Weekend Home Improvement Project: Pantry Update

Spring is practically here and since I've been in my "nesting" phase, I've scheduled a few final home improvement projects that I would like to get done before baby Graham arrives at the end of July! One of my projects was updating our pantry. Now unfortunately, I don't have a true "before" picture, I was so anxious to redo our pantry that I started ripping shelves out before taking a picture, but here's the scoop. We have a very deep pantry, and along with our deep pantry came really deep shelves, 4 wire baskets on rollers (which actually didn't roll all the way out so they were dysfunctional) and wasted space at the top and bottom of our pantry. Just to give you an idea on how deep our pantry was, the measurements were 34" deep and 37" wide, and the original shelves came to about 32" deep! Yikes! I had tons of wasted space because if I put things all the way at the back of the pantry, I wouldn't be able to see them as I added more food. 

Going along with the floating shelf concept that was already in our pantry, we ripped out the existing shelves because they were grimy and oil stained but left the existing floating shelf railing (picture below). As you can see, there was quite a bit of space wasted at the top and bottom. (Sorry the floor looks weird and dirty in the picture, I promise it's not!)

Next, my husband used existing white paint we had from another project and covered the vanilla walls to brighten it up! Here's a picture of him painting below.

Once the paint dried, we measured the floating rails to add one shelf at the top and one at the bottom. We bought four 1x2's and cut them to a length of 33.5" (to go on the sides) and two 1x2's cut to a length of 36.5" (to go on the back wall). We also opted to buy 1" thick particle board instead of plywood because it looks nicer, it's heavier AND it was $20 for a giant sheet instead of $50 for a giant sheet of plywood. We had Lowe's cut the giant sheet of particle board into our shelves which we did five shelves at 36.75" L x 12" W and one shelf at 36.75" L x 14" W (I wanted one longer shelf at the top for my larger appliances). We used existing screws that we bought for our fireplace mantle project and screwed the rails into place, exactly 12" apart.

Then my husband started from the bottom and laid the new shelves on top of the rails and screwed down. This part took about 30 minutes.

We originally bought shelf liner and I had plans to cover the shelves before putting food on them...but I got way too excited and opted to skip that part! :) I restocked our pantry and absolutely love it! Here's the final product!

Pantry Organization from Top to Bottom:

• The top shelf allows about 19" of storage from shelf to ceiling and I have our George Foreman Grill, A glass salad bowl, a small crock pot, glass carafe and our Ninja Blender. (This is the shelf that is 14" deep)
• On the second shelf from the top I have overflow canned items and condiments: rice, soup, canned chicken breast, chili beans. 
• On the third shelf from the top I have my Italian shelf (I'm 50% Italian, so this shelf was a must!) I have spaghetti and penne noodles, traditional and Alfredo sauces, olive oil, artichoke hearts, Parmesan cheese, Italian bread crumbs and mac & cheese. 
• On the fourth shelf from the top I have our breakfast items. The basket nicely organizes our breakfast bars (my husband and I like different kinds) and then we have cereal, oatmeal, syrup and a basket of gum on the right (I didn't have a better spot for this).
• On the fifth shelf down I have snack foods. The basket nicely organizes crackers, fruit snacks, applesauce and other small snack foods. Then I have my peanut butter, and canned fruits.
• On the last shelf at the bottom I have entertaining supplies. The basket contains disposable bowls, plates and silverware while the serving tray next to it has our zillions of napkins that we've somehow inherited from family parties.
• On the floor I have a case of water, my Apple Cider Vinegar and food that will be donated to the food pantry.
• On the left wall I hung my apron on a command hook and then we have out two step ladder on the right.

Total Supplies and Cost:

• 1 giant sheet of particle board - $20
• Having the particle board cut into shelves - $0.25/cut (about 12 cuts were made)
• 6 1x2" rails - $12
• Screws (had at home) - $0
• Baskets - $8/each
• Command Hook (had at home) - $0
• White Paint (had at home) - $0

TOTAL Money Spent: $59.00

TOTAL Time Spent: 6 hours

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Re-Facing a Fireplace - Part 3

Well.....it's done! Mostly. We finished all of the stone work and all we have left is to caulk around the edges and touch up the paint around the sides! Whew! This project was definitely more work than we anticipated and it was suuuper frustrating... but we're happy with the results and the overall cost.

The colors in the picture don't quite do the project justice and the stones are actually gray, but you get the idea! Thanks AirStone for making a great product!

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Re-Facing a Fireplace - Part 2

So I don't have much of an update for you but I was able to work on more of the fireplace last night. This could have easily been a weekend project, but with me going on a business trip and us being so busy, it's turned into a week long project due to limited groups of time. 

Once you have your flooring or hearth set, you can begin playing with the stones to see which combination of sizes and colors you like best. Keep in mind that the edges do not have to all line up, especially if you're wanting a realistic stone appearance. Also, the stone is easy to write on with a pencil and take your hacksaw outside to trim in. They break easily under pressure, so be careful as you hold the stone to trim it. I was also told that the stone was as easy to trim as slicing bread....false. It's not crazy difficult where you need a table saw or anything, but it does take a couple minutes to accomplish and makes tons of dust (we recommend doing it outside).

It was also recommend that when you go to put adhesive on the back of the stone, your should ice it like a cupcake, not like you're buttering bread. Now I LOVE sweets...so this analogy may not have been the best for me since I did one whole side of the fireplace slathering adhesive on the backs of the stones and then have to wedge cardboard between the pieces so they didn't slide and become un-level (we used a level after sticking every stone to the wall, it really helped!). When I went to do the other side, I realized that you really only have to put a glob o adhesive in the middle of the stone and when you stick it to the wall and push it will disperse the adhesive under the stone, thus making cleanup much easier and less frequent.

After we finished the first side, notice we waited to do the top until we got both sides done.

After we got both sides done, notice that I used thin pieces of cardboard wedged between the drying stones to help them dry level, then pull them out when it's dry.

We also ran into an issue that was quote unexpected, our stones didn't meet up with the top of our fireplace, so we have to get kind of creative. We attempted to cut two stone into thin pieces that would help us finish the sides (see at the top on the right side of the fireplace a thin layer of stone). This was difficult and the thin pieces cracked, but we adhered them back together and then stuck them to the wall anyway. We have yet to do the same to the left side, I'm quite nervous about it actually, but I'm super excited to get to adhering the stones to the top! 

Another step that we didn't plan on needing is one that will come at the very end. The pictures are good enough to show you, but our fireplace is set back into the drywall around it and there are gaps between it and the drywall which look pretty bad. We've decided to purchase light gray caulking and add it around the fireplace edges to make the entire project look like it belongs in the house. Also, consider touching up pain around your project once it's finished.

We're very excited to get this project wrapped up and start enjoying our accomplishment. One final tip for you, if you think you may change out your fireplace unit someday, make sure not to cover the sides or top of the unit with stones or else you'll have to redo your new facing.

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Re-Facing a Fireplace - Part 1

I grew up watching and LOVING channels like HGTV and I used to cut apart the JCPenny catalogs and paste together interior designs. I have looked forward to owning my own home since I can remember, and I dreamed about my future home while other little girls were dreaming about their impending nuptials. 

When we were house hunting (for the VERY brief time that we did), Andrew and I discussed finding a home that we could make our own. We didn't end up settling on a major fixer-upper, thank goodness (who has the time?), but we did pick a house where we could make minor tweaks along the way.

Of course, as soon as the last box was unpacked, I began scheming and planning updates to make, and for those of you who don't know my husband, you need to know that he likes routine and avoids change at all cost. Let's just say...I overwhelmed him a bit with my grandiose plans on making our first home amazing, so we agreed to pick 1-2 projects to tackle before the winter. 

I chose to surround our two projects on the fireplace, since it would be the focal point of our home and of the holidays. First, we installed a mantle, and you can see the details of that project here. Our second project was to re-face our fireplace. Here is the picture of the fireplace with in it's green grandeur with our newly-painted light gray walls and recently installed mantle.

While the tile remains....charming...I hate it. I pictured something much warmer for our gray living room so I looked around and found AirStone. AirStone is a product that looks just like real stone, but is a fraction of the weight and comes in a kit of different colored and sized pieces! We started our project by measuring our fireplace, purchasing the AirStone, floor tiles and materials listed below.

AirStone can be found at Lowes and comes in two colors, tan and gray. I LOVED the gray stones but they were the HARDEST thing to track down! I stalked Loews's website everyday for about two weeks until I finally saw a box available to order online and deliver to my house. I was SO excited! When we got the box, I realized that I needed to get another box and called customer service to have them find another box for me, they were lifesavers.

Along with the AirStone, we would a chisel-like tool from Lowes, the AirStone adhesive, a spackle tool and a hack saw. 

 We were pretty much home improvement newbies but we started the project anyway. Here's how we did it. We began by taking our chisel and wedging it between the wall and the tile, prying them up, and putting them in a cardboard box for trash. (BE CAREFUL! If the tiles fall and crack the tiny pieces can cut your skin!)

 Once we got all of the tile off of the wall, we moved to the floor and did the same thing.

 In the picture above, you'll see that we found a concrete sub-floor below our tiles, but we also saw that we could risk pulling it up instead of trying to sand or recover the cement with more cement for the new peel-and-stick tiles we got from Lowes. We took the chance and wedged our tool under the cement sub-floor and it came up all in one piece, leaving a plywood floor beneath it. We then cleaned the plywood with a damp rag to remove any dust from the demo and laid down our peel-and-stick tiles that we pre-measured. With the peel-and-stick tiles we chose, tile grout wasn't necessary, which is what we wanted, and if you line the tiles up tightly, grout isn't needed. 

We chose Lowes's French Gray Peel-and-stick tile

Next, we used our chisel tool to try and remove all of the previous tile adhesive left behind on the wall. This was hard work and we destroyed our knuckles in the process, ouch! We recommend wearing gloves for this project. 

Then, we laid our our AirStone tiles to see what tiles would look good next to one another and to see the variations in color and size.

Our project is almost finished, so until then, the suspense will just have to get you and bring you back to see the finished results in a few days! 

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

One Update at a Time

So Andrew and I have been unpacked since the weekend that we moved into our lovely new home at the end of August and the nesting process has been in full swing! We've tackled our first bits of yard work, hired a painter to redo our living room/kitchen/entry way/hallway/dining room and a spare bedroom, had our lovely fireplace serviced and now the fun begins! We're not only nesting, but we're slowly starting to make some updates to make the home ours! 

We had our living room painted a light gray (gray is my favorite color!) and we have white trim and a white ceiling so I thought adding a white mantel would make the fireplace a bit more cozy!

Before (We will be changing the green tile soon too)

So I looked at home improvement stores all around my area, including Lowe's, for a mantel and they were surprisingly hard to find! I eventually found one on Home Depot's website and ordered it unfinished. But first, I measured the length of my fireplace to see how long my mantel should be and decided on getting a 72" mantel. 

Next, I researched what type of paint and primer I would need to successfully cover poplar wood. I found a primer at Sherwin Williams that I LOVE! The Premium Wall & Wood Primer was the absolute best! It dries quickly, covers easily without gooping up and it was awesome. I bought 1 gallon and definitely didn't even put a dent in it, even after 5 coats of primer. The primer dried in about 20 minutes so I was able to do 5 coats of primer in one evening, which was ideal for a working woman! I loved the way the primer covered so much that I ended up returning the gallon of white paint I bought to go over it. 

The mantel we bought didn't come with hardware, unfortunately, but it was nonetheless easy to hang. It came with a skinny board that was 5 'x 1.5" x 1.5" that gets mounted to the wall first with screws (we used 4.75" screws to assure security to the wall) and then you set your mantel on the skinny board and screw down (we used 1.75" screws). 

Here's our finished product!
(You can see us testing out the stone we're going to upgrade to
on the bottom right, but that's another post for another time!)

The mantel adds such a homey and warm feel to the living room and adds more space for decorating. We can't wait to spend our first fall and winter in our beautiful home and lights fires in the fireplace! 

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

SOLD

It happened! We found a home, closed on it and moved in a month! Yes, we know, we're crazy! We moved to southern IN at the end of May, and we were given a months notice before moving so we were very hesitant in buying property long distance and without having time to shop around or see it first, so we settled on renting again. We have lived in apartments since we got married so we knew what we were in for and signed a 1 year lease in IN, little did we know, I would get this grand idea to start looking for houses 2 months into our 1 year lease. 

When we first moved, I looked for jobs but was struggling to land something right away so the realization of being a one income household scared us pretty good and after having taken Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University we decided to review our finances and see if renting or buying was a better fit for us. Come to find out, and this is pretty typical in most markets, buying is much cheaper than renting (if you live withing your means). We were paying $905/month, not including electric or internet/cable, for a two bedroom apartment. Granted, the apartment life had it's perks, not having yard work, less monthly bills like trash, water and gas, and we were able to utilize the pool and fitness center. Our mortgage payment, property taxes and homeowners insurance for a 3 bedroom/ 2 bathroom house was about $300 less that what we were paying in rent! {Jaw drops}! We also discovered that if we work our finances out carefully, we could live in our home on my husbands income alone, keeping in mind money would be tight, but knowing it's possible if I ever lose my job or decide to pursue my dream of being a stay-at-home-mom. So we looked and made it happen! We closed on the house August 28th and moved in August 30th & 31st. 

Thanking God for family, life, love and the ability to do good in the world through Him! 

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Buying a Home

Buying a home can be stressful if you're not prepared for what's ahead. My husband and I had never bought a house before and although we were blessed to have the help and support of our family, it is still a very big step and commitment that we felt we walked into blind. So what are the steps in buying a home?

Beginning the Process....

1. Browse online for homes in your area.
2. Research:
• Safe areas in and around your town to live in by looking at crime reports, asking friends and family or coworkers. 
• School systems - resale value relies prevalently on school systems and how good the education they provide is
• Taxes and utility costs - depending on which side of town you live on, different utility companies may be used and different taxes may apply
• Loan rates between different lenders
3. Decide if you want to use a realtor or not (We used one because she helped us through this process)
4. Decide what attributes are your "must haves" in your desired home (example: 3 bedrooms, fireplace, two car garage, etc.)
5. Decide if you're willing to fix up a house, do minimal work or you want a move-in-ready home
6. Get pre-approved buy a lender - the bank will most likely approve you for more than what you should really spend on a home. try using a home buying calculator to figure out how much house you can afford

Once you find a house....

1. Make an offer
2. Negotiate

Once the offer is accepted....

1. Begin mortgage application
2. Order an inspection on the house - NEVER skip this step!!!! 
3. Bank runs credit report on you
4. Order an appraisal on the house
5. Title work gets started
6. Obtain homeowners insurance
7. Review home inspection
8. Loan gets approved
9. Closing is scheduled
10. Settlement statement is reviewed
11. Notify utilities of your upcoming move
12. Closing occurs - Congratulations!!!
13. You get yours keys!

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.