Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Mission Home Remodel


We are in the final month countdown until the start our kitchen and bathroom remodeling projects. The past week, Mike and I have been talking over ideas and making a few purchases to get our part ready for the contractor. Our friend, Dan, is doing the work for us. It's one of those situations where I don't want to have to be stuck at home during the chaos everyday and can leave Dan with a house key to come and go. I can't think of a better way to complete this project - Dan will do an excellent, careful job and I don't need to feel awkward with a stranger in my house for 5 weeks.

The first step in our remodel was having a garage sale this past weekend. We...er, I...have accumulated a lot of stuff. One quarter of the basement was piled high with things that needed to find a new home. I find things I like at other garage sales, Goodwill, Salvation Army, clearance, etc. and buy it without having a specific purpose or place in mind. I was amazed and appalled to lay out all the stuff for our sale. But, thankfully, we unloaded most of it. Either I priced it really cheap or people will buy anything...it's probably a combination of the two together! At the end, we still had a few "nicer" items that we didn't want to just give to a thrift store so we listed them on Craig's List. So far we've sold 3 of the 7 items. Yeah!

Wrapped up in this whole remodel is the idea that I need to organize our home better than it has been. I have pockets of awesome organization, but many areas are lacking. In the midst of all this garage sale business, I found a great 12 drawer "dresser" on Craig's List to place behind my couch for storing the boy's art stuff, desk necessaries, etc. I had a pretty sofa table there, but it didn't meet my goal or need for organization or "hidden but easily accessible."




There is much to do around here, but we've made a few decisions...now the deliveries will start with floor tile this morning. We're choosing paint colors and I usually have a hard time find the "right" color. The top picture shows our dining room floral curtain and kitchen plaid curtain that we'll be drawing colors from. The dining room is already painted a mustard yellow and we want to choose a green for the kitchen...in person I think that darkest green works but here it looks a bit off. Uh-oh...any suggestions on how to get the "right" color?

I'll post a few before pictures soon prior to demolition. Here's to upheaval and chaos for most of the summer with a sweet and slightly pretty, boy friendly result at the end!

3 comments:

carole said...

Hi Kiley! I love selecting colors. My favorite line is Benjamin Moore paint. They have a section called "historical colors." My "technique" is to take the colors I'm interested in and find the closest match in their historical colors palette. The colors in that palette always go well together, so if I'm trying to combine a few colors (randomly from the gazillion paint chips available) this helps narrow the choice of shades down. It's worked pretty well for us so far.

Also, as far as the blog template stuff, I saw a cute site not too long ago that had really amazing templates for free. I don't know how hard they would be to install. (although I do think that the blog owner will install the design for something like $10!) The site is:
simplyfabulousbloggertemplates.com

MommyB said...

Hey how exciting!!! Good luck with all of your upcoming choices. PS I love craigslist.

Kelly said...

Having fun perusing your blog tonight! Wish we lived closer! We'd have much too much fun together! And I would love for you to teach me to sew!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love your new kitchen!