Dream Kitchen

We are taking our house off the market this week.  I am thrilled!  I am SO sick of showings and all of the other stress that goes along with trying to sell a house.  When the house that we wanted to buy was sold to someone else I pretty much lost all interest in moving.  We put a lot of work into getting it ready to sell so Graig wanted to keep it on the market and now he's sick of having it on the market too. Thank goodness!

One of the main reasons that I wanted to sell our house is that fact that I HATE our old, ugly outdated kitchen. I have tried to make the best of it for the past 8 years by painting our cabinets (twice!) and getting new appliances but we still hate it. 

We have decided to put in a new kitchen! I am SO excited! My friend Stephanie is a kitchen designer so she came over last week and took measurements and is coming up with a plan for our new kitchen! 

I wish we could do this right away but we have decided to save all of the money first and then start the work.  Graig and I talked and worked out a budget and we have decided that we are going to save, save, save and start this project next Septmeber so for the next year we will be saving up money for our new kitchen. 

I gave Stephanie a big list of things I wanted in our new kitchen.  Here are some things on our wish list:

-white cabinets

-white subway tile backsplash

-stainless appliances including a range with a double oven

-farmhouse sink

-a mudroom/entrance area in our kitchen

-open to dining room

-open shelves to display dishes

-new lighting

-breakfast bar area

She wanted me to show her some pictures of kitchen that I liked to give her an idea of what we were looking for.  I got all of these pictures from pinterest.

This is perfect.  I love everything about this picture.  I want everything to be white but I don't want it to look sterile or cold. 

I love this little mudroom/sitting area.  Sadly our kitchen is teeny, tiny (10x12) so she is going to design a small bench area for us. 

Love, love, love these open shelves

I love the open cabinets in this picture and the farmhouse sink and the light countertops.  I am not sure what kind of countertops I want but I do like these. 

I like the light fixtures and simple cabinets in this picture. 

I love the colors in this picture and the cozy, lived in feel of ths kitchen.  The island is beautiful!  Sadly we don't have room for an island but I like the overall feel of this kitchen. 

We haven't seen Stephanie's first design yet.  I can't wait to see it! 

I have been looking at all kinds of kitchens online because I want this kitchen to be perfect.  I have already told Graig that I am not moving out of our house ever because it's SO much work trying to sell a house. 

Our weekend!

We had a very busy and fun fall weekend!  On Saturday Ava and I went to Albany with some friends to run in the Color Me Rad Race.  We signed up in June and we were excited to get to run! It was a 5k and every k we got sprayed with color.  We all started out in all white.  

The girls showing off their numbers!

Here Ava and I are after the race!  We are covered in color!

Ava with her friends.  I love this picture of them.  They had so much fun!

In other exciting news we FINALLY got our dining room table back!  I took it to be refinished in June so it has been a long few months.  I wanted it dark so I chose the darkest stain available.  I love the way it turned out.  The refinisher is still working on our chairs and he is dropping them off on Thursday. I can't wait to have my whole set again!

Last night I went out to dinner with Sabrina, Sara and Melanie.  I love these ladies.  We were celebrating because Sara's is having her baby VERY soon.  So we called it the Last Supper!  Because it was her last girls night before becoming a Mom. 

Happy Monday!

Our weekend and fall decor!

I can't believe it's already Wednesday!  This week is flying by. Tonight we have Brock's 10th grade open house.  We get to go to his different class rooms and meet his 10th grade teachers.  It should be a fun night!  I felt so connected to his elementary school teachers because I saw them almost every day.  Once he got to middle school and now high school I don't know most of his teachers so I look forward to this night to be able to meet them and to see what Brock's day is like in high school.  

Speaking of Brock he made a little money over the weekend by umpiring two little league baseball games.  He was in the field and Graig was behind the plate umping.  It was SO cold.  Poor Brock had about 5 layers on :( 

Ava had a soccer game on Saturday and she played goalie.  Thankfully she stopped about 3 goals from being scored! 

I have been doing some more fall decorating at home. 

These two little fall touches are on the top of my dining room hutch. 

Here is a picture of our whole hutch.  I LOVE my orange (fiesta red) pitcher. 

Here is a close up of my fiesta pitcher.   Love, love love it!!

I love the fall garland that I use every year in our dining room light.  I leave it up until Thanksgiving.  I really like "fall" decorations instead of Halloween or Thankgiving focused decor. 

This is the shelf in our living room.  I always try to do something to spice it up for the holidays.  I made that rag wreath last fall and I added a subway art to a frame that I already had. 

It is suppose to turn chilly and rain this week. One thing I want to try this week is the broccoli cheese soup recipe from Panera that is on pinterest. I found this recipe and I can't wait to try it!

Friday fun day!

I am SO happy it's Friday this has been the looooongest week at work.  I am ready for the weekend.  I thought I would show you some cute things I've done around our house.  Since it's for sale I haven't been doing very many projects but I've added a few things.  Obviously, we are trying to declutter so right now about 1/2 of my decor items are in storage :( 

I added a border to almost all of my pics on this post. I don't like it so I won't add it again-lol!

Last weekend I got a few mums at Home Depot.  These are by our side door and look great. Unfortunately the ones by our front door are almost dead :(  I think there is too much sun out front for them.  I am going to pick out a few more mums this weekend. 

I ordered some pillows for our dining room from etsy.  I love look of both patterns.  Of course I LOVE the chevron pattern but I like the other pattern I got just as much.  I think these cozy up the little bench/heater in our dining room. 

Right before we put our house on the market I added some empty frames to the wall above our couch in the sunroom.  People keep asking me if I took our family pictures out of these frames because our house is for sale.  Umm, no... I just like the look of

the frames.  The colors in this picture are a little off.  Our wall color is actually a light green color. 

I got this cute little fall owl at the Christmas Tree Shop.  Cuteness-I love him!

It hasn't been all work and running my kids around this week.  I have been doing some fall shopping online because we live in the middle of nowhere with no mall for miles. We actually have a teeny, tiny mall with a few stores but we have no "real" mall.      I got some cute cardigan sweaters at Target and then I ordered this coral necklace from Bridier Baubles.   The pic is from their website.  I have been wanting this for a few months and it has been out of stock.  I checked yesterday and it was back in stock and it shipped to me today!  It was only $20 with free shipping.  I can't wait to get it!

Tonight we don't have any plans (thank goodness!).  I feel like that never happens so I am making tacos and I got We bought a Zoo from Redbox and we are all going to have a low key night at home. 

Tomorrow and Sunday are busy days for us-Ava has a soccer game and Brock has baseball and we are going to a dinner tomorrow night for Graig's work so I am thankful that we can relax tonight.  Have a good weekend!

Fall Fun!!

It is thankfully fall in NY!!  I am thrilled :)  Brock and Ava are back in school, the crazy first few weeks of the semester are over for me and I've started buying some  sweaters and scarves.  I really do love this time of year.  I also started doing a little fall decorating around our house

I got some sunflowers last weekend at the Farmer's Market and they still look SO pretty.  I wanted something nice on our table because thankfully we've been having some house showings :) 

I got these cute little pumpkins for $1.29 at the Christmas Tree Shop!  I also planted a real pumpkin plant in my garden this year and I am happy to report that there is a big pumpkin growing in our back yard :)  I will have to take some pics to show you. 

I also added a festive fall wreath to our front door. 

This really has nothing to do with fall at all but I ordered a wooden monogram from etsy after seeing this post by Amanda at Dixie Delights.  I just love her blog!  She put her monogram in a canvas in her bathroom.  I am going to cover a canvas with fabric and then add this monogram to the covered canvas.  I think it will look so cute!!

I also took pics of Brock and Ava's first day of school.  Brock started 10th grade this year and Ava started 5th.  They are growing up way too fast :( 

Now that things have calmed down here I hope to get back into my blogging routine!  Happy Wednesday!