My Pinterest Dream Kitchen

Today marks my SECOND Pinterest Wednesday.

Today rather than share my favorite pin's of the week, I'm going to be daydreaming a bit with you about my vision for my kitchen.

*Disclaimer.  I do a LOT of daydreaming. (a.k.a. pinning things that I may never actually accomplish)


**Disclaimer TWO* This vision is subject to change within six months with or without warning.

I say that because six months ago my vision for my kitchen was dark floors, white cabinets, faux dark beams across the ceiling.  I called it "modern farmhouse".

img from DecorPad.com

While I still think that this is gorgeous my husband wasn't extremely fond of this idea.  (Yes, ladies it is their house too.)  He likes the idea of darker cabinets, which I don't mind either, but the thought of re-staining my cabinets was a daunting task.  I learned during my bathroom renovation that staining cabinets is a LOT of work.  MUCH harder than painting.

So I started thinking about painting my kitchen cabinets black.  Yes.  I said black.  For better words lets call it espresso (sounds fancier doesn't it?).

So I started searching images and came up with some ideas.

You can call it French country or European country.  Here is my vision.

image from Rustic Woodworks, Inc. pinned here

I'm really starting to LOVE LOVE LOVE rustic looking wide plank floors in a walnut color.  Since I have pets if I went dark you would see every scratch and nick, every single bit of dog hair.  If I go more rustic I think it would eliminate a TON of stress for me.  Of course my taste is expensive.  Siiiighh.

I'd LOVE to do something like this for my range hood:

img from Houzz.com pinned here

And NOTHING goes better with a French country theme than copper.  Who would have thought that I would start to LOVE copper?

Image pinned here

Image Pinned Here

Doesn't that copper with the distressed black just scream French country?  Ahhh.  I love it.

Img from depotcreations.blogspot.com pinned here

Of course what TOTALLY freaks me out is that my tastes change like every few months, and when you are doing something like a kitchen, well, you are gonna have to LOVE it for a LONG LONG time.   We are a LONG way away from a kitchen redo, so I have time to really think about this.  In the meantime though I'm gonna keep pinning away ideas for my dream kitchen.

img pinned here

To follow my board "kitchen ideas" you can see it here on Pinterest! 

Today I'm linking up with The Vintage Apple "Oh How Pinteresting Wednesday".

My First Pinterest Wednesday

Ok, I'm doing my very first "Oh how Pinteresting Wednesday".

What is Pinterest you may say?

img source cheezburger.com via ragebuilder.com

Not kidding.  That's pretty much all it boils down to.

So I decided to share my favorite pins from the past week with you all.

Img from Anawhite.com via apartmenttherapy.com

My 4 year old has been begging for a desk, but with a huge dresser, toys, and sharing a room with little sis, doesn't give us much room.  I think this would be a PERFECT solution.  I love it.

img from BHG.com

A "command center".  A place to put all the school paperwork and stuff that goes in and out of the house.  I LOVE it and hope to someday have this in my den/office area.

from impatientlyprayingforpatience.blogspot.com

These little bad boys were staircase newel posts turned into candlesticks.  SOOOOO doing this.

img source julievic.polyvore.com

I discovered Polyvore last week also.  Let me tell you I could spend hours putting together outfits I'll never wear.  Seems like I may have pretty decent taste because this little bad boy had 17 repins.

img source bamboofloorings.org

Wide plank walnut flooring.  Oh, I could just die.  LOVE it.

img from houzz.com

LOVELY barn doors that my husband hates.  Sigh.  Still trying to win him over, but it's not working.

And the crowing jewel of my week on Pinterest.  I laughed so hard at this I was crying.

no photo credit available.  Sorry!

I still look at that and laugh and laugh.  So funny!

I'm linking this post up to The Vintage Apple "Oh How Pinteresting Wednesday."

Weekend Detour

My weekend took a bit of a detour from what I thought it would be.

Yesterday was supposed to be spent in my garage woodworking on my entryway storage bench, as you saw from my previous post, however upstairs was feeling pretty dirty and gross so my husband and I went into a full cleaning frenzy, and ended up rearranging our room in the process.

We decided to move the bed under the window.  I know that this goes against some peoples home decorating rules and according to Feng Shui all our Chi or whatever would go out the window and it would disrupt our sleep.  Yeah, I totally don't buy into that kind of stuff, and I slept GREAT last night.

Now of course re-arranging our room puts me into a "I need to completely redo this room" mindset and once I get there it's VERY hard for me to get out of that mindset.

I actually considered axing the entryway project and starting to work on night stands instead.

I told you I'm nuts, and completely indecisive. 

It's SO hard for me to prioritize when I have a HUGE list of what I want to do.

Do I need matching nightstands?  Yes.  Do I want my king size bed with a new headboard?  Yes.  BUT I need to be content where we are at.  We will get there and the journey is the fun part, and by lamenting about what I want and don't have, I don't enjoy the present. 

I plan to get a perfect little corner chair and move that wing back downstairs and recover it and put it in my den.   Also we will get a regular bathroom door (we removed the two double doors because frankly they were a pain in the rear). We will move the TV over a bit more centered to the bed, and hide the cables in the wall, and have a tall chest underneath it.  Also I want one of those pretty benches in front of the bed with storage.  

It is ok to dream a little.

Here is my vision (but with Ana's farmhouse headboard and side tables):

img from Houzz.com

Image from Decor Pad

It's fun to plan and dream.

But ahem, back to my weekend detour:  Flippin. Cleaning. Frenzy.

My husband is such a sweetheart and offered to clean our bedroom and let me go woodwork and have a day off.  Because I'm such a control freak sweetheart I decided to help him instead.  (This had NOTHING to do with the fact that I'm a big sissy and scared to use the table saw by myself.)

We usually end up moving beds, vacuuming under them, vacuuming mattresses, vacuuming corners etc.. and doing BIG stuff like this when we just get sick of the mess. 

This is NOT working for us.

With four kids, two dogs, two cats and a hamster I need to get better control of this home.  I need a cleaning schedule that KEEPS it clean throughout the year, and so I don't spend days at a time killing myself because it got so out of control we couldn't handle it anymore.

My weekly cleanings keep the "appearance" of a clean home and keep it from getting totally disgusting, and goes over the major stuff, but there are honestly all kinds of corners I'm cutting because of time. 

I found this AWESOME blog called I Heart Organizing a cleaning checklist and I've been meaning to do this for a long time, it was just sitting down and coming up with a schedule.  Currently I'm putting together a spreadsheet/checklist and a schedule that works for our family.  Here is what I've come up with so far:

DAILY

    Wash dishes
    Empty dishwasher
    vacuum downstairs
    vacuum upstairs
    beds made
    rooms picked up
    full house pick up
    wipe down sinks
    empty garbage
    empty recycle bin
    wipe kitchen counters
    put away toiletries (a.k.a. bathroom is picked up and sinks clear)
    laundry

WEEKLY

    MONDAY
    wipe down fridge
    wipe down microwave

    TUESDAY   
    dust
    clean glass (tv, computer, etc...)

    WEDNESDAY
    vacuum under sofas/chairs
    vacuum stairs

    THURSDAY
    clean toilets
    mop bathroom floors
    scrub bathtubs
    scrub sinks
   
    FRIDAY
    vacuum kitchen floors
    mop tile floors
    scrub kitchen sink
    wipe down kitchen cabinets
   
    SATURDAY
    wash sheets
    clean rooms
    clean hamster cage
    clean liter box

MONTHLY

    WEEK 1
    wipe down walls
    wipe down switch plates

    WEEK 2
    vacuum corners/ceilings
    vacuum inside sofa cushions
    vacuum air vents
    dust fans

    WEEK 3
    launder bathroom rugs
    cycle clean washing machine
    cycle clean dishwasher

    WEEK 4
    vacuum under beds

QUARTERLY

    JAN/APR/JUL/OCT
    wash comforters
    vacuum mattresses
    scrub grout (not sure if this is quarterly annual or bi-annual thing...)

    FEB/MAY/AUG/NOV
    vacuum/dust above cabinets
    change air filters
    clean out fridge/freezer
    clean oven
    descale coffee maker

    MAR/JUN/SEPT/DEC
    wash sofa cushions
    vacuum window coverings
    wash windows

Bi-ANNUALLY

    clean out cabinets/drawers
    wash shower curtains
    change smoke detector batteries

Anyhow, when it all pans out and is finished, I'll post my spreadsheet/checklist to share and let you know what we have come up with. Also share with me what your cleaning schedule is and any tips that you may have!  I could have EASILY forgotten something!