Our Kitchen Progress!

I thought it would be fun to show you our kitchen today! I love our kitchen! When we moved in our home in 2010, I was sooooooo excited to have a big kitchen. With my husband being a youth pastor, we entertain a lot! We both love hosting friends and family. Andy and I both love cooking! We have yet to paint our kitchen or anything. I can't get over how having two kids under the age of 3, over takes our life! I have dreams for our kitchen though.......Here are the before!

I am not one for stained wood. I love painted trim and cabinets. But I love how our cabinets are simple/mission style. I like how the stain is matte finish. 

Here is our kitchen as of now. 

I have changed the curtains and painted the chalkboard wall. I want to paint the walls soon with a pale yellow called "Bee wax" and change out the lights. Someday we want to put concrete countertops. I would like to put some glass doors on the cabinets to brighten it up. 

It took me awhile to figure out what to do with our shelving above the cabinets. I have landed on the idea of collecting wire baskets. I like that it is functional and fun! 

I have a love/hate relationship with our desk area! I love having it in the kitchen and use it all the time. But it often becomes the landing station for junk. clutter. and chaos. I am always tweaking it to keep it organized. The cabinets hold art supplies that we use the most. The office station is from Staples, Martha Stewart collection. I wrote about it here. 

I am so happy that we painted our walls with chalkboard paint! I posted about it here. It is used all the time! We added the IKEA white magnet boards for Zion and Zakiyah's, Melissa&Doug dolls and  ABC's. 

The picture below is facing our dining room. I love have stainless steel appliances. Don't you think concrete counters will be heavenly!? Someday!!!!

I have cookbooks in a basket for fun! 

I love my chalkboard decals on my canisters.

I love my mini Starbucks mugs with my Andy Warhol soup cans. They are resting on my window sill. 

I love my vintage inspired fabric from Jody! I made these curtains. 

When Andy and I got married, a friend of ours made this sign for us! 

Love my mirrors. From TJ Maxx of course.

I love how calendars can be art! I got these on Etsy. I ordered two different sets. One for the kitchen and one for the studio. I used mini clothespins and twine. 

I won this painting last year from Rochester Women's magazine. I think it goes well with my kitchen. fun. fresh. and warm. 

We made this plate for Zion last year at a local pottery shop.  

My mom is an amazing sewer and quilter. She made this table runner for me! I love it!!!! It is all fabric from the FabricShoppe. I got the balls at Target and the square bowl from Pottery Barn. 

Kitchen sink essentials.

I am excited for the changes that will be made to make the kitchen more us! Everything takes time! But it is going to be so fun painting and customizing it for our needs. Do have any dreams for your kitchen? 

I create

It has been awesome having a maternity leave for the obvious reasons....spend time with family. bond with Zakiyah and Zion. Make family dinners/eat family dinners. ( normally we don't get family dinners Monday-Thursday do to our work schedule) Just the act of slowing down has been wonderful, well the Christy version of slowing down. But I have been doing some fun changes on the home front this fall.

I got together with my friend Kati recently and mentioned that I wanted to do a chalk board wall in the kitch. She told me she had extra chalk board paint that I could use! PERF! So that day I took advantage of nap time and made it happen. This is a before pix of the kitchen.

After! I love it. I have yet to buy dust-less chalk. Did you know it exsisted? Best invention ever:) We are going to use the chalk board for bible verses. quotes. meal planning. notes. art. and Z2 art. I am excited. 

  Here is the left wall by the desk area.

 the right wall by the patio door. I moved the floral art on the wall by the door. Isn't the ice cream parlor table precious. Our good friend, Shel has borrowed it to us for as long as we can use it. Zion lives at this table. I also switched out our curtains for a more fall/cozy look. They are from a good friend of mine. I think they are from Linens 'N Things. They are a burnt orange Micro fiber. I love them. I have hemp wrapped on them now since we are still using the deck.

Here are the old curtains. They are Pier 1 gold striped. I love them as well. But its fun to switch out seasonally. I still really want to paint the rest of the kitchen this winter. I just can't decide what color to do. Ideas, anyone? 

Here is a close up of the curtains. I love myself a good damask pattern.

I also just picked up this awesome vintage tray that is from my Grandma Cherie. It totally reminds me of growing up and having happy hour at her house. Cheese/Crackers and Root Beer for the kids. I put it in my dining room on the buffet.

Isn't it cute?

I also just made this painting on a canvas! I love it. I have been really into layers my art with different textures. I took an old painting from our old house and recycled it up. Considering it was just sitting in our storage room.

Here is the before painting. I love it as well but it was time for change. I started with using mod-podge and glueing newspapers on the canvas. Then I took some sticker letters and wrote out scripture. "The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God." Andy picked out the verse. Then I painted over the stickers with different colors. While the paint was still wet, I peeled off the letters and allowed the painting to dry. Then I took a sharpie and outlined the letters so they popped off the canvas more. I wanted to paint poppy flowers on the canvas too. So I whipped up some flowers and then used some paint markers (best thing ever btw) and wa-la! It was done. I have it hanging on my fireplace stone. I LOVE IT!

I just hung this Bless All Who Enter sign by my front door. My Friend/client gave this to me for Christmas last year. I have been meaning to hang it this whole time and finally got around to it. Great quote for the entryway.

On top of the craziness at our house, Andy, my rockin hus just finished our deck! PTL. I love it so much. It was a long summer project. Digging holes. putting posts up and having it look like a pergola all summer. When we had Kiyah in August, he finally had time to work on it. It was such a busy summer for us so that was the best time for him to concentrate on it. A shout out to Mike, Luke, and Isaac for helping us out! We went with composite deck wood in a light gray and white metal spindles. I LOVE IT SO MUCH!

  It is 19x12 feet. It is the perfect size for our fam. It is a balcony deck....no stairs needed. Especially with our small flat portion of the yard.

 Zion sitting on it right after it was done. Isn't it gorgeous?

Here is a view from the kitchen facing out. We are so spoiled with this view.
So that is the updates on the projects at the cass casa. xoxo.