Our low budget kitchen

I'm finally adding photos of our kitchen which we've been enjoying for several months now.  We'll do the trim, floors, and ceilings last so it will stay "almost done" for a while still.

We didn't change any of our appliances.  They're all still mismatched but working just fine so I can't bear to spend the money on that right now, if ever.

Jeff keeps asking me if I'm ready to get a new stove to the point that I'm starting to wonder if he doesn't like it as much as I do.  The burners don't have a truly medium heat setting and it bakes a bit unevenly but that's fine by me since I'm far from the best cook and when things don't turn out that great I can just blame it on the stove.

We bought our cabinets and  granite counters, which only come in six foot lengths, from a discount building supply store and it saved us a bundle.  Jeff also set every tile himself rather than buying the tiles in sheets.  It took a little longer but would have cost so much more otherwise.

Jeff experimented with the under-mount lighting using discs on the right side of the cabinets and went through a huge amount of trouble to hide the cords.  Then we decided to use a bar light under the open shelves and he's not happy with it so we just left the cord till we get around to switching it out to the disc style lights.  It's been so long since I've been able to see very well while working at the kitchen counters that I forgot just how nice it is to have good lighting, dangling cord and all.

So, we started with appliances which are all second hand (super-duper cheap or free) and then built the kitchen from the ground up for under $3,000.   Not as cheap as the kitchen set up we had before but I'm so thankful to have it!

And these flowers have nothing to do with our kitchen but I've recently discovered how much I love having living plants in the house even if I know they'll most likely be dead in a few months.  These cyclamen have such unique and colorful blossoms, only cost around $3.00 and they'll far outlast any fresh bouquet...although I still love fresh bouquets from time to time too. 

Summer update

Wow!  It's been a long, long time!  I've had a few sweet people request an update on the goings on around here so I'll oblige.  Like most bloggers who take a break for whatever reason I've really missed blogging so maybe this attempt will get me back in the saddle.

So my last post was about becoming debt free.  I wish I had some great insight to share with you guys on how to get there but I haven't found anything new outside of the usual just tighten your belt and stick with it. It's hard.  Now, I love a budget and could live the life of a hermit eating nothing but beans but that method does not agree with Jeff at all and our relationship is higher on the priority list than becoming debt free so things aren't going quite like we thought it would.  Having said all that, Jeff isn't a big spender either and he likes a budget too, he just isn't nearly as painfully rigid about it as I can be so he works, unwittingly, to (try to) keep me flexible which is also more important because life is full of unexpected changes and being able to roll with life's punches is practically a virtue.  I don't have that virtue. (Just ask my poor husband!)  And, truth be told, most of my budget abiding-ness is really all in my head anyway.  Just dangle something like a new kitchen in front of me and I'll be all over it like a duck on a June bug while yelling budget-smudget!  I can't keep it together with an offer like that.

In short, we're still working on it but we have set backs and sometimes parts of the budget get put on hold but Lord willing, we'll get there someday.

Now, on to the fun stuff.

We've been enjoying what feels like the shortest and coolest summer in history after what felt like the longest winter in history.  The weather has been strange around here this year.

Gracie and Madison pretty birthday table for Gracie's 12th.  It's so nice having older girls that like to bake and decorate for all of our birthday parties.  They're like my right and left arms!

We've had a few changes in livestock over the summer.  The girls sold all of their goats (which helps explain the 5 foot tall weeds) and now are the proud owners of two cute little duckies.  The one in the water is wearing a duck diaper that my seamstress daughter, Gracie, made.  Ha, ha!

We now have a milk cow thanks to some of the most self sacrificing friends on the planet who took our cows for the summer to rebreed them and trained one of our mamas into a milker.  What a huge blessing!

We didn't really garden this year...the year the weather was pretty much perfect for gardening with all the rain and perfect temperatures.  We thought we needed to focus on other things...ppffft.  Isn't that how it goes sometimes though?

Madison, who has been obsessed with art her whole life, has recently started painting fo reelz and she's pretty amazing for self taught fourteen year old.  She's even sold a couple recently.  This one is not for sale...it's MINE!  Ha, ha! :) Seriously though, mine.  (I love her sense of humor with the cow tongue!) 

I've been sewing like crazy.  I'm probably addicted.  My favorite things to sew are dresses for the little girls and I don't have one single picture of them in any of their dresses I've made this summer.  I've got some other sewing/crafting projects up my sleeve that I can.not.wait to dive into but we've been super busy lately building the (real) kitchen.  

We developed a good sized mold problem under the sink which couldn't be easily repaired because, and I quote my husband, "That's the part that holds all the cabinets together.  I guess it's time for us to build the kitchen."  So we gutted the temporary plywood and contact paper kitchen and purchased all new cabinets and counters.  We bought them from a discount supplier which means we have had to put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, paint, and silicone into it ourselves which makes it all the more rewarding.  I've also been filling every nail hole and covering every knot on our pine plank walls which has been way easier than I ever thought it would be and makes a huge difference in the overall appearance.  It's not quite as rustic looking which was a look I was never going for so I'm glad to kiss that look goodbye!

We still have a little ways to go before it's finished but we're so close and it's only taken two weeks so far!  I'd like to finish it before school starts for us next week but we'll see what happens. 

Speaking of school, my little Evelyn will start kindergarten this year so I'll have four to teach.  Say a prayer for me, please!  Ha, ha!  

I guess that's it for now.  I hope to try a little harder to keep up with the blog because I have so much fun going back through old posts every now and then to reminisce.

      P.S. Will all of you sweet sisters in Christ out there please pray for one of my father's-in-law, Bob as well as Jeff's mom, Jackie.  Bob has been recently diagnosed with stage four liver cancer which is a huge blow to all our hearts.  I know in my head that God's grace is always sufficient for all things but sometimes it's hard for my heart trust the Father enough to lay some of life's burdens completely at his feet and this is no exception.  Thanks.

Making do

Living in an unfinished house with a multitude of things that need to be done a.s.a.p. on a limited budget has a way of helping your priorities stay in order.  When your showering and you feel a breeze so you look up and at the ceiling, spying between the rafters and the insulation and spot daylight, it's hard to justify buying a new rug whose main purpose is to just sit there and look pretty.  Or how can you justify buying $60 worth of paint just to paint the subfloor which will be covered someday when after storms you have to add a few more staples to your two year old house wrap, hoping it will hold up just a little bit longer?  And when you see that it's time to roll on a new layer of contact paper that serves as your counter top because you've got a few to many knife holes and pasta sauce stains on the current layer, it is again hard to justify buying new living room chairs.  Especially when your old, oversized, ugly brown chair is still holding up just fine...but I did it anyway.  I caved.

I'm chuckling to myself as I type about the breezes, house wrap and contact paper.  While true, I happen to find it humorous.  My kids are going to enjoy telling their own children stories of their "impoverished hardships" growing up and laugh to themselves as the little ones gasp in disbelief.  Heh, heh.  It also helps me keep things in perspective by remembering that we chose to live this way.  I know there are far too many people in the world who are truly impoverished and suffering while I am truly blessed beyond measure.

I didn't buy a lot of new stuff or anything terribly fancy but it was just enough to perk the place up a little for me.  And like I always have to preface...it's still unfinished, as if you couldn't tell.

Let's start with a before picture, because if you've ever caught the tail end of a before and after program on HGTV and have been disappointed with the after and thought to yourself, what's so great about that?  And then you think, maybe this is a flash back to the before shot, until you see the homeowners come into the room and start crying and/or laughing and you realize it is, in fact, the after and then you think to yourself, I would be crying and/or laughing too if that was my house.  Yes?  You know what I'm talking about?  Okay, then you know why it's necessary for me to show you this terrible, awful picture. 

Brace yourselves for sheer horror because here comes the before (which is actually from shortly after we moved in because it was the ONLY picture out of literally thousands of pictures that I have of what it all once looked like.) 

Yes, I'm stalling.

Sorry you noticed. 

Okay, here we go.  Just take a quick peek then turn away, mkay?

Before

Welp, that was traumatizing.   

Okay.

As you can see, all of our living, dining and kitchen space is in one room that's 20' x 22'.  Just a mere 440 square feet.  That's about the size of a lot of peoples living room alone. 

Part of the problem for me (besides all the obvious stuff you can see in the picture) was actually the openness of the living room furniture.  The living area is about 14' x 20' which isn't too terribly small.  In fact, it was too big, too spread out and not well defined.  Because of the open rafters in the ceiling sound doesn't travel very well which makes it hard to have a conversation with someone across the room without yelling, and if we have company and there are multiple conversations going on at once, it turns into a yelling match.  On the plus side, it is very quiet in here most of the time which is essential to my staying alive.  I must have quiet and lots of it or my brain and nerves absolutely start to fry.

Moving on.  Let's start with the kitchen and what it looks like right now.  I just can't bring myself to say after because I haven't really done much in there and it's by no means finished and after sounds like it's done, final, finished, but it's not.  Sorry.  I'm stalling again.  I'll try to stop that from happening in the future. 

So here's the kitchen currently,

Eventually I'll have real cabinets and counters and a real floor and maybe even matching appliances but this is what I have for now and I'm content...for now.  I suppose if it never progressed any farther it wouldn't be the end of the world but I hope that doesn't happen.  (The blue between the rafters is foam insulation which will be covered in wood someday.)

My appliances are a hodgepodge of finishes.  Black, white, stainless and turquoise, so to bring them together at least a little bit, I bought matching vinyl stickers off etsy for my fridge and dishwasher.

They're a little on the frilly side which I'm not super crazy about, but it does kind of help bring the kitchen together a little bit.

I still have my turquoise blue stove which goes well with the styrofoam insulation.  (The small cat-like creature is my little Chili-choo-choo chihuahua, dining at his favorite fast food joint.)

In the dining portion of the room, Jeff added another window not too long ago to give us a little view of the back woods.  (Don't look at my highwaters!  I'll extend those or replace them someday!)

The table is a little 3' x 5' table that everybody and his brother had fifteen years ago.  It seats all seven of us just fine for now, but as the kids get bigger it might become too cozy.  Then, of coarse, I'll just have my personal man servant build me a newer, nicer, bigger table.  (I love you so much, Shnookums pooh bear!)

And last, but not least, the living room.

I arranged all the furniture on one side of the room for a cozier layout and we can actually have real live conversations with eachother now.  It's nice that way.  On the far right is our current computer cabinet in the hole where the fireplace was.  Jeff and I pulled it out and plan to build in a computer cabinet/entertainment center instead.  I've decided I'd rather have the fireplace outside on the back deck.

After I painted the subfloor (which I love better than the unpainted subfloor but hate how it now shows dirt like crazy, by the way) I bought an 8' x 10' jute rug off Amazon for a mere $1,444.00 including $1,200.00 in fraudulent credit card charges.  (I should have used paypal, but at least it's been resolved.)  I love the rug.  It's already been through a violent hazing when all of the kids had a nasty stomach bug a couple of weeks ago.  It cleans up nicely.  You've gotta be tough to survive around here.

 

I also bought a couple of matching chairs which the children are forbidden to even look at let alone touch.  (I'm so mean.)  They came with lumbar pillows that match the green fabric, but I made these blue and white ones for them instead.  I can't have things matching too much.  That wouldn't go with my home's chaotic theme.

Behind the green chair I have some fancy, shmancy wainscoting made up of a couple of old doors laying on their sides.  Nice, huh?  I'm still working out in my head what kind of a wall I want separating the kitchen from the living room.  I'm currently thinking a half wall behind the stove across to the far right counter that meets a full length wall right next to that counter for a little extra visual separation.  That's where the dirty dishes get stacked and I wouldn't mind if I didn't have to see them every waking moment. 

I think that about wraps it up for now.  If you made to the end of this post, I thank you...and I'm sorry you had to see all that.  I'm glad I got this out in the open though, so now maybe I can start lookin' you people in the eye! ☺

Cupcakes for my cupcake

I've been refamiliarizing myself with cooking, since I went so long with just a couple of little hot plates, and one of the first things I baked in my dreamy blue oven were cupcakes.  I bought a carrot cake mix for Jeff's birthday a few weeks ago, in hopes that the oven would be up and running by then.  It wasn't.  But that's okay because if it had been, then these cutesy little cupcakes would have never been born.  They'd have been a plain old sheet cake because what man's man would wants cupcakes for his birthday, even if he is a sweetie?

 

I've been taking on things like oven roasted chicken as well as popping some of our home grown Dakota Black popcorn on the stove.

It's not burned, the kernels are actually black.

Cooking on the blue stove almost makes me enjoy cooking!

The Big Vintage Oven Reveal!

 I was beginning to think this day would never ever come but,

with the exception of the two left burners which still need to be wired, my vintage oven is finally done!!!

She's beautiful and she cooks, just like me.  Except for the cooking part.  And I suppose the beauty part also would depend on the beholder but other than that we're exactly alike.  Old and large.  Except for the old part.  I'm forever 29.  And fortunately I'm not as large either.

It's been a long, long journey since we first brought her home that cold night in November.

Jeff rewired everything with all new wiring.

Removed the mouse poop filled insulation and replaced it with new.

Replaced all the old burners and degreased the whole thing.

He finished it last night at 10:30 pm after working on it for the last couple of Saturdays and we celebrated (tested it for accuracy) with frozen pizzas baked in the oven.  Something we used to take for granted.

The oven timer isn't working and rather than put more effort and money into fixing it, I think for now we'll just put a clock in that spot.  But other than that, it works just like a brand new oven.  I did some cooking and baking on it today and was really impressed with it.  Hurray!  It was a very long wait but so worth it.

Once the kitchen is done (still a long ways to go) I'd like it to have a similar look to this kitchen.

Coastal Living

Please visit Twice Remembered for the ever fun Make Your Monday and
Between Naps on the Porch for Met Monday and
Blue Cricket Design for Show and Tell
as well as
The Single Nester for Tuesday Turquoise!

We have everything but the kitchen sink

Last night while moving our "urban" chickens to the country (a post for another day) Jeff and I were discussing the plumbing in the house.  He said he and JJ thought about giving me a wall mount faucet in the kitchen.  gasp.  How did he know that's all I've ever wanted in my life?

So that's my assignment for today.  Figure out if that really is the best thing to want in life.  I used to think some open shelving in the kitchen was all I ever wanted. 

                 

Then I read up on people's opinions who actually live with open kitchen shelves and found out the truth.  Greasy, dusty dishes.  No thanks, I'll pass.

Some potential problems I see with a wall mounted faucet are things like trying to get both nobs turned to just the right temperature with my one clean hand while my other raw chicken goo covered hand is waiting impatiently to be washed.  That seems like a lot of work, and remember, I'm kind of lazy.  Then there's the issue with the sprayer.

There it is, with its long hose just laying all over the place like it's the star of the show.  Not pretty.  But without it, how will Jeff and I have our little spontaneous moments of flirtatious spraying eachother with it in the kitchen like they do on TV?  Some of the pluses of this style of faucet, however, would be the sheer beauty of the faucets and the sinks that go with them.  Oh the sinks.  They are lovely.  Take the apron sink for example.

Yes, I'll take two please. That wouldn't be the least bit excessive in my 8x11 kitchen.  They are gorgeous!  And their prices start at a mere $500.  *cough, cough*  At that price, why wouldn't I want two?  Or how about a nice under mount sink?

These make cleaning the counter top and around the sink very easy and they look nice too.  Plus, we could use a more affordable sink to get this look, say, your average $40 used sink from Craigslist. I know I wouldn't really have to use a wall mount faucet with either sink but for some reason, just looking at this...

makes my heart go pitter-pat!

Pick up lines.

(Always use pick up lines with caution as they occasionally back fire and result in a punch to the mouth.)


Hey beautiful.  Come here often?
What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?
Are you okay?  Because heaven is a long fall from here.
Bond.  James Bond.

I've heard a few pick up lines in my time but I've never actually used one myself...until Saturday night.  That's when I met the new love of my life...in a dark alley...in a bad part of town.  The second I laid eyes on this stunning specimen, I knew my life would forever be changed.  I'd never seen one so strong and sculpted and even beautiful in all my life.  My heart began to race and my hands began to sweat.  I knew this was it!  I had to say something before my chance at this love would surely disappear.  So I did it.  I said to a man I'd never met before, right there in that dark back alley, "What's your bottom dollar?"  And guess what.  It worked!  I knew I had to work fast before he realized what was going on and changed his mind.  Fortunately, Jeff and my dad were with me and they grabbed some straps and duct tape, quickly loaded my dreamboat up onto the trailer for me and then we road of into the night.

Knowing you all would want to see the stunning physique of my prey, I quickly took a picture for you right there in the dark so the quality is worse than usual but the allure still shows through.  There's just no hiding it.  Are you ready?  Maybe you'd better sit down first.

Taa-Daa!

I only paid $70 for this oven that fell straight from heaven!  It's a GE electric range circa 1955ish.

I found it on craigslist Saturday afternoon and immediately called Jeff and asked him how he felt about buying an old turquoise oven.  He said with the sound of disbelief, "Really?"  But since he doesn't do any of the cooking, he doesn't really care so I asked him if he'd pick it up on his way back home but he couldn't because he didn't have the Suburban.  So then I asked him if he would mind to swing by the guy's house to give him the money for it so no one could buy it out from under me and Jeff said, get this, "I doubt that would happen."  What???  Are you kidding me???  He obviously had no idea what we were dealing with here so I drove the Suburban out to the land and we picked up one of the trailers so I could go and nab this baby.  It wasn't until Sunday morning in the Walmart parking lot, when he noticed that every woman that walked past our trailer queen would slow down, smile and wave and bat their eyes at her like they were trying to lure her off the trailer to come home with them, that he began to understand exactly what we had, but I knew.  I knew the whole time.

I'm pretty sure that if it hadn't been black Friday weekend, which managed to distract every other woman in the Midwest, I would have missed out on this beauty.  Or it would have a least required the use of small firearms and bloodshed to get it.

As soon as we got it into the new house I started chipping away (literally) at the 50 year old baked on grease.  Ewww!  Let me save you some trouble here if you ever have 50 year old baked on grease to clean up...  Just go right for the razor blades and straight ammonia.  Nothing works better.  Just be careful not to scratch the enamel.  I was having a hard time getting into all the nooks and crannies though, so the kings of overkill swooped in and COMPLETELY DISMANTLED IT!  Aaacccckkk!!  I think the 50's look of the stove reminded Jeff of his old cars and he got sucked into the process and my dad just likes to take things apart.  Together, they're dangerous!

                          

The previous owner said it had been used by a renter who said one of the burners didn't work but I don't really care.  Cooking is not my forte.  I just wanted this oven 'cause I think it's purdy.  Shallow, I know.  Jeff however, is quickly falling in love with it too and being the perfectionist that he is has already found all the replacement parts to get it back to like new condition so that we can use it to it's fullest potential.  Ha!  As if.  The total investment will be around $200 and when these ovens have been restored, they sell for a few thousand dollars.  So consider this my children's future inheritance.  That's how much I love them.

                                    

Once they got the oven apart for me to clean, we found it to be full of asbestos insulation and mouse poop.  I'm guessing that many a mouse has succumbed to mesothelioma thanks to that old stove!  Consider it a time release method of pest control.  This finding lead my mom and I into this completely normal conversation,

Mom: "We just had a couple of mice."

Me:  "Oh yeah?"

Mom:  "Yeah.  We caught two in one trap, Renegade."

Me:  "Oh really?"

Mom:  "Mm-hmm.  Which is funny because Thunderin' Billy is usually our best mouse trap."

Me:  "Huh.  That is funny."

Yes, my parents name their mousetraps and keep records of their killings, just for sport.  (They nixed their TV a few years ago too.)  My dad also calls every dog he sees Beauxregard and if you're eating chicken he'll always ask you how your cheeseburger is.  The other night he was talking to Sophie while she was hungry and crying and asked her if she wanted a baloney sandwich.  Nursing always equals a baloney sandwich in the Hawkins household.  These are things you can take to the bank.  You can't find that kind of stability anymore.  In fact, the day my dad stops naming his mousetraps and purposely calling everything by the wrong name is the day I will no longer know up from down, left from right.  As reassuring as my dad's steadfast sense of humor is to his family, it definitely has it's embarrassing drawbacks.  Just ask my sister Erin, who, while taking her driving test, learned that the big slabs of concrete running down the middle of the roads are actually called medians, not comedians.

Now that I'm done chasing rabbits which are in the rodent family like mice, we come full circle, back to my kitchen appliances.

Saturday morning we ran by Lowe's so I could pick up a microwave for the kitchen that will also allow Jeff to eat something other than sandwiches while he's working on the house at night.  We're pretty much in the home stretch so it's going to require him to start burning the midnight oil for a little while.  I hate that. :(  Anyway, the microwave is a $200 black under mount that I got for $99.  My choices were limited.  That means my kitchen will have a 10 year old black fridge, a brand new black microwave, a like new white dishwasher, a 50 plus year old turquoise oven and a strict "no drooling" policy.  Now, if only I can find an old copper farmhouse sink the look will be complete.

Aside from slaughtering my oven right before my eyes, Jeff and my dad also got the metal building completely back together.  That gives me real hope for my oven.

                        

As I predicted, it took all weekend, right up to dark last night to take it down, transport, and reassemble it.

                      

Next up will be the plumbing and electrical in the house.

One last thing.  Today is my oldest baby's birthday.  At 8:30 this morning, Madison turned eleven.  Whaaaa!  It wasn't supposed to be going by this fast!  I remember when she was a tiny little baby, suffering with colic every night, and thinking, "Will this ever end?"  And now here she is, eleven.  Boo-hoo-hoo.  As sad as it makes me, I wouldn't turn back time if I could.  She's just as amazing and precious to me now as she ever was! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADISON!!!