Kitchen Renovations Have Begun aka I Have Lost My Mind and Felt I Needed More Chaos in My Life (WARNING: Picture heavy)

We are currently undergoing kitchen renovations.   It is exciting and scary at the same time.   I have been dying to get my kitchen re done for years.  Budget didn't have room for it, until now.   Last year we were getting ready to do the kitchen when the master bathroom had some major issues that needed attention.   So here we are almost a year after the master bath is completed and I am getting my new kitchen.   We chose Timber Barn to do the renovations since we loved how the bathroom turned out last year.    Big changes are coming.  The kitchen will set the stage for further changes on the main floor.

Below are the before pictures of the kitchen, family room and dining room.    We have eliminated the formal dining room from the floor plan and moved the family room in its place.   Now the entire back of the main floor will be kitchen and eating area.  

The dining room as an actual dining room.   Furniture is cleared out.  Chandelier is gone and a flush mount light fixture is in its place.    And right now its a cluttered mess and you don't need to see that.  

The kitchen.   My glorious, builders special kitchen.   No expense was spent when they built this kitchen.  LOL   Overall it wasn't bad. But over the years I found the space was not very functional or planned out very well.   This is looking from the stove towards the old family room.

The family room in its cluttered glory.  Fireplace in the corner, Dalwhinnie's dog bed and her toys.   A heavy and awkward coffee table that attracts dumping of clutter.  etc.

The TV worked best in front of the window.  We had tried other configurations.   Just an overall awkward room to lay out furniture etc.

See the lovely green bin sitting on the counter?  Thats because we had nowhere else to put it as underneath the sink there was an R/O unit that took up over half of the real estate in that cupboard.  The garbage can and cleaning supplies took over the rest.

The kitchen table in front of the patio door was awkward at times as people would have to push a chair out of the way to get outside.  The patio door was sticking and you literally got an upper arm workout opening and closing the door.  The chandelier was never centred properly above the table.

And the day before renovations started we had everything cleared out.   And unfortunately most of the stuff is in my living room, former dining room and now family room, basement and garage.   And this does not count the van loads of stuff we brought to value village and furniture that we sold or gave away.  

There were a number of things that frustrated the hell out of me when it came to our kitchen.  The dated oak cabinets, most of the drawers were gorilla glued to hold them together.   The massive space between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling, so much wasted space, and an awesome grease and grunge catcher.   The oven has been non-operational since about February/March and the rest of the stove was literally falling apart.   The dishwasher was making weird noises near the end.  The fridge too.  We had a couple of corner cupboards you had to literally crawl into to get something from the back.   Just a few surprises when I emptied them out.   The counter top was cheap and ugly.  As you can see in the picture below, it was literally falling apart at the seams.  If you were wearing a knit top while walking past this and snagged the corner, said top was ruined.  And you can't forget the cheap vinyl floor, yellowing in spots, holes and dents from where knives, pots, lids etc were dropped over the years.

I was going to share pictures of the insides of the cupboards,  but they were looking really really bad. Again, something you don't really need to see.

We are about a 1 1/2 weeks into the renovation process.   One bin has been filled and taken away, a second bin is slowly being filled up.   We received a new electrical fuse box yesterday as the builder special one was not big enough for our house, kind of like the air conditioner they gave us.   I will share pictures as the project progresses.  Right now the subfloor is being laid for the new tile floor and its rather noisy above me.

Thank you for stopping by my little corner of the blogging world.  

New Orleans

What I have been up to.

Things have been busy around here the last couple of months or so.  Here are some pics of what we have been up to.

Old picture, I know, but Dave and I celebrated our 20th anniversary and looking back at our wedding photos all I can say is "Wow!!!  We were babies!!!" lol

We are having a drought around here, and everybody, has dead lawns,  I have managed to keep most of my gardens alive and have been having a few visitors.  This hummingbird has been showing up almost everyday just after dinner.

Another one of our children graduated from Grade 8.  This time it was Amanda's turn, and she found a dress in one of her fav colors, PURPLE!!!.  Can't believe how gorgeous and grown up my baby girl is.

Dance with her father.  

And because it was our anniversary I made Dave a card.  Haven't been to the Eiffel tower yet, but perhaps someday we will be able to go there.

And another daily visitor to my container garden.

And Daniel had a couple of of Birthdays, LOL.  First celebration was at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Cool candles that have different colored flames.  How sweet is that!!!

And then another celebration on his actual birthday at home, and we have more cake!!!

Following cake he sits in the birthday person's special chair to open presents.  Not sure how this tradition got started in our house, but we always have the birthday boy or girl sit in this antique Lincoln rocker to open cards and gifts.

And Dave cleaned out the garage, and trust me it needed it badly.  The tile guys cut their tile in the garage last fall/winter and that dust was everywhere, after hosing down the garage our driveway now has a film all over it.  Hopefully it will rain tomorrow like the weather man has said it will and give our plants much needed water and wash the film off the driveway.

And I wandered around my gardens to take pictures of the flowers I have worked hard to keep alive during this drought, dead grass surrounding it all.  LOL

For the first time since I planted my Oak Leaf Hydrangea about 7 years ago, it BLOOMED!!!!  Some of the flowers.  Love it!!

And preceding this hot and dry summer was an very warm and dry winter, and as you can tell our snowblower has not been used in a very long time.  Hopefully this coming winter will bring lots of snow and we can use this puppy again.  I love to have a real Canadian winter again,  with a few good snowstorms where we can't leave the house for a day or two.  So cosy.

Can you tell its 100 degrees outside right now?  LOL

Another Backyard Visitor

We have had another visitor to our backyard.  After dinner we found this cat lurking in the grass of our backyard.  This cat has been seen many times around our house, just never in our backyard.  Which of course has Dalwhinnie just a little upset.  Dalwhinnie was in the backyard at this time.

This is a very friendly cat, so she decided to approach me for some attention.  Regardless of the barking 60 lb dumb blonde between me and her.

Which of course has Dalwhinnie perplexed.

Dalwhinnie ran barking towards said backyard intruder.  Who basically stood her ground, which again has Dalwhinnie puzzled.  "I don't understand, all intruders run from me?"

"Maybe if I sneak around behind it, it will let me smell its butt.......Nope, its not a good idea"

Cat finally leaves our yard and sits just outside the gate, Dalwhinnie continues barking.  Thinking she succeeded in ridding her yard of the intruder.  Cat is probably thinking "Dog, you are SO annoying.  Not worth my time."  LOL

 Cat is still lurking around.  Hopefully it goes back to its home behind us and doesn't stay out all night and becomes fair game for the coyotes.

Baby Bunny Update

Our nest of baby bunnies is empty.  The Saturday of Mother's Day weekend they left the nest, which also was the day Dave cut the grass again, so the kids were put on Bunny duty making sure none got hurt or run over.  They found 5 out of 6 six hiding in various areas of the backyard. And the babies allowed the kids to pet them and stand close to them.  After which they all went in different directions.  One has decided to stay close by, under our next door neighbour's deck.  Tonight over the dinner hour he/she stayed under our corkscrew willow for a good hour.  I managed to get a couple of shots with my zoom lens.  Trying his best to hide in the tall grass.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

First Beach Visit of the Season

Last weekend here in Canada was the Victoria Day long weekend.  And what a gorgeous weekend it was in terms of weather.  Saturday we went for dinner at Dave's parents house, his mom had a birthday and we decided to help celebrate.  And the bonus is they live right on the beach so after dinner and clean up we took the kids to the beach, something they were itching to do all day.

Laura skipping stones just as the sun was setting.  The water was so calm and peaceful.  

And when you mix kids and lake water, you get wet bums, lol.  Our niece Brianna's little wet bum.

Earlier Daniel asked if he could bring his swimsuit and I said no, explained that since its only May the lake will be freezing cold and not fit for swimming.  Little did I realize that kids don't care how cold the water is.    He dunked his head of course.

All three went on a rock/fossil hunt and also the search for the perfect skipping stone and who can skip a stone the farthest.  They even got their youngest cousins in on the stone skipping.

And the results of their rock/fossil hunt, came home with us and added to the collection.

And when we got back to the house it was wash the sand off our feet and of course Basil was there needing some attention which Daniel gladly provided.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting my blog.  Enjoy the weekend.