Home Plans: The Kitchen

Since I want to get back into regular cooking and baking I want a nice kitchen. The kitchen that is currently in our house is very rough. It has years of built up grease from my great-grandmother's daily tortillas and is in major need of a facelift.
I am happy to report that Luke got started yesterday and I can hopefully share pics within a couple weeks :)
But for now, I want to share with you all how we plan to remodel our kitchen for under $300. Yes that's right, $300! No, I am not missing any zeroes there. Remember we live on a super tiny budget and there's no way we could spend anymore than that per room. So here's how we are going to do it and where I am finding inspiration. And of course I will share a complete budget breakdown once we are done and all pennies have been counted...

So how are we going to do all that for just $300? Well for starters we are using what we already have!
Instead of buying all new cabinets, we are refinishing what we have with chalkboard paint we are mixing ourselves courtesy of Martha Stewart. The gritty texture will also help hide any imperfections and wear in the wood. Since my father-in-law, JD, is in construction, he was able to hook us up with all the brass door pulls we could ever need for FREE!
Moving down the wall, we are installing tin ceiling tiles for our backsplash. I've found a company online that actually makes them for backsplashes and we will do a nice clear coat of rustoleum over it to prevent any future rusting.
After much debate, we decided on white ceramic tiles for the countertop. This worked out nice since my dad had most of them and we just needed to pick up a couple extra and the trim tile.
The sink we had was a nice cast iron baby in a 70's avocado green color. I have decided to refinish it with Rustoleum's Tub & Tile Epoxy refinish kit. This will leave it with a nice glossy white finish. We are also looking into picking up a high arc faucet on ebay if JD doesn't find one sooner.
Plus we are getting a new to us fridge! My parents have just order a new one so they will be sending over their old one to us. Right now it is off-white, but a couple coats of appliance refinisher will help it match right in.
I can't wait to see it all done and together and share pics! What do you all think of our plans?
(sources: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.)

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

Delacorte Books for Young Readers (March 13, 2012)

ISBN-10: 0385739370

ISBN-13: 978-0385739375

Age 14+

352 pages

Buy Here for $11.98

My Rating: 5/5

Welcome Home

So we have officially moved and have been working on settling in. Of course with my work and our pioneer schedule the remodeling plans and work has been slow going :-/ 

Craft, Inc. vs. Creative, Inc.

vs. 

As a small creative industry business owner, Craft, Inc. and Creative, Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco were at the top of my "to read" lists. But my big question before buying each was whether they were different enough to merit reading/owning both books or if they were interchangeable.

Weekly Intentions: May 13

So we have finally moved! Now begins the process of settling in and the audacious journey of house remodeling. More details on that to come. Here is what I hope to accomplish this week:

• Have lunch with Sofi
• Have dinner with Lyzette
• Work on invitation suite orders fro Jaime, Christy, and Meaghan
• Begin refinishing kitchen cabinets (inspiration)

• Start organizing/decorating my office (inspiration)

• Design 2 new invitation suites for Spring/Summer 2013 collection
• Get back into routine of cooking dinners (inspiration)

• Look for a farm cat to adopt (inspiration)

Surviving Our Lack of Internet Connectivity

So I don't think it's any seceret that a large part of who I am and what I do is based online. And for the last 2 weeks we have not had internet access outside of a measily 200 mb for work emails and crucial business matters O_O
So please forgive the absense but it has truly been impossible to blog. I wanted to steal a moment though while I am mooching off my Aunt's wifi to check in. We are alive. We head south on Saturday. And my internet down time has provided a great opportunity to focus on work.
I have finalized my Business Plan for this year and have some pretty exciting things up my sleeve as regards that. I just have to finally settle into a schedule again so I can work out kinks, marketing, and preparitions, etc.
I also hope to check in next week with the full story on our move, house and before pics so you guys can follow along as we venture into home remodeling :)
Well that's all folks! Thanks for sticking around ;)