thank you mr. president!

A couple of days ago we received the check with our first time home buyers credit. Thank you Obama!

We will invest the money in a new bathroom and some other little things that we want to fix...

let there be light

The new light fixtures are up. Much better than the chandeliers and another plus is that they are clean. The chandeliers were so sticky I don't know how long they haven't been cleaned and all the dead bugs sticking to them...Yuck!

All the fixtures are from Ikea. Left to Right Fado, Kulla and Foto

Above the dining table I would also loved the Maskros fixture from Ikea or the Random Light. But ultimately I felt that Maskros would be better suited in a bigger room. Still love the look though. And I wasn't quite ready to splurge on the Random Light...

i ♥ spackling

Last weekend was a holiday weekend and of course we used the extra day to get things done at our house. Even though it was about a 100 degrees outside and not much cooler inside I painted the room that will become the guest bedroom. Meanwhile Peter was working in the yard, with no shade in sight. Before I was able to start painting one water damaged wall needed to be fixed. First I scraped of the paint that formed bubbles and then started spackling the area to make it blend into the surrounding area. After it was dry I sanded it to smooth it out. Then I painted the previously damaged area with oil based primer, primed the remaining walls with latex primer and painted the walls with two coats of latex paint.

I have to admit I actually like the effect on the third picture...but the freshly painted wall is not so shabby either. Never spackled an area this big and who knew I had it in me...Really like the outcome.

kitchen - makeover part IV

The cabinet doors are finally hung except for the two doors above the fridge because their hinges are broken and I haven't gotten around to buying new ones. We really like how the kitchen is coming along. Since I took these pictures we have already started to put together our new kitchen island and changed the light fixture. More about that later...

kitchen - makeover part III

Last weekend I painted the cabinet doors. All 23!!! of them. This took much longer then I anticipated but the result was well worth it. Next step will be hanging all the doors and put new hardware on.

kitchen - makeover part II

Next in the kitchen makeover was painting the red tile backsplash. First step was the primer. I used Stix Waterborne Bonding Primer - Urethane Acrylic.

The next day I painted the backsplash a lighter grey with oil based paint. A second coat followed two days later. After the second coat we gave the paint ten day to fully dry as we went on a vacation. Which was a good thing so we didn't have to be careful for a couple of days not to mess up the newly painted backsplash.

tile before

with primer

painted

kitchen - makeover part I

This is how the kitchen looked when we saw the house for the first time. Didn't really impress me. It felt so dark in there and the cabinets are not really our style either. Since we didn't want to redo the kitchen right away we needed a quick (not!) and inexpensive fix to make it look nice.

Unfortunately these are the only before pictures I took.

First we replaced the banged up stove, greasy microwave above the range and the dishwasher. Then I took off all doors and went right to priming the cabinets. My parents were nice enough to sand all the cabinets and doors for me so I could start priming right away.

In the next step the cabinets got two coats of grey semi gloss latex paint. Already much better, right?