Creating an Eating Nook with IKEA benches

Welcome back my Beauties!
Today I am going to show you how I created my Eating Nook with Ikea benches.

Last week I showed you my Kitchen Makeover that you can see HERE!
Now I will show you how I created that cute little  Eating Nook in that odd corner of my kitchen that has been the bane of my existence for almost 20 years.

This post is a sponsored post or  uses affiliate links to help you find the products I trust and love

While working on my kitchen makeover, I was trying to figure out what I could do with the weird corner in my kitchen.
For almost 20 years I have put corner china cabinets or hutches there trying to just fill the space.
I could never figure out what else to put there.
I wanted to build a corner bench for the kids but knew I didn't want to do a full construction project incase I ever wanted to change up the kitchen again. (I know myself and I know how much I love to change things, so I try to do things that aren't PERMANENT so I don't have to worry about Commitment Issues with major construction issues :)) 
So one day I got on my computer and looked up simple benches. 
I came upon these
 IKEA Molger benches.

I linked to the ones they sell on Amazon if you don't have an IKEA near you. They are much cheaper at IKEA but I know not everyone has that option.

I spent a total of $75 on the two benches straight from Ikea. 

Once I got my benches I started assembling them.  You can see here I have one together and just starting on the second one. 

I got my Bistro table from World Market but only because it was on SUPER SALE and I had an awesome $10 gift card.

If I hadn't scored that I would have bought this one from AMAZON. 

Now you can see from this picture how that little space in the corner would have been left open. I knew if I left it open then stuff would just fall down and the kids would lay and put their feet on the wall. 

So I painted up this little square table that my sister in law had given me and sawed the legs down to just the right size to put in the corner.

Once I had my benches and tables in place I could start decorating.

I wanted a fun eclectic feel so I purchased some 

Embroidered Mandala throw pillows from a local home store.

For the walls I grabbed one of my canvas prints from our trip to IRELAND that you can see HERE.

I also put up this really cute geometric metal and glass wall ledge to put some decor on.

The other wall is where I hung my "Drink More Travel Often"

Sign that I made that you can see HERE!

And that, my Beauties,

was how easy it was to create this simple Eating Nook using Ikea Benches.

It was so fun and I love the FUNCTION that it added to our dining area.

No more wasted space just filling a cabinet to fill that corner.

My daughter sits and draws here, my son loves to eat his breakfast here, and I love to drink my coffee here.

Even though we have lived in our house for almost 20 years, it's so fun to change things up to make it feel different once in awhile.

No need to pack boxes and up our mortgage; just a few hours of work and the place feels NEW!

I hope you enjoyed this latest DIY project.

I seem to have been on a roll lately, but I think mostly it's from being trapped in the house during these dark and cold months.

Hopefully the sun will soon be shining and I will be back showing you furniture makeovers.

Until then,

Go make someone's day BEAUTIFUL!

Budget Friendly Kitchen Makeover using the power of Paint!

Welcome back my Beauties!
I am finally ready to show you my kitchen makeover!



Now if you have been following me for a while you know I paint my house A LOT! 
I mean, I do it in stages but I love how easy it is to change the whole feel of a room with paint!
My kitchen has been made over probably at least 6 times since we have lived here the last 18 years.
The last makeover was when I painted my cabinets.

Click here Kitchen Makeover to see it.



You can see my walls were yellow.
While I loved the warm of the yellow in our almost sunless winters here in Michigan, I decided I wanted to brighten up the kitchen with a lighter color. 

This post is a sponsored post or  uses affiliate links to help you find the products I trust and love

So I decided to give the kitchen a budget makeover with some paint!
For that I chose Pittsburgh Paints & Stains® Paramount™. 

Here you can see my hubby and the dog helping me prep the walls and take down all the decor. 

You can truly see here in the dark January winters how yellow the room looks when there is no outside light coming in.

Here it is all trimmed out getting ready to roll on the paint!

Now as I said above, I have PAINTED my house A LOT!

and I wouldn't be telling you about this paint if I didn't love it. 

I know it's weird for a person to get excited about paint,

but I do.

I have always loved paint...since as long as I can remember.

So when I find a great paint I don't mind telling you. 
I would recommend Pittsburgh Paints and Stains©  Paramount™ to anyone!
Paramount offers a paint and primer in one, which saved me a ton of time and still provided a beautiful finish with vibrant coverage.
The color I used was Ghost Writer MEN7135-3
This paint is available exclusively at MENARDS® stores.

Look how much brighter my kitchen looks already!

I changed up the corner that always had the china cabinet in it,

and I will be coming back with a post about that later.

I love how it brightened up my kitchen and I really love how it looks with my Dark gray cabinets.

I should mention that while I change a lot of things in the house some things are hard to let go of.

You see those signs above the cupboards.

Those were one of my very FIRST blogging posts.

You can see them HERE.

So while I change a lot of things, I also keep things that have sentimental value! :)

There you have it.

My Budget Friendly Kitchen Makeover using the power of Paint!

The whole family is loving the brighter and lighter feel of the kitchen.

That is why I love paint so much. A color can change your whole attitude! 
Thank you to Pittsburgh Paints & Stains® for providing the paint for my post!

:)

Until next time,

Go Make someone's day BEAUTIFUL!

Painted Kitchen Cupboards Makeover REVEAL

Welcome back my BEAUTIES!

I am FINALLY getting around to posting our Kitchen Makeover REVEAL.

You may remember a couple weeks ago I promised you I would post the reveal the next week..

UMMMM......YEAH....I never got around to it.

Wanna know why?

For REALS???

Here goes..

I JUST DIDN'T FEEL LIKE IT.

I LOVE my Kitchen so much now, but between painting the cupboards,

doing the DIY blogger roundup in Chicago (which was at the same time as me making over my kitchen)  and the plethora of other projects I have going on for different companies I honestly could not bring myself to photograph edit and post about it.

For the Non DIY'ers who don't understand the "Process" that a post takes; let me explain.

Its not JUST the project...that I do on a daily basis.

BUT, once the process is done there is about a MILLION other things us bloggers need to do.

First thing being....CLEANING UP OUR MESS.

You see we tend to be BIG mess makers, so while we are working on a project I tend to push all the CRAP that was in the room aside, and have to keep taking pictures of the process.

Then after the cleaning we have to STAGE.

(which is not my THANG...I am sure I have told you before)

Being A.D.D. I know I have a limited attention span before I get tired of staging and move onto something else. (this is one reason I am sure my home will never be magazine worthy. I can't see myself NOT ever being so busy that I have time to do a proper staging because I know one of my 4 kids or hubby...or dog will come in and mess it up in seconds)

NEXT, Photographing time.

This can take anywhere from a half an hour to a few days.

In this case it was WEEKS.

We live in an old house and no amount of external light systems or natural light 

would show in the pictures how it looks in real life.

THAT caused me the frustration to postpone my post; and my A.D.D. to flair up and find Lots and LOTS of other projects to focus on until the kitchen makeover nagged and nagged at the back of my mind to make me JUST DO IT. 

:)

and that finally happened.

SO HERE YOU GO...

FINALLY! 

(and thanks for listening to my little explanation of my METHOD and what my BRAIN goes through on a daily basis)  

Oh and even writing the above was a procrastination :)

 

 As I showed in the BEFORE post, this was me trying to decide on a color.

I was mixing and trying to decide how DARK I wanted to go. 

Well by the time I decided I went with a color straight out of the can.

I chose General Finishes 

QUEENSTOWN GRAY.

It was just the deep hue I was looking for.

and since it was in the kitchen I chose their HIGH PERFORMANCE finish in Satin.

So I spent the next few days painting cupboards which as you know is always a FUN time.

The nice part about this  makeover is that I was leaving my upper cabinets the cream color 

that I had painted previously.

You will see from the pictures that although we are in an older home (built in the 60's) they LOVED storage.

WE have a U shaped kitchen with tons of cupboards . BUT that means lots to paint, so not painting the uppers saved me tons of time.

So now that the cupboards were painted it was time for some new hardware. 

I am normally a copper or a bronze girl, but I really wanted to do something fun and different with the hardware.

That's where HICKORY HARDWARE came in.

They had these fabulous pulls and knobs that look just AMAZING with the dark deep gray.

I chose the stainless steel pulls

and the Euro Contemporary knobs.

They went together like peanut butter and jelly.

I couldn't have been happier with how it looked.

PLUS, as I was getting ready to write up my post someone shared this post from HGTV...

Hey that color looks almost like mine.

For once in my life I just might be ON TREND..(probably not but I can dream.:))

I loved how the hardware pulled together the stainless steel appliances but yet still looked good with all my vintage kitchen decor.

I have to tell you. This paint is so awesome. Since it took so long to post, I had a crazy amount of time to see how it did in the kitchen. 
IT IS AWESOME. 
My kids and I love to cook, and even more..make messes. This paint has withstood all of that.
I love the added strength that the hard finish added.
And its still looks like I JUST painted it.

So there you have it.

The Reveal is done with the best pictures I could get.

Its funny because I took about 300 pictures and I didn't like any of them.

I have gotten so critical with myself with photographing that I can see each and every single FLAW.

Where the light is reflecting off of a door,

or where there is a shadow that I can't control no matter what kind of lighting I used.

I finally had to make peace with the fact that no matter what I did I was going to find something

I didn't like about how I staged it and just like life I was gonna have to LOVE them for what they were.

The pictures may be slightly flawed but that's what makes them REAL.

And I couldn't be happier.

So there you have it.

The Kitchen Reveal that took longer to post about than it did to paint it.

I hope you enjoyed this unusually LARGE and wordy post.

 I finally accepted my imperfections and I am happier that way.

Until next time.

Have a Beautiful day.

To accept ourselves as we are means to value our imperfections as much as our perfections. ~ Sandra Bierig

 

 Disclosure: Remember all opinions I share about the products in my post are 100% my own with complete honesty.The post contains sponsored links

http://www.casawatkins.net/
http://farmhousechicblog.com/2015/inspired-by-you-1/

Kitchen Cabinet Makeover BEFORE!

Hello my BEAUTIES!

I have been working on my kitchen cabinet makeover for a while.

Today I am going to show you the Before.

The above picture was the last time I redid my cabinets.

It was way back in 2012...:)

You can see that post HERE.

It was even PRE my Farmhouse Table...

THAT is how long ago it was. 

Now I LOVED my kitchen cupboards but it was time for a change.

I had used a mineral paint and used a sealer but they were starting to show some wear and tear.

My kids love to cook, and I LOVE it when they do,

but they are messy and were a little hard on the mineral paint on 

the cupboards.

That meant it was time for a change.

Now as you I am sure have guessed, I have done this MANY, MANY times.

The normal way to do this is to take off the cupboards paint them and put them back up...

BUT I AIN'T GOT TIME FOR THAT!  

(just keeping it real here folks)

Sometimes in the DIY world you gotta do what you gotta do.

With our busy schedule I worked out a way to paint them WITHOUT taking them down.

Here you can see me trying to decide what the exact color was that  I wanted to go with.

I removed the hardware, Lightly sanded down the cupboards and wiped them all clean.

I was mixing paint and seeing how it looked DRY before I went full Throttle 

and painted them all.

 After seeing how seeing how it looked this is what I finally chose.

I went with General Finishes

Queenstown Gray and 

their Satin High Performance finish.

I can't WAIT to show you the AFTER.

The makeover has been done almost a month now and I LOVE it.

I wanted to make sure it could stand the test of my CHILDREN 

before I showed it to you.

I can tell you it HAS.

So be sure to come back next week for the REVEAL of the finished Kitchen Cupboard Makeover.

Until then,

Go Make Someones Day BEAUTIFUL.

Easy BackSplash Makeover using SMART TILES

 Good Morning again my Beauties!

I have been hard at work with lots of projects 

and little time to write about them.

I finally eeked out this post late last night as we are prepping to go on our

first camping trip of the summer.

How convenient that my post is about our travel trailer. :)

 You see we bought our new travel trailer a couple of years ago. 

I love this thing! Especially after all the years the six of us and the dog crammed ourselves

into a much smaller camper for all the past 15 or so years. 

When we found this camper we loved it. It was the perfect one for our family.

But as with anything that sits outside year after year you start to have a few minor issues.

 Here was our issue. It started at the end of last summer. These tiny bumps appeared out of nowhere 

on the back splash in the kitchen area.

We had no idea what it was as there was no spot anywhere else in the whole camper.

But it never got any worse so we decided to just watch it, as we could not find the cause.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when I was making over my sisters backsplash at her Condo.

You can see that post HERE.

A friend of mine who also travels all summer said..."oh man, I have been wanting to do that in the travel trailer"...I thought..."OH DUH"!!!!

This was my CHANCE! 

I could finally see what was causing those raised bumps AND I could update the look of the BackSplash.

 So I got to work. Pulling off the old border was a piece of cake. 

Its wasn't like normal wallpaper but a giant sticker. It peeled right off;

but when it got to the spot with the bumps..It ripped the wallpaper right off the back wall board.

NOW we would finally know!

Come to find out it was a small spot of water damage. 

We have had a very wet...very snowy winter and spring.

Hubby got on top of the camper to see a small piece of caulk was missing exactly RIGHT over

where this water damage was sitting.

 Good old hubby got up on the roof and repaired the missing caulk and caulked everything else again

for good measure.

While he did that I had let the board dry out and then I DRY LOCKED the whole area and a bit around the area just to be safe.

Once the UN FUN stuff was finally done, and the dry lock was dry and cured it was FINALLY time to start the Makeover.

I chose the  Muretto DURANGO tile by SMART TILES

The colors went PERFECTLY with the whole interior of our travel trailer.

 

 Having done it once already I was ready to roll.

I gathered all my tools including a utility knife, sharp scissors, straight edge and light sand paper and cleaner for the backsplash (since we don't do a ton of greasy cooking in the camper and I didn't want to put chemicals on the backsplash I simply lightly sanded the whole area and cleaned the area well with an ammonia based cleaner)

I cut my starting tile made sure it was level and started peeling...and sticking..

The KEY as they say ...is OVERLAP! Not my hubby or my kids could see where any of my seams were. In fact when I go back and look it takes me a while to find them as well.

You can see the full video on how to use them HERE.

The only time I ever needed my hubby's help was for him to help me pull the hood over the range down so I could put the tiles back behind without having to make a bunch of awkward cuts.

I am in love with how it looks and how Easy it was.

I would use this again in a heart beat and my mind is honestly racing to see where

I could use them next.

 Between my sisters condo and our travel trailer I have had about 10 people ask me

if was real tile. No one can tell the difference.

I can't wait to head out camping tomorrow.

All my work will be worth it when I wake up that first cool camping morning and 

my eyes will be greeted by my new beautiful backsplash!

Now you guys go and have a BEAUTIFUL day!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I received product and/or compensation for reviewing Smart Tiles  Company products. All opinions are genuine."

Quick Kitchen Backsplash Makeover using Smart Tiles.

Good Morning my Beauties!

I have a fun but NOT SO PERFECT post for you today.

Now its not the project that isn't perfect;

its my photos.

When I started this project I didn't know I was going to post about it,

but I was so excited I figured you guys could handle my iphone photos 

just to see the transformation.

As I have been showing in my Facebook page which you can Follow HERE,

you may or may not know I have been working on Making over 

my sisters condo.

This is what we started with.

Some very out of date wallpaper.

Not my sisters style at all.

We stripped all the wallpaper and she got to painting thew walls.

Once the paper was stripped we were trying to decide what we were going to do for the back splash.

In a moment of Serendipity we both at different times stumbled upon

this product called SMART TILES.

I had never seen or heard of them and neither had my sister until 

we started looking for an easy back splash solution.

I sanded and cleaned the back splash and got to work.

One of the great part of these tiles is they fit together much like a puzzle

and you only need a utility knife to cut them.

Now I told you the pictures are not the best (my niece shot this one with her iphone while I was installing)

The whole back splash took me just under 2 hours.

You can see here how I quickly made my way across the back of the wall.

and here is the finished product.

My sister and brother in law love it and

we got many compliments through out the day of mad people who had spent WAY to much on real tile when they could have had the look of tile without the Cost.

The great thing for you guys is I will be able to show you a better DIY of this product.

I loved it so much I am going to use it myself.

So stay tuned for another, better quality picture and detailed write up 

of this product.

I am so excited to start.

I hope you enjoyed this latest makeover.

Even if the pictures are kind of cruddy, I hope you can see what a change this made.

Until next time, go make someones day Beautiful!