kitchen tour

I thought I would join with Love Stitched on her kitchen home tour. I blogged about the kitchen in our old home here. This time, I thought I would show you the kitchen in our new house.

It's an amazingly large kitchen with more cabinet space than I could ever dream of!

The granite is the same granite that we put in our old kitchen. It's called Giallo Santa Cecilia. It's great at hiding crumbs and bread clips. I swear we lose those little clips that are on the bread bag every time we open a bag!

I got used to my undermount sink at the old house, so I am thankful that there is one at the new house too.

I also have two fancy glass corner cabinets. This one usually has another glass vase in it that's being used right now, so it looks a bit bare now.

I love the kitchen island. Especially the fact that it has bar seating at the end. Perfect for little hands that want to help in the kitchen.

It also has this great vegetable sink complete with disposal so it makes food prep a breeze.

Want to know my favorite thing?

This Viking gas range and stove. It's amazing! I had never used a gas stove before moving here and was a bit apprehensive. In no time, I was cooking like a pro with it though! The convection oven is another story. Still trying to figure that out!

Did you notice that I have not one, but two kitchen aid mixers? We got one as a wedding gift from my in-laws (the only thing my husband wanted!) and I couldn't pass up the larger size mixer at a garage sale for only $35! They come in quite handy when I am doing a lot of baking/cooking.

And because so many of the cabinets are so high (and I am so short), we use this library kick stool all the time. A purchase that I made at a garage sale for a few bucks.

Still not sure what was supposed to be above the fridge (cabinets maybe?). Any suggestions there? If you peek around the corner and through the hall (see the arched doorway), you can see my utility closet. It's great for keeping our recycle bin and cleaning tools inside.

We've hosted several large dinner parties in our new home, and this massive island is perfect for laying the food out.

Remember how I said I have loads and loads of cabinets and drawers? I have so many that I even have a drawer for plastic flatware and cups!

The two corners of the kitchen have the lazy susan shelves, again, with not much to fill them (yet!).

Another feature that is so simple but yet so practical? The upright cabinet with the divider to store my dish washing rack as well as my cookie sheets.

Did I mention the miles and miles of counter space?

I also have my very own mom work station.

It's tucked right next to the pantry. Want to know what's in the cabinet above my desk? The candy jar of course!

Thanks for taking a tour of my new kitchen with me. Isn't it great?! What do you love about your kitchen?

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A few of my favorite things

I follow and read a LOT of blogs. There is so much great talent out there. Here are a few things I wanted to share with you that I found and loved this week.

This bustle skirt at Sun Scholars. Don't you love that color?! I can see a few old t-shirts being cut up and made into this skirt. T-shirts beware!

I have been a fan of board and batten for about a decade now. I tried to convince my husband to put it up in the downstairs at our old house. We even painted one of our rooms in preparation for it. Unfortunately, he wasn't as on board (ha ha, get it!) with it as I was...thus the reason it never got done. Not sure if it has it's place at our new house yet, but in the meantime, I am drooling over this mudroom from Stories from A to Z .

I saw a tutorial on flowers similar to these that I tried and failed at. This tutorial looks easier and I love the end result. I've seen these flowers everywhere the past few months (at the end of a belt, on a hairclip, at the top of a shirt or at the bottom of a skirt) and thought I would give them a try again. Swing over to Project wedding for the full tutorial.

And last but not least, the ever popular ding dong ditch. I love teaching our kids how to do it this way, rather than the way I used to do it! It seems like a great youth group outreach activity if you ask me. A free printable can be found here at Poppies at Play.

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Dining room

I hate to paint. Don't get me wrong, I love paint. I love how it can instantly transform a room for less than $25, but I hate the actual process of painting. Which is why, even though I don't necessarily love this orange accent wall in our new house, I am working with it.

I found three identical paintings at TJ Maxx for $19.99 a piece. The colors were perfect for this room. Orange accents to match the accent wall, and yellow undertones to match the rest of the house.

One of my favorite things is fresh flowers and I don't really need too much of an excuse to buy them, but my daughter was baptized this weekend, so I picked up some carnations for the event. I love carnations. They are cheap and they last a long time.

I was at Pottery Barn last week (the closest store is nearly an hour away, so I only make it there once a year or so) and picked up these decorative berries. I got three boxes for .79 cents a box. Marked down from $16 each! Score! I put a smaller vase inside a larger vase so that I don't need as much filler. Again, the colors match the colors in the room and work perfectly, even if they are a bit fall ish.

And speaking of fall...the snow is falling. Bring it!

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Every Girl needs a Chandelier

Ever since we moved into our house, we felt like this two story room of my daughters needed a chandelier. It just had this boring old light before. Nice, but not special.

I've spent lots of time scouring the internet for just the right light, in just the right price range (man, they can be expensive!). We've had a lot of rain lately and one place we can get our new puppy some exercise is at our local home improvement stores (Lowe's and Home Depot are super pet friendly!) so my daughter and I headed there one night to walk the aisles and guess what we found?

A new chandelier! I did a double take when I grabbed the box. It looked more like a large shoe box than a huge chandelier. Of course, some assembly was required!

Isn't it beautiful?!

It makes my daughter Isabella's room feel very special.

What makes you feel special?

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12 hour dog

Before we got out new puppy, we thought we were interested in a rescue dog. So we scoured Craigslist and the animal shelters looking for the right fit for our family and on the first night in our new home, we got a call about a dog. Her name was Mia and when we met her, she was very slow to warm up. Something her owners told us was part of her charm. My husband felt like something was a little off about her, but we brought her home with the hopes of her warming up to us, but with the intention of bringing her back if she didn't. Well, she didn't warm up. In fact, she turned psycho in the middle of the night and was dying to get out of our house so badly that she scratched the living daylights out of my front door.

That did not make me happy on our first day in our new home! Needless to say, Mia went back home with her owners and we went a different route to find a puppy for our family.

It took me a few weeks, but I finally got around to fixing the front door. I just used some oil based paint (the same paint I used for this ) and mineral spirits and rubbed it into the wood making it look as good as new.

My foyer still looks a little bare. I promise to work on that! Stay tuned.

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labels labels and more labels

I've really enjoyed getting to play with my new Silhouette machine. I am tempted to put vinyl on just about everything so I have to reign myself in. I did make some labels for some of the bulk items that I have in my kitchen.

I used both the positive and negative images from the cutout for the lid and the front of the jar. Waste not, right?

Did you know you can write with chalk on vinyl? Now you do! For whatever reason this one didn't cut the letters out for the label and instead of throwing it away, I used it anyway and just wrote my own label.

I also made a few labels for things in my pantry.

Something about a label makes me feel so organized!

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candy buttons

Did you know you could make your own candy dots? I didn't until I ran across this post at Be Different Act Normal

I love them all lined up in these hearts . Wouldn't they make fun Valentine's day gifts for the kids?

I had all of the supplies on hand so I mixed up the recipe and left the kids in charge of making some dots. Super fun times and easy enough for a five year old to do.

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