Kitchen Renovation Part 6 ~ Counter Tops

Welcome back to our kitchen renovation! We hope you had a great weekend! Although we still have lots and lots and lots of snow, the temperature warmed up a little bit. So maybe spring will be here soon! If you missed our previous posts about our kitchen, you may like to read Kitchen Renovation Part 1, Kitchen Renovation Part 2, Kitchen Renovation Part 3 ~ Putting Up The Walls, Kitchen Renovation Part 4 ~ Our DIY Customized Microwave Cabinet Out Of A Stock Cabinet , and Kitchen Renovation Part 5 ~ Our DIY Furniture Style Cabinets Out Of Stock Cabinets. You will have a much better idea as to where we started and how far we have come with our kitchen renovation. When we had first started planning our kitchen, we were going to purchase beautiful granite counter tops. However, when it came time to actually move forward with our kitchen the granite I had picked out was not really a feasible option. Therefore, we decided to go in another direction. I had seen many great kitchens with butcher block counter tops and loved the contrast between light and dark (I had already planned to use white cabinets with a dark wood floor.), so we decided to make our own wood counter tops. We weren't sure how well they would work out, but thought we would give them a try. There are many tutorials to follow, but we used a combination of these two: The Shabby Creek Cottage  and  Breakfast For Dinner By Loraine. They were really quite easy to follow.

Kitchen Renovation Part 5 ~ Our DIY Furniture Style Cabinets Out of Stock Cabinets

Hi everyone, we hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Welcome back to our kitchen renovation! If you are new to our blog and have missed our prior posts about our kitchen renovation, you might like to read Kitchen Renovation Part 1, Kitchen Renovation Part 2, Kitchen Renovation Part 3 ~ Putting Up The Walls, and Kitchen Renovation Part 4 ~ Our DIY Customized Microwave Cabinet Out Of A Stock Cabinet. As I mentioned in our previous posts, we were using our kitchen and trying to stay on a budget while renovating. So, although it would have been wonderful to complete everything at one time, we needed to complete our kitchen in stages. When we were planning our kitchen, I did a lot of perusing in magazines, books, and the internet to get an idea as to what would work for our kitchen. I liked the aesthetic as well as the functional aspects of drawer cabinets, as oppose to door cabinets. To get the look and function we wanted without the extra cost, we purchased stock cabinets and painted them white. We loved our new cabinets, but they needed a little extra something. I wanted a built-in look without the expense. When I saw this idea at Cuckoo 4 Design, I knew it was the perfect solution! So, we decided to extend the counter length (we made our own) past the end of the cabinets and add posts to give the base cabinets a furniture style look.

This is how the cabinets looked when we started.

Frozen Winter Birthday Party Part 3 ~ The Slumber

Hi everyone! Welcome back to Hailey's frozen winter birthday party! (If you missed our last posts, you may like to read Frozen Winter Birthday Party Part 1 ~ The Preparations and Frozen Winter Birthday Party Part 2 ~ The Food and Dessert Tables.) Since Hailey's birthday party was also a slumber party, we created a frozen, winter, castle/tent for the girls to sleep. And..... since we asked the girls to wear their Frozen pajamas, for her party, we included a "chillin out" theme as part of our frozen winter theme.

First, Chris and Brice hung the bunting from the ceiling.

Next, Chris and I hung the draping on each side of the entryway.

And then, I set up tables and chairs in our office/playroom

for the girls to eat, paint, and play games.

Frozen Winter Birthday Party Part 2 ~ The Food and Dessert Tables

Hi everyone! Welcome back to Hailey's frozen winter birthday party! If you missed our last post, you may like to read Frozen Winter Birthday Party Part 1 ~ The Preparations. As I mentioned in our last post, we were ripping up the carpet in our dining room and office which meant that we still needed to put most of our furniture back before Hailey's party. So, we kept her party simple. We ordered her birthday cake from a local bakery and purchased blue punch. Then, I baked cupcakes and cookies and used our bread tubes to make heart shaped bread for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I, also, made heart shape ice cream. (I used the same idea I did in Hailey's princess/prince/knight birthday party.) Next, I filled our apothecary jars with candy in blue, white, and silver colors. We used our white dishes to serve cheese sticks, carrots, black olives, and chips. Seriously, the easiest menu I have ever planned!

When I was going through the photos of cakes

the bakery had done previously, I saw this cake done as

a beach theme cake with seashells, etc.

And then, I saw a picture with snowflakes on cookies.

So, I asked if they could do a cake in these blue

colors and add the snowflakes for a frozen winter theme.

I was very pleased when I picked up the cake.

It turned out even better than what I had pictured in my mind.

It was a beautiful cake and tasted great!

(I added the number seven to the top of the cake.)

Frozen Winter Birthday Party Part 1 ~ The Preparations

Hi everyone! We hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day! We, as usual, had a very busy weekend, but great too. A few weeks ago we hosted Hailey's birthday parties at our home (We hosted a friend birthday party one evening and a family party the next evening). At first, the only requirement she had for her friend party was that she wanted a slumber party. So, we had originally planned a theme party based on one of Hailey's favorite book series and made plans for a slumber party (Hailey's first slumber party). However, Hailey decided she wanted a Frozen slumber party. So..... we created a winter theme party with various shades of blue and white and included stars, sparkly number sevens, and snowballs. We, also, asked the girls to come dressed in their Frozen pajamas to include Hailey's request for a Frozen party and because it was a slumber party. Since her birthday was quickly approaching, we had a limited amount of time to plan and prepare for her party. And of course, right after the holidays, we decided to rip up the carpets in our dining room and office/playroom (which were the rooms we would be using for her parties). (If you are new to our blog, you may like to read Dining Room ~ Putting Up The Walls.) This meant that our whole house was in disarray. We still had Christmas items in the family room, furniture stacked in the parlor, front entry way, and upstairs, and sanders, stain, and sealer in the dining room and office. Our house was an obstacle course. (And just in case you're wondering, we had not intended our floors to be such an involved project.) Therefore, we needed to keep her party fun as well as easy.

Valentine Goodie Bags 2015

We hope everyone had a great weekend! Ours was very busy celebrating Hailey's 7th birthday with family and friends. We will have party posts soon! In the mean time, you may like to check out Our Parties from prior years. But for now, with Valentine's Day just a few days away, I thought you might like to see the goodie bags I put together for Hailey's Valentine Day Party at school. I already had bags and ribbon. So, all I had to do was decide how I wanted to decorate the bags. Last year, I stamped the front of plain brown paper bags and added ribbon (Valentine Day Bags 2014) which I loved, but I wanted to do something different this year. When I found this beautifully done free printable from Twig & Thistle, I knew that it would work perfect.

I printed the image directly onto the bags,

folded the top of the bags down,

made hole punches and tied ribbon

through the holes to close the bags.

I made the bow on the other side

of the bag so it wouldn't detract from

the beautiful design of the printable.

The bow also "prettied up" the other side of the bag. :)

As for the goodies inside,

I made candy hearts with my candy mold pan

and added some cute Valentine themed items.

To make the candy hearts, I mixed

1 tsp. of vegetable oil in 8 ounces of candy or chips

and melted the candy/chips in the microwave until smooth.

I spooned the mixture into the mold.

And then, put the mold into the refrigerator for about one hour.

For the red hearts, I used red melt candy

For the chocolate hearts, I used milk chocolate chips

And for the white and pink hearts,

I used white chocolate chips

and added red food coloring to make the pink.

These were so quick, easy and inexpensive.

I love the way they turned out!

We hope everyone has a happy Valentine's Day!

Thanks for visiting Our Family Inspired Home!

We would love for you to follow us!

20 Genius Drawer Organizers {Our Hometalk Curated Board}

Love the fresh start of a new year! We have all of our Christmas decor put away and are enjoying the simplicity of our January decor. In January, I like to go back to our basic neutral decor before we jump into Valentine's day. In January, we also like to take a look at what is working and what may not be working as far as simplifying, decluttering, and organizing our home. Hometalk loved the organization post we shared, last year, about Hailey's Dresser Drawers and asked Our Family Inspired Home to curate another board for them with drawer organization ideas. This is the second board we have had the opportunity to curate for Hometalk and are very excited to share these 20 Genius Drawer Organizers with you! (If you missed the first board we curated, you may like to read about it here 25 Stylish Birthday Party Ideas ) When needing ideas or information for our home, one of the first places I go to is Hometalk. Hometalk is a great source of inspiration and information. You can find amazing ideas, in addition to asking questions you may have about your home. You, clip, like, and share projects that you love and would like to refer back to later. We love Hometalk!

This cool pinnable graphic

was created for us

by the Hometalk team!

Click to view all 20 Genius Drawer Organization Ideas!

Here are a few to get you started!

See more at House By Hoff and on our
Drawer Organization Hometalk Board.

See more at Time With Thea and on our

Drawer Organization Hometalk Board.

See more at Shaken Together and on our

Drawer Organization Hometalk Board.

Check out more simple, economical, drawer organization ideas

on our 20 Genius Drawer Organizer Hometalk Curated Board!

Thanks for visiting Our Family Inspired Home!

We would love for you to follow us:

Hometalk
Facebook
Google+
Twitter
Pinterest
StumbleUpon
Bloglovin

Kitchen Renovation Part 4 ~ Our DIY Customized Microwave Cabinet Out Of A Stock Cabinet

Welcome back to our kitchen renovation! If you are new to our blog, you may like to read (Kitchen Renovation Part 1, Kitchen Renovation Part 2, and Kitchen Renovation Part 3 ). Finding kitchen cabinets to suit our needs, as well as look the way we wanted, was proving to be a challenge. I wanted our upper cabinet to have two side by side doors, but could only find 24 inch cabinets with one door.  I, also, wanted a 36 inch pantry cabinet with two side by side doors, but could only find 18 inch and 24 inch pantry cabinets with one door.  I wanted our microwave to be under our counter, but we couldn't find an under the counter stock microwave cabinet. Customized cabinets were out of the question. So, of course, we made our own!

For the upper cabinet and pantry,

our solution was simple.

We purchased two, 12 inch, stock cabinets

(instead of one 24 inch cabinet)

to hang side by side and, then,

reversed the door on one of the cabinets

so they would open facing each other.

We, then, purchased two, 18 inch, stock pantry cabinets

(instead of one 36 inch cabinet)

and reversed the doors on one of the cabinets.

Genius! 

Chris, then, painted all of the cabinets

and added molding to top of our cabinets.

Our solution to the microwave cabinet took

a little more thinking and a little more work.

Chris was sure he could make a cabinet,

but wasn't so sure about the drawer

I wanted underneath the microwave.

So, we decided we would try

to make what I wanted

out of a stock base drawer cabinet.

After taking out the top two drawers

and cutting the braces out,

Chris added a piece of wood

to sit on brackets he made

to hold our microwave. 

He, also, added dowel rods in the drawer

because I wanted to keep

our everyday dishes in the drawer

which helped to organize the space into sections.

They all turned out great!

A simple, beautiful, economical solution

to get the aesthetic look we wanted

with a financial budget we could afford!

Come back next week to see how we customized

our base cabinets to get the look we wanted

without the added expense!

Thanks for visiting Our Family Inspired Home!

We would love for you to follow us!

Facebook

Google +

Twitter

Pinterest

Hometalk

StumbleUpon

Bloglovin

It's A New Year, "Make Everyday A Happy Day"!

Hope everyone had a wonderfully blessed Christmas! Ours was fantastic! As we look forward to the new year, we are setting our goals. And while reading, perusing, and looking for inspiration for all of the projects we need to complete in our new home, I came across this quote. "Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it" -Ellen Goodman. And I thought, wow this is so true! We get so caught up in this circle that we forget to just "really live" in our home, along the way. However, we don't want a vacant home. We don't want to be a part of that circle. We want to "really live" in our home and slow down to enjoy the moment. We want to "make everyday a happy day". This is what we are working towards. This is our ultimate goal. Afterall, that is why we purchased our new home which led to the name of our blog, Our Family Inspired Home. As for the work on our home, we finally, have all areas of our home livable (for those who are new to our blog, we purchased a foreclosed home that was empty for a few years and needs a lot of work). We have had a new furnace and central air system with all new duct work installed, have one major project in our home (Kitchen Renovation Part 1, Kitchen Renovation Part 2, Kitchen Renovation Part 3) almost complete, and all other rooms are usable (although, not pretty yet :) ). So, although there is still so much more to do, we are striving to "live" in our new home, slow down to enjoy the moment, and "make everyday a happy day".

Thanks for visiting Our Family Inspired Home!

We would love for you to follow us!

Facebook

Google +

Twitter

Pinterest

StumbleUpon

Hometalk

Bloglovin

Kitchen Renovation Part 3 ~ Putting Up The Walls

We hope everyone is having a great week! We are, finally, starting to see the end of our kitchen renovation! It's coming along nicely and we can't wait for it to be finished. As I mentioned in Kitchen Renovation Part 1 and Kitchen Renovation Part 2, we renovated our kitchen in sections as we worked our way around the room. However, the drywalling we tried to complete, as much as possible, at one time.

We used the T's Chris made

(to aid us in drywalling our Dining Room)

to hang our drywall in the kitchen.

Brice helped score and cut drywall.

And, of course, Hailey wanted to learn

how to score and cut drywall, too.

 Derek helped tape and mud.

 Nathan helped sand.

  

And then, Chris primed the walls.

  

Our rockstar, Super Drywall Girl, celebrated

with a little dance. 

We will be back next week to share what we did next!

Thanks for visiting Our Family Inspired Home!

We would love for you to follow us!

Facebook

Google +

Twitter

Pinterest

StumbleUpon

Hometalk

Bloglovin

Kitchen Renovation Part 2

Today we are sharing the demolition of our kitchen renovation. If you missed how our kitchen looked when we purchase our home and when we moved in, you may like to read: Our Home, Moving Days, and Kitchen Renovation Part 1.We needed to do our kitchen in stages because we needed to make our home functional and work within our financial budget. So, we started on one side of the room and worked around the room as we were able. Yes, in most cases it would be better to just demo and put the room back together all at one time. However, that was not true in our case. We were trying to make our home livable and functional. Then, proceed with what we wanted. Need won out against want. Since we needed to be able to use the kitchen, while trying to do all of the other work in the kitchen, we were concerned that the new flooring would be damaged. So we also, needed to work around the old flooring as long as possible.

Chris and Brice got to work taking out the old cabinets.

Then, Chris started gutting the walls and

ceiling.

We found a few interesting things in the ceiling.....

Hailey wanted to help.

And then, we cleaned up.

We saved the nails we pulled out of the lath.

We will be back soon to share what we did next!

Thanks for visiting Our Family Inspired Home!

We would love for you to follow us:

Bloglovin

Facebook

Google +

Twitter

Pinterest

StumbleUpon

Hometalk

Kitchen Renovation Part 1

When we purchased our new house we knew that the overall layout was perfect for our family. However, we also knew that the layout of our kitchen was not going to work for our family. The original placement of the stove was on the outside wall and in between the outside entrance door and basement door. Not only did this disrupt the flow of a walkway, but it was also dangerous. We were concerned about the possibility of a little one running in from the back door while having the oven door open. In addition, if anyone walked from our family room through the kitchen to go out the back door, he/she would have to walk by a hot stove or open oven door. So, we needed to redesign the space and move the stove.We, also, had a few other issues with the kitchen: the walls needed to be replaced, the cabinets were not sufficient, there was one florescent light, the flooring was in bad shape, and the placement of the sink meant that our refrigerator didn't fit. So, we gutted the whole kitchen and started over. After measuring, marking our walls and floors, perusing magazines, books, other blogs and, of course, Pinterest, Hometalk, Houzz, and then rethinking our ideas, we finally came up with a plan for our new kitchen! Although our kitchen is smaller in size, it is far more  functional than it was before. If you're new here, you may like to read Our New Home ~ The Downstairs Before. And if you have been reading our blog for a while, you may have caught a few glimpses of our new kitchen in some our previous posts.

Just in case you missed it, this is what our kitchen

looked like when we purchased our home.

This is how it looked when we set it up to use for the weekends
we were here working on our house before we moved.
(Traveling Back and Forth)
(Atlanta, Cars, and a Job Well Done)

And this is how it looked after we moved.
(Moving Days)
Completely non-functional.....

We will be back next week to share what we did next!

Thanks for visiting Our Family Inspired Home!

We would love for you to follow us!
Bloglovin
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
Google +

StumbleUpon
Hometalk

Crockpot Shredded Pork

Welcome to Feed Us Friday! Chris and Hailey, usually, make their own rub for our meat and let it marinate while it's thawing in our refrigerator; and then, we either grill or bake what we are having for dinner. However I decided to make shredded pork in the crockpot while Chris was at work, so I needed to come up with an alternative. I searched the internet to get a general idea as to what seasonings are used for shredded pork and bbq pork. And, I came up with this recipe!

I first mixed

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tbs. paprika

4 garlic cloves,
1tbs. onion powder,

1 tsp of salt,

1 tsp of pepper,

together in a bowl.

(And a tip)

This is one of our favorite

tools in our kitchen.

We have had it for years!

Whenever a recipe calls for garlic,

we use this garlic press from Pampered Chef.

I placed the pork roast in the crockpot

and poured the mixed seasonings on top.

And then, added one small/medium onion.

I covered and cooked it on high for 8 hours.

(most recipes I have read

say between 4-8 hours on low,
so I'm not sure if our crockpot cooks
at a lower temperature,

but ours turned out great.)

After it was done,

I cut the string

shredded the pork

and took it out of the crockpot.

It was delicious!

And it's perfect for reheating if you want leftovers

because it's even better the second day!

In fact, at first, I thought it needed more seasoning,
but Chris loved it, just the way it was, so I left it alone.
After leaving it in the refrigerator overnight,
the seasonings had a chance to really marinate
and I loved it, too!

Thanks for visiting Our Family Inspired Home!

Feed Us Friday

We would love for you to follow us!

Facebook

Google +

Twitter

Bloglovin

Pinterest

Hometalk