with this idea. There are lots and lots of examples of this working out there in blog land.

http://www.savvystudentshopper.com/blog/2012/05/22/regrowing-your-produce-free-easy/

I thought this was just the coolest thing and HAD to try it!

After making a salad last week, I very carefully saved the little bit of lettuce on the inside of the romaine.  I chopped the stump to make it fresh.  I dug a spot for it in the planter that currently holds my dead basil.   I SWEAR, that the middle bit of it has grown since I planted it on the weekend.  It is definitely a darker green.   

I am also celebrating the official survival of my rosemary through the winter.  My chives have grown a fabulous amount in the last month or so.  They are all green and spikey now!

This is what they looked like about a month ago!  How is that for gardening progress for someone with a black thumb!

Have you successfully re-grown veggies from kitchen scraps?  If you have, I would love to see them or hear your story!  I have some sad looking celery in the fridge that might just get this treatment in the next day or so because celery is apprently a good candidate for this method.

I really want to expand not only my veggie growing this year by hopefully growing lettuce, tomatoes and carrots but also expand my herb selections.  

Kitchen Knob Tutorial

I have a friend who lives in a builder house in Arizona and every time I see a picture of her kitchen I notice her doors have no knobs and no pulls.  I'm not sure if its a regional thing or yet another way for a builder to cheap out and reduce costs.  I can't imagine living in a kitchen that doesn't have something to grab hold of to open doors and drawers with.

I thought a little tutorial on knobs and pulls might be in order today.  So lets bring on the bling...

In the beginning....

My lovely oak kitchen had THESE knobs when we first bought it.  I couldn't get past them looking like buttons on a winter coat from the 1970's.  Yeuch.

Knobs and pulls on your kitchen are the jewelry of your kitchen.  They are not only pretty, they are functional.  You can dramatically change up the look of your kitchen with swapping out knobs or in the case of my friend, just adding some.

Knobs

Knobs can be used on both doors and drawers.  Knobs generally are the most cost effective option.  I opted for "glass" knobs that came in a builder package I found on clearnace for $8 for 5 knobs.  I paid approx than $30 for the 17 knobs I needed.  

My doors had been predrilled by the builder for the granny knobs.  I stuck with the same holes because of this - yeah no drilling.  

If your doors/drawers aren't drilled, you need to decide on where your going to place your knobs.  Mine are squared off between the bottom two corners.  Easy peasy.  The other option is to put them a bit higher on the vertical style.  Like addicted2decorating did in this pic...

Depending on the style of knob you choose you can lots of different looks...

Drawer Pulls

On drawers, you can use knobs or change it up a little and use pulls.  Drawer pulls are great for a grab and go cook like me.  My hands are often full and I like having something a bit bigger than a knob to yank.  I bought Restoration Hardware Gilmore drawer pulls for my kitchen.  They were pricey but I needed far less of them that the knobs.  I used them on each drawer and on my pull out cabinet.  I love these because they have a very rectangular feel to them.  I have to warn you though, the screws that come with these are horrible and break super easily.  The grusome details can be found here.

I really love this one that looks like its been around the bend a few times.  This could look amazing on a mis-matched island.

Hinges

Exposed hinges are usually found on more modern frameless kitchens which favor hidden Blum hinges instead.  If you have exposed hinges, consider chaning them out to match your new hardware.  All too often, over time, hinges wear and are often painted over.  

As a final note, one of the handiest tools you can have for your knob/pull project is a Fixta $3 hole drilling template from Ikea.  This helps people like me who aren't so hot with measuring to get it bang on the first time.

Quartz Counters

For the first time in years, I can actually SEE in here.  Its FINALLY bright enough.  And sitting at the island at counter height instead of bar height is SO much more comfortable. 

Helga modeling the kitchen.  

Ignoring the top bit that we still have to do....can you believe that that once looked like this. These messy kitchen pictures are pretty embarrassing.  I took these particularly awful pictures for a contest. I must be high on the glue we've been in inadvertently sniffing all day to post these for the world to see.

I think its pretty amazing how good our white stove looks with the white.  The installers even commented on how great it looks.

Next thing to do restore running water.