Covet: Keep Calm and Carry On...

We have about 2 feet of empty space above our cabinets.  We thought about adding another row of cabinets, but we can really only add three cabinets on top of a row of four, that would look weird.  Also, we have a"box" that covers the range hood which sticks out and would make an additional row of cabinets not very stream-lined.  

Sorry for the old pics, I did not have the foresight into capturing the whole wall for this post. 

I'm thinking of putting up some framed prints up there.  I wanted flowers, but R said no flowers.  I've been coveting these now:

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There's a buy 3 get 1 free promo going on and I'm really considering getting these and framing them.  R thinks they're a bit pricy.

Scrape - To remove from a surface by forceful strokes of an edged or rough instrument

I can finally show you my clean windows.  This project was such a pain in the ass.  I used a total of maybe 3 blades to scrape off the hot mess of 50+ year old contact paper.  My hands are still dry and I have some scraped knuckles to nurse.  I need hand cream!

So we have two windows.  When we first moved in, I began to scrape with a scraper. It didn't much, just left small patches.  That little corner above my head is not bare, it's colored "mosaic" contact paper.

This is the left window.  I think it was easier to scrape this one because it never sat in direct sunlight.

This is where R bought me a paint scraper, look at the progress.

See that small patch there?  Took me 3 days to scrape off!  50+ year old contact paper + sun = impossible to scrape adhesive.

Here's the finished window.  I have to leave a little bit of contact paper on because it's covering a crack.  R needs to apply some epoxy over it.

I'm (almost) so excited!

Have you ever had one of those stomach-turning feelings that something is so close, you can taste it? Well, I have those all the time.  Most of the time, they contribute to my anxiety issues because they turn into disappointments.  Anyway, I digress.

Today is supposed to be the last day of "patching and stuff."  My dad tells me that painting is the next step, but I'm a little hesitant to pop open the champagne early.  As we've seen time and time again, this old apartment works in wonderful ways to surprise us. Anyway, I have this lovely feeling that we're almost at the end, but not quite yet.  I'm all sorts of anxious.

Before you get all excited and stuff, I don't think we're going to finish until that last weeks of May at the earliest.  Hopefully in time for my sister's birthday.  Mustache dinner party anyone? Dinner options?

Oh, I also bought a gift certificate for $20 worth of cupcakes at Cups and Cakes.  Is it weird I want to try this?

 Pancake Breakfast - maple bacon cake, maple buttercream, bacon

Remodeling Sunday

The good news: we have cabinets and full walls now! Bad news? R and I can barely move now.  I almost forgot, I got so frustrated at a backsplash tile I broke it. Anyway, pictures!

Remember this?

Then it looked like this

And now, it looks like this

Here's a before and after of the stove area.

Before:

After:

Take a look at the before and after of the window too.  I'll post pictures when I finish scraping 50+ year old contact paper off the window.  I just didn't have it in me to finish today. I'll have more pics once my blister heals up and I regain feeling in my right arm.

Martha's messing with me.

Look at Martha's new pattern!

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Too bad her set still costs more than what I paid at Anthro.

I feel like a fattie...

My dad comes over twice a week to help us renovate.  We're cleaning the dust and debris for the other five days.  Renovations are stressful and exhausting.

Back to the title, after a month of eating out EVERY DAY, my clothes are getting tighter.  I think we have at least another month to go.  I am so afraid my pants won't fit after that. 

I've spent the past two months looking for Ikea's Varde kitchen pieces.  It isn't my first choice in cabinetry, but we had really limited choices because of our kitchen layout.  Varde is one of Ikea's more sturdy and free-moving pieces, which is why we decided on that.

It all began more than a year ago when R and I wandered into the as-is section at Ikea.  He saw this sink base on sale for $105.  We also bought a discontinued sink/countertop for $50.

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We picked it up despite not ever knowing whether or not my FIL would ever do renovations.  It sat in our apartment for until we began renovations last month.

The matching cabinets also went on sale for $50 each.  I didn't know that they were on sale because they were going to get discontinued!  I became very weary and decided not to purchase them because it seemed like renovations just wasn't in the picture.  The cabinets looked like this:

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The new version came out a few months later, they look like this:

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Double the size of what we wanted. Damn it. At this point, I had given up and decided to buy them later.  It turns out my FIL bought a few cabinet bases without consulting us.  The return date had already passed, so I decided to be cheapskate and hack them. I'll post pics when they're up.

Another issue we had was tracking down this piece:

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This one left me with many sleepless nights.  We did not buy it in the beginning because it was regular-priced, which meant it wasn't getting discontiued any time soon. We saw it in stock many times at our Ikea trips, but I decided that we should wait for renovations to commence before I made the committment.

The week before renovations, we went to Ikea and found out that it was out of stock.  Everywhere.  At every Ikea in California.  I panicked and craiglist-ed the damn thing for two weeks straight.  After two major disappointments, I found one in San Francisco for $100.  It needed serious TLC.  It is currently living in the basement until we finish the kitchen renovations, so I have no pictures again.

So really, I don't have any actual kitchen pictures to show you yet.

Covet: Anthro Batik-pattern!

Although he personally voted against it, R left the cup decision up to me.  I decided not to buy them because the chance of using the dishes, bowl and cup together were slim to none.

But look at what else I found! Matching towels!

 

Love: Anthro Batik-patterned China!

R's going to kill me.  The last time I went downtown for a meeting, I came home with this:

I was at a meeting this morning, and well, I bought these:

 

To be fair, I had a bad week! And I tried to think practically and didn't pick up the matching cups.

I'm feeling a little remorseful for abandoning the cups now.  I mean, we don't really use cups, we use glasses...Should I really go back and get them?

What to do?

Covet: New Stuff at Paper Source

I have a love and hate relationship with Paper Source.  Just ask R.  I spent a lot of money and time at the damn store leading up to the wedding, but little to show for it.  I blame wedding burnout and their lame return policy.  Anyway, I got their new catalog in the mail today.  *Squeal*

Matrushka Measuring cups

Butterfly Vase

Teacake Cupcake Mold

Dry Erase Wallies

Fake Mustaches ( I want to have a mustache party!)

Cupcake Apron ( Makes an appearance in this movie) 

Babushkups Cups

Cupcakes!

My sister and I like cupcakes.  We've been on a cupcake mission for quite a while, but I didn't think to document it before, so we'll start here.

Here's a quick summary.

Kara's Cupcakes - (clockwise from top left) sweet vanilla passion fruit, java, chocolate velvet, raspberry dazzle

Baked - chocolate cupcake with oreo cream, Red Devil cake (they have a cupcake version of this too)

Miette - Gingerbread w/ cream cheese frosting and vanilla w/ vanilla buttercream

 

Cupkates - Red velvet,double vanilla, smores.

 

Cako - (Clockwise from top left) red velvet, chocolate decadence, coconut, vanilla chocolate, lemon raspberry, mocha.

More pics later!

The joys of remodeling, pt.3

WTF? Blogger won't let me upload pics directly from my camera now? This is going to take forever!


Not much of a progress report, but were's what we started with:

 Then we did this:

Now it looks like this:

Another 1413478924562385 days to go...

Covet: Liberty of London & Anthro sale!

The kitchen is still not done yet.  Boo.

Target's Liberty of London line came out the same time we were packing away our crap for remodeling. I've been holding off, but it's been so hard every time I go to the store.  I really wanted the cute prep bowls, but after about 3 stores, I gave up.  I tried to buy them online, but they were out of stock, so I signed up to get an email notification when they're in stock.  I checked the website today and the bowls are only available at stores! Grr...

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I want these too...

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Even though all our crap is packed away in storage, I still couldn't help myself and picked up a few "Anthro"-inspired pieces from Marshalls.  I forgot to take pictures before I shipped them off to my mom's house.  And then I went to anthropologie.com and saw all these pretties on sale.

 

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I'm still holding out on buying more stuff because I'm not even sure I can incorporate all that I have already into our imaginary kitchen.