Finished ceilings and new fixtures in the den/kitchen

It feels good we are making some progress in an area of our house that was in bad shape for a long time. We removed the popcorn ceilings and were stuck there for a while.

We sanded, primed, and painted the ceiling and painted the walls too. It really motivated us to get it all done once we got the new ceiling fan and light.

Here are some before pictures and progress shots.

 Before

 Progress- Fan is a Casablanca Trident.  It works great and is much more our style.

 Before

 

 Progress- Pendant is from Ballard Design and is the Tours 4 Light Pendant. You can see in this picture we didn't quite finish painting the walls. We ran out of paint and need to grab more. The pink is the previous color and we covered it with BM white dove. Ceiling color is BM chantilly lace.

 Before

Yay for Progress!

Wood Shed

In the winter we heat our house entirely by the fireplace. Cameron is a fire starting pro and I on the other hand am the worst fire starter! A lot of the frustration for me came from the fact that our wood was always wet. Even though we had a tarp over it, or would store it in the garage for a few days to get it dry it always sizzled in the fire because of the moisture.

I read an article that said that even though wood is cut and "drying out" for a time, having it get rained on at all reverses the seasoning process. So to make fire starting easier for me we needed a more permanent covering for our wood.

We opted to move the wood pile behind the shed so it's not as much of an eyesore. Then Cameron added a roof over the top to keep it dry.  We went back and forth between a tin type roof and shingles. But it wasn't that much more to just do the shingles so we went for that. The structure is more about function than looking good though.

All done!

Pantry Refresh and Other Project Starts

Sorry for the last month of blog silence over here. This last month of pregnancy left me wanting to do nothing but sit and rest. We tackled most of these projects before Noelle got here but I didn't get a chance to update.

Our pantry always felt dirty and I could never get it clean because it had some of those laminate sticky papers on it. Even though we plan on renovating the entire kitchen some day, having Noelle almost here left me wanting a feeling of cleanliness now.

We just decided to gut the whole thing.

And now...

It got all new shelves, baseboards, every seem is caulked, and Cameron painted it.

Nice and clean!

The other project that got started was a sandbox made by Cameron. He found some old deck wood at the dump and recycled it for the frame of the box. We are still working on getting it finished.

The last project is the ceiling got scraped in the den and kitchen dining area. This is what I've been working on since Noelle has been born. Cameron patched the hole next to the fan and a few days ago I taped and mudded everything. I'm so ready for the ceiling to be done because then I can paint the walls too. They are desperate for it. I'm also on the hunt for a new fan.