Completion!

I'm so excited to share the pictures of our finished cabinet to you! I feel like it adds a very special touch to our home! I'm not sure if what I have displayed in the cabinet is going to stay that way, but I like how it looks for now. I really like how the white pieces stand out against the red. What do you think?

Here's a view of it with our orchid picture and set table. We were having our friends over for dinner. I made chicken tortilla soup, yum! I'll share the recipe soon! Notice that the sconce is a little close to the cabinet. I'm planning on moving that.

And finally, the view when you walk through the front door. We decided to paint an accent wall the same red color. I think it really ties everything in very nicely.

Thank you so much for all your advice on the colors. Now, I'm thinking about getting something to place on top of the cabinet. What do you think? A sign, a vase? Any ideas? Do you think it would be better to just leave it empty up there? Just so you know, I do not like clutter or too many things in one spot. So, lets keep it simple!

Have a blessed day!

Progress...

We're almost done with our corner cabinet!


My husband spent time on Sunday fixing up the cabinet, sanding, and priming it for paint. While he was doing this, I painted one of the walls in our house red. I love how it turned out and will share it when I share the final pictures of our cabinet!
Monday, Mackenzie put two layers of the red paint on the cabinet for me and then I painted the last layer and worked on the doors. Above is a picture of the finished cabinet...just needs the doors.

Do you see that paint dripping on the glass? That was the result of a very bad decision we made. You see, Monday afternoon was very sunny and allowed us to complete the cabinet with out any problems of drying. However, when I went to paint the doors, it had cooled down and they did not dry as quickly. We made the decision to leave them out overnight because it wasn't supposed to rain. However, we didn't consider the dew. Because the doors weren't dried all the way, the wet dew caused the paint to drip down the doors.

Today, I had to sand the doors down and completely repaint them. Do not leave your freshly painted furniture outside, overnight!

Lessons learned, I guess.

We'll be waiting about a week before we put anything in the cabinet so that the paint can fully cure. After that I will share with you our finished cabinet!

Have a blessed day!

Thank You!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your help!

You ladies are awesome! I got so many wonderful ideas from you!

After much consideration, we decided that we are going to go with a deep red. I'm really excited about it and feel that it will really give us that splash of color that we've been wanting more of in our house! I can't wait to get started!

Here are two examples of red cabinets that I found on the web:



And, do you remember this picture?



This is to the right of our cabinet and we're going to match the red paint to this color. The picture doesn't show it in it's best but I know it will look great!

Thank you again for all your help! I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to get back to all of you yet but I will try to tonight!

I need your help!

I'm sending out an S.O.S. to you today!

Recently, I've asked my husband to build me a corner hutch/shelf for our kitchen and dining area. I wanted it to add more storage and to display our nice dishes, etc.

He was planning on building the shelf, until he actually found one at a local furniture recycling place in town. All it needs is a little TLC.

The nice thing about it is that the area is pretty small, but the hutch fit perfectly in the corner. We'll just have to raise the curtain rod a bit.

Here's where you come in...I have no idea what color to paint it!

First I thought black, and then my hubby reminded me that we already have a lot of black furniture in our house. Our dining table is black. Then I thought, well, maybe white. We have a lot of white though because our kitchen cabinets are white.

So, should I stick with black or white? Should I paint it the same color as the wall so it looks built in? Should I paint it a different color? I've never stained anything before, but should I stain it a darker color?

All I know, is that I want to change the hardware on it and paint/stain it another color than it is right now. So please, send me your suggestions! (And please forgive the messy table and tile in the boxes...we're in the process of remodeling our bathroom)

Thanks so much ladies, I really appreciate it!

Have a wonderful Thursday!

My Love

Can I tell you a little bit about my sweet, hard-working husband?

We've been married only 5 months but I've seen so much growth and strength in my husband. I'm blessed to have him and couldn't imagine life without him!

First, my husband is so handy and and very much a hard worker:



The above pictures are of Mackenzie and his brother Cameron in the process of fixing up our first home. We bought a manufactured home to start building our equity and boy was this house a can of worms! It took a lot of hard work. My husband with the help of me, his parents, and brothers did all of this work. It saved us a lot of money to do it ourselves (himself!) than to pay for someone else to do it. Some of the things that needed to be done: ripping up smelly carpet, replacing two walls due to dry rot, replacing a floor due to dry rot, DEEP cleaning, new doors, trim, culk, paint...etc. We still need to tile the bathrooms and work on the exterior of the house (painting and landscaping). But, I owe it all to my hard working husband! You are amazing honey! (By the way, I will try to do a post soon on the remodel of our house...I've been holding off on that but will soon!)

Second, my husband is so sweet and romantic to me:

He leaves me little love notes like these. I found this little note on my computer screen when I came home from work one day.

He brings me home flowers like these.

These sweet gifts like the note and flowers don't happen everyday but they make me feel so happy and loved. I feel loved everyday by him but when he takes the time to write me a little note, it means the world to me to know that he was thinking of me!

Third, he makes me laugh:






Fourth, He loves the Lord more than he loves me and that is so important to me:

Recently he's been doing some research and truth seeking. It has been so awesome to see him become stronger in the Word and in his relationship with God. In addition to his individual time with the Lord, he's involved in two separate bible studies. He amazes me.

Ok, so that was more than just a little bit about my husband, but I just couldn't resist!

I love you my favorite and I'm so blessed to call you my husband! Thank you for giving me so much love.

I want to encourage you ladies to pray for your husbands if you haven't started already. It's so important not only for them but for your relationship. I stumbled across 31 days of prayer for your husband that another blogger had linked to. You can find it here.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good Intentions...

Hello everyone! I hope you had a wonderful week.

I had a very nice one! I had really good intentions for this week. Unfortunately, I was not able to get everything done that I had planned.

It's interesting to me that there are so many weeks when I have a lot of free time. Then however, when I plan to get some extra things done, my week fills up with so many other unexpected events! Why does it happen that way?

My husband and I had a lot of those "unexpected events" this week. They were all good and fun, but definitely unexpected!

Let me remind you that I had "planned" to:

• paint the desk
• organize the office closet
• touch up some painted areas that needed touching up
• etc

Now, here's a look at our evenings this past week:

• Monday night - some good friends came into town from Seattle to tell us that they were expecting! We had dinner with them and later the girls and guys split up to do different fun things. Ice cream, etc.
• Tuesday night - we were invited (that morning!) to a good friend's birthday celebration
• Wednesday night - We met with the Pastor of our church to talk about some differences in the church. This went extremely well by the way and we feel so much better than we did. We're glad that God is calling us to stay at this church.
• Thursday night - Mackenzie had guys night. Which, you would think, gave me a lot of free time to do the things I had "planned". Unfortunately, I got sick and was resting in bed. :(
• Friday night - We went to watch Mackenzie's younger brother's basketball game - they won!
• Saturday - I had to work during the day. That evening, was actually our only "free" night together for the week. I had planned on painting the desk this day, but, due to financial reasons, we decided to wait on buying the paint. So, the desk was postponed and instead, I made a great dinner and we watched a movie!
  
• Sunday - Church, Mackenzie's grandparents came for a visit, and we had our annual "Dinner and a Movie" with Mackenzie's family.

So, with my work schedule during the day and all these activities in the evening, it left practically no time for me to get what I wanted done!

I was a little bummed but we really did have a good week.

I did try a few new recipes, that I will share with you later this week. :)

Since I have postponed buying the paint for my office desk, I have a question for you ladies. What color do you think I should choose? I was thinking just a cream color but if you have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Here's a picture so you can see what the desk looks like. This is in our office/guest room.

Sorry it's not the whole desk. You get the idea though, right?
I'll also be putting new hardware on it too. We really like brushed nickle hardware so I'll be finding some cute knobs that work with it!

I hope your Monday goes well and look forward to catching up with you all!

Renew and Refresh

Our church baptism. Summer 2008

Hi all!
Just wanted to let you know I'll be taking a beak this week from blogging.
I'm going to spend this time working on some projects around the house that I have on my list, spend some extra time with my hubby, make my home more of a haven, catch up with the Lord, and just have time to be renewed and refreshed.

I've got quite a bit on my list so we'll see how much I can get done in between work and meeting with people! I'm going to try and paint that desk this week too, if I can! I will do my best to stop by all of your blogs and say hi!

I pray this week goes well for each and every one of you!

See you next Monday!

Come and See...

...pictures of our guest room/my office! With a few minor additions, this room is almost complete! So, I thought I'd share it with you. In advance, sorry for some of the blurry pictures. I don't like the way a flash makes a picture look and I'm trying to figure out how to make my pictures in focus without a flash. Tips would be wonderful! :)

Anyway, back to the tour.

Here is the entrance to the room. Now, this is our guest room and my office. However, you may notice that there is only a twin bed in there. It would be pretty hard for someone like my sister and her husband to stay in this bed! The reason there is only a twin though, is because the room is so small! Oh well, it'll have to do!

Mackenzie and I are very musically oriented. I sing and am learning to play the guitar. Kenzie is amazing at drums, piano, etc. I've started to collect different musical instruments from places we've been. I have a bunch of small instruments that I eventually will get a shelf to display them on. For now, we have these hanging on the wall.

I love how they look hung in the room.

Here is the desk I use. We are actually planning on painting it soon. The neat thing about this desk is, Mackenzie's dad made it in high school. It is built so well and has lasted all these years! All it needs is a new paint job to spruce it up! I love that we have something special that his dad made. Notice my laptop is not on the desk...that's because I frequently take it out into the living room to blog, etc.

I bought this runner from World Market specifically for this desk. I saw it online and fell in love with the design. It's got a kind of Fleur De Le pattern. I love what it adds to the room.

And here's the other end of the room. Very small, but quaint.

Above the bed you can see another picture.

This is another original done by a good friend of ours. It is a charcoal drawing. It goes so perfectly with the room and the instruments hanging.

Hope you enjoyed our extra little room!