Cookin' Up A Kitchen

Remember the 'before' Kitchen pictures? Here's where we left off... After two weeks of owning the condo, we gutted the kitchen. I stayed out of the way for most of this one, since falling cabinets and a big belly don't go hand in hand. And it was a huge ongoing project for the next several months, although to date it still is not finished. Here's the view from the dining room.

We tore out the two closet/pantrys on either side of the kitchen entrance. And while we lost a little storage, they were really making the kitchen way smaller than it should be. And while removing wallpaper, we found another hidden flower stencil.While we had our demolition hats on, we figured why not take down the ceiling? If you can tell from the pictures, it was LOW. Which was odd and very out of place since the rest of the condo has tall ceilings.

My awesome husband even hooked up a gas line so I could have a gas stove on the other side of the kitchen (the previous stove was on the side closest to the dining room and was electric...no gas hookup).

And one day we finally had walls again. Since we took out the awful lighting when we raised the ceiling, we installed can lights. Nice and bright now!

The new year brought new tile, all laid while 5 months pregnant. Not the easiest thing to be on your knees with a trowel spreading tile adhesive! You might notice the little nook in the left of the photo below. Since the closet on the left was also part of the air system intake, we couldn't remove the whole thing. So a small column is still there, and we decided to make it a little more functional by turning it into a sort of shallow open closet.

And eventually I was able to assemble the cabinets and we began to install them.And the day we installed the sink was the most wonderful day of all! No more washing dishes in the bathroom sink or with the hose outside! Hello civilization!

And the pictures below are how the kitchen has looked since February. Notice anything missing? Yeah, the handles! And upper cabinets! Between money, a baby about to be born and a billion other things, we decided that getting in the lower cabinets would be priority. Eventually we'd get around to buying and installing the rest! Within the next couple months we got the handles on though.

And the view again from the dining room. Excuse all the food!Newer pictures to follow!

1st Birthday: The Props!

The silver bucket he's sitting on? It held paper fans at our wedding! The backdrop is several yards of an inexpensive velvet kind of material draped over the gate on our front porch. It'll show up again at the party in something fun I am planning! Notice some snack looking things sitting in his lap? Yup, that was the only way I could keep him sitting in one spot! If you look close he even has a little crumb on his chin, which I choose not to Photoshop off because it was too cute, and so him to always be eating those "greenies" we like to call them. Not to mention his uncooperative hair! I rubbed in some baby lotion and attempted a little comb-over, but you better believe it doesn't stay like that for long! I love his fly aways!

Strong men need heavy things to lift! And since a baby safe barbell is not a thing they tend to sell anywhere, it was of course time to make one. It cost around $12 to make...Styrofoam seems really expensive for what it is! But very simple. I cut a thick dowel to size, and pushed it into the Styrofoam balls. Then I paper mached a few layers on the balls to give myself a good surface to paint and also to keep them from mashing. After the mache was dry I glued the dowel in with some school glue and spray painted the entire thing black. The unevenness of the mache ended up giving a really cool effect of old iron weights! I added the "1" on in Photoshop.

A Girl Can Dream...

I added little picture links on the right sidebar of things I like. Or want, rather. Check it out!

Come on and Take a Free Ride

UPS has been knocking on our door almost every day this week it seems! We've finally got Hez's bike seat and helmet and are excited for a summer of bikes trails! Consensus? He cried. At first. But who really wants to wear a big funny helmet with a paci decal that says "I love mom" on it? I'm not one to complain about a decal promoting myself, but I do get that the helmet can be a bother. Hence the lack of one on my own head... I am planning to pull the little paci and other decals off and replace them with something cooler though.

But once we got to riding, he started to figure out that it was a pretty cool little set up. Sit back, relax and enjoy the view while I do all the work. And so far I am pretty happy with the front mount bike seat for him. It is slightly awkward to pedal, but not enough to really care. I'm not planning to race with him or anything, so for around town leisure rides it will do quite nicely!

A Strapping Young....Strap?

Teen Mom commercials = perfect mini-sewing project time! Made myself a cover for my boring 'ole stock camera strap. It's just a tube of fabric with some hot glued little fabric flowers I made. It was so quick and easy I'm thinking I might whip up some more, you know, so I have options. After I made this one (and one for my sis!) I found a lot of tutorials online for making straps, and they are a lot more fancy than my little 10 minute one! I'm definately going to try a few of these.

• Skip to my Lou's Tutorial


• The Cottage Home's Tutorial


• Crafty Southern Mama's Tutorial


• Kevin & Amanda's Tutorial

1st Birthday: The Outfit

When I dressed Hez up for his "strong man" portraits for his invitations, I knew stripes were a must! This $5 navy striped onesie from Old Navy would have done the trick, but sleeveless would have been much better. I grabbed a cheap $3 navy onesie from Target to cut up and use as bias tape. It seemed easier than going to the fabric store although price wise it was probably the same. After cutting off the sleeves, I pinned on the strips from the other onesie (their folded twice just like normal cotton bias tape). After a quick stitch on the machine, this alteration had only taken me around 15 minutes.

Food Friday: Mediterranean Chicken

This one is EASY! And it can easily be a one pan dish. I took the idea from a recipe in some Sonoma Diet Cookbook, but made it a lot simpler. Because who doesn't like simple, especially when it tastes good! It's also easy to make it ahead and leave it in the fridge until you're ready to cook it.

Here's what you need:

• Small bag of spinach
• 1-2 cups brown rice (Buy it precooked in the little microwavable dish and save yourself from having to cook it! There's a picture of the 'instant rice' below, and for this recipe you don't even have to microwave it.)
• 2 chicken breasts
• Garlic
• Butter
• Lemon
• Wine (completely option...but it does make for some nice juicy chicken!)
• Feta Cheese
• Pine Nuts (I always end up leaving these out because I always forget them when I grocery shop!)

Step 1. Set your oven to 375 degrees. Spray an 8x8 baking dish with Pam. Fill it with spinach. It'll look like too much, but it shrinks down like crazy so load it up!

Step 2. Put the rice on top. Then lay the chicken on top of that. Easy huh?

Step 3. Seasoning time! Spread some minced garlic on the chicken, a pat of butter, some salt & pepper, then squeeze of juice of half a lemon over the whole thing. Splash some wine on top. About 1/4 cup or so.

Step 4. Sprinkle feta and pine nuts. Cover with foil. Bake for 45-60 minutes, depending on how thick your chicken is.

Enjoy!

Ready for the Outdoors!

Last Mother's Day, I got this Schwinn Gateway I'd been itching for at Target. And since last Mother's Day I had also just recently had a baby, I have only had one chance to ride it. That being the day we brought it home when I gave it a spin up the street.

image from target.com

But this summer, Hez is old enough to ride on the bike with me and I can't wait to get it out! I also can't wait to add a few things! Like this handmade wood porter crate. Gorgeous! The price is $125, and it's easy to see it's worth it for the craftsmanship. And it can hold a latte. Mmm. Not that I've got $125 lying around, but I can dream!

image from etsy.com seller onemorebike

And of course Hez is going to need a proper seat...and we're waiting for the UPS truck to deliver it (and his new baby helmet!)! I've been reading reviews on this WeeRide Kangaroo Child Bike Seat. It's priced under $50, so around the same as the traditional back mounting child seats. But I like the idea of him riding in front. I think getting him strapped in and taking him out would feel a lot more natural with him in front when you are balancing a bike, as opposed to awkwardly turning to get him in/out. I could be totally wrong though, I've never put a baby in a bike seat before! But I love that he would have such a fun view and I like that there's a little spot for him to put his arms up on. If you click on the link there's a cute picture of a little kid asleep, pretty funny.

image from amazon.com

I have two concerns with the front mount though. I know by comments that it does force you to petal slightly awkward because the seat is obviously somewhat wider than where your knees would normally be. And also the back support. If you recall most traditional bike seats, the "shell" of the backrest goes all the way up past the child's neck. Which I like, extra protection in case of a fall. A five point harness is a must for me though. Which both this front mounted and most back mounted ones I see have. I'm anxious to see how it'll work for us!

Nifty Fifty

image from Amazon.com

I've got a new lens coming my way, and I can't wait to try it out! This is my first new lens I have bought for my Canon (besides the one it is sold with) and even though it's one of the smaller (and thankfully less expensive!) ones, I think I am going to love using it! The Canon EF 50mm is supposed to be great for low light and portraits, and my house lacks good light and I have a baby that ends up in most of my shots! Perfect! Several sites have recently listed the lens as out of stock, including the site I found it for the cheapest at. I ended up getting it through Amazon and paid neither tax nor shipping. Now to wait 5-8 days. I'll be stalking the tracking number on UPS. On a completely related side note, I've started a photography challenge blog. Check it out, and join us over at the Shutter Bug Challenge!

Cooking up a bad case of DIY

I have a lot of pictures of our kitchen renovations, so I'm going to split them up into a few posts. These are all from the day we got the condo.

This one is standing just to the side of our front door. That little hallway looking opening is the kitchen, and the two doors on either side are small closets. Probably a coat closet and a pantry. Down the hall is the bathroom and baby's room. If you're bored try counting how many different wallpapers the picture has. Four would be the correct answer, though the wallpaper designer is just plain wrong.
Here's a shot straight into the kitchen. The fridge is behind the closet on the right. The ceiling is so low, the lighting leaves much to be desired (along with an awful bulging patch job), and the entire kitchen is just cramped and nasty. This was definitely not my dream kitchen. But still, it has potential.
A closet look in, check out the amazing variety of tiles. Sarcasm intended. The view from the dining room. Wallpaper the back of cabinets? And maybe a door or two? You better believe it. They knew how to not let anything go to waste. In this case, probably not the best trait. The kitchen has a snack bar (is that what it's called?) and some light blocking cabinets hanging in the 'pass through'.

It would have been nice to be able to live with the kitchen a while before we tore it out. But it was disgusting. No amount of cleaning could help it. Case in point. The lovely glued-on-top of the original counter tiling job. Who does that? What was wrong with the counter before?! The poor tile job left plenty of room for all sorts of food and nastiness to be stuck everywhere.

Check out this close up of the sink. They just. stopped. tiling. Most of the tile isn't even grouted, if it looks like it is, that's just because it's filled with nastiness. Beyond weird.

And then the floor tile. Because the linoleum must have been so bad they decided it would be a better idea to cover it with outdoor tiles. Just crazy glued to the linoleum. No tile saw? No problem, just snap 'em and fit what you can. Grouting seem like a crazy thing to do? Just caulk 'em! (Yeah, they CAULKED the spaces between the tile!). Wanting a seamless effect? Cover it all with Terra cotta outdoor paint.

Weird.