March Progress...So Far....

We aren't that far into March and already we have gotten a lot accomplished! 

One of my favorite changes has been our front door. We purchased the new glass storm door for our anniversary gift to each other. To many people it would be lame but to me, ITS THE BEST GIFT EVER. 

Original storm door. 

 On our Anniversary date to Menards

New Door

Inside View

For the front door itself we removed the brass kickplate, the gaudy door handle and painted the door Iron Ore by Benjamin Moore. I am super happy with the way it turned out and I think it totally changes the look of the house.

As soon as the weather warms up we have many more plans for the exterior of the house. 

The next project was to clean out the guest room. We were using it as a workshop but that has been able to move to other areas so we have a functioning room once again! If anyone needs a place to stay in Peoria, check into the hedgerow hacienda. 

Before

After.

The Guest room is one of my favorite rooms so far, I found the bedside lamp at a thrift store for $3 and knew exactly where to put it, I even had a shade for it already!

Now we move onto unfinished business. 

Meet our kitchen. 

When I met my neighbor, who is 94 years old, she told me she was glad we were updating the house because it was dated. A 94 year old woman told me my house was dated. 

I'm pretty sure that my kitchen was the main reason. 

This kitchen was DARK and I couldn't stand it so we dug in. 

We started by removing the wallpaper, taking down the lantern fixtures on the wall and patching the NIGHTMARE that was under the wallpaper. There were holes and live wires and all kinds of awful things. 

Then we moved to cosmetics. This isn't our dream kitchen by any means but we wont be able to afford a total gut job for a long time so we decided to take a note from Young House Love and work in phases.  This is phase 1/2 of our kitchen. The finished Phase one is still about a week out.

Kyle amazed me in getting this wall smooth, It was literally the biggest nightmare we have run into this far into renovations. 

With the walls primed you could really see how dark the ceiling color was.

 Priming and painting 30 kitchen cabinet doors, I can tell you at this point I am Tired of Simply White. 

You can really see how much better and BRIGHTER the kitchen is, the new hardware was an easy touch to bring the kitchen into the 21st century. When taking the old hardware off I originally wanted new hinges as well but I couldn't justify the $170 that it would have cost so I spent $15 on spray paint and painted our existing ones and I have to say, I think they look FINE. I was sure to prime them, paint them and apply two coats of sealant so that they will be durable.

We are working on the tile backsplash, the trim and the lighting (under cabinet, recessed and a new pendant for the dining area). 

We are really happy with how things are turing out so far, check back in a couple weeks to see the finished result!