Our Kitchen: Granite Install (the unofficial after)

We can now proudly say that we have a kitchen with GRANITE!! Just remember (as mentioned in my last post), Thursday morning our kitchen looked like this:  

I took the day off from work so I could be there to see the magic happen. It was pretty neat to see our granite pull up on a trailer (wish I would have thought to snap a pic, sorry!). The installers came in and immediately went to work on demolition of the old white counters. Because I wanted to be out of the way, me and Dixie headed back to hang out in the office. With all of the ruckus we were hearing, I was kind of nervous.

When the ruckus stopped for a minute, I  could tell that the installers took a break or had left the kitchen so I snuck out to take a peek. Our kitchen was counter-less!

Dixie and I went back in the office for a while, watched some TV, surfed the net, pinned on Pinterest, Facebook stalked and checked in on work email. I was talking to my Mom, she told me to go out and take a picture of the granite on the trailer before it goes in… and when I walked out I saw the first piece had already been installed!

Not too much longer, I came back out again to see that most of the granite was installed and the sink was set.

Another cool thing, my husband is a Big Green Egg enthusiast. Haven’t heard of a Big Green Egg? It’s a ceramic, charcoal cooker that can grill, smoke and bake. Anyways, B actually built a table for his BGE and we worked a deal with our granite installer to get a piece to top his table. It’s a different slab of granite than ours, but think it looks great!

As the afternoon progressed, so did the backsplash. I should mention that there was one “uh-oh” moment when the installer looked up at me, holding up a piece of tile and asks if I’m sure this is the ivory travertine I wanted because it looks a little darker. After examining and re-examining against the sample I was going off of, it was the right tile (PHEW!)  – just looked darker because the old, white backsplash was SO white compared to the ivory travertine.

Here we are as the grout was drying. The sink and faucet still needed work and the new outlet covers are TBD.

And for comparison take a look at this side-by-side of the before and progress!

Once I get re-situated, decorated, outlet covers installed and a few other updated details complete I’ll take an official, after pic to post!



Hand-painted Wooden Monogram

 

 

Over a year ago, I pinned this painted wooden monogram to my “Wishing & Daydreaming” board on Pinterest.

 

Fast forward to last fall when I was first introduced to the Groopdealz website; my first purchase was this 18” unfinished wooden monogram. I was so excited to check-off one of my wishes from the Pinterest board. (I’ve actually purchased 5 unfinished wooden monograms to give as Christmas, birthday and even bridal shower gifts – and they’ve been a hit!)

 

I didn’t know what color I wanted to paint it immediately, so I put it away in my craft closet until I decided on a color. After a few months, I thought painting it gold would be a good neutral option. Maybe it was my spray paint selection, but the gold was off-par and not at all what I had in mind - so, back to the craft closet the monogram went. It sat in the craft closet awaiting a new paint job for a another month or two until one Saturday afternoon, I felt the urge to paint. 

 

Inspired by a few pieces of my personal, Mackenzie-Childs, Green Flower Market Collection – I was excited to take on a personal challenge to paint a floral design on something that was not just a flat canvas.  

 

 

 

 

I was ‘in the zone’ painting, until I was rudely interrupted by storms and a power outage.

 

Sunday, I resumed painting until another round of storms came. That night, Edmond was hit with a tornado just 2 miles from our house. Also, the towns of Shawnee, OK and Little Axe, OK were hit by F4 tornadoes.

 

The next day, was Monday, May 20th the day an F5 tornado went through Moore, OK Which inspired me to paint for Oklahoma. The #prayforoklahoma painting can be seen here. 

 

This past weekend, I finally was able to focus some time to finish the monogram. With some input from miss Dixie Belle, there was still some detail work to be done before it was complete.

 

Using Mackenzie-Childs ribbon, our McDaniel Monogram now hangs on our mantel! I'm so pleased how it turned out and hope we get to enjoy it in our home.

 

 

 

 

 

Pity Party of 1

10 days in to 2013, I'm sick. Great. Sinus infections The flu sure did have a way of ninja-chopping me. Yesterday morning I was fine and by 10pm, I was in a ball aching and switching from freezing to burning up.

To use up PTO days at work before I lose it, I was already planning to be off Friday - Monday and was going to be SO productive. Funny how things change.

Instead of working today, bragging to co-workers that today was my "Friday" and obnoxiously wishing LOakes a Happy Birthday, I spent the day as a party pooper. The Morning was filled with fun times at the doc-in-the-box and waiting for prescriptions. This afternoon I stayed busy holding down the couch, napping occasionally, Pinterest-ing and planning a productive rest of the weekend (painting a room?), while frequently being checked on by my white, furry nurse.