The hardware is finally up...

I posted a few weeks ago about how we painted our kitchen and cabinets to transform our kitchen from this..

to this...

We have never had a kitchen that had hardware on the cabinets so we decided to try it out.  Not only does it improve the look of the cabinets, but it is so nice to have on a daily basis of opening and closing cupboards and drawers.

Tyler did an amazing job of installing them with a little help from me.  

Materials needed:

-pen or pencil for marking

-power drill

-screw driver

-hardware with screws

-we purchased this measuring device which saved us the hassle of measuring and leveling

 Step 1: Place the measuring device on the bottom corner of the cabinet and use a pen to mark where to drill the holes

Step 2: Use a power drill to pre drill the holes so it makes screwing easier

(Ty's drill has a leveler in the back that he is looking at to make sure he drills straight and level)

Step 3: Place the screws in through the back of the cabinets

Step 4: Tighten the screws to the hardware

That's all it takes.

So with a little hardware (and new stools thanks to my amazing aunt) our kitchen went from looking like this...

to this..

Now the only other update is to get a new backsplash.  I'm thinking maybe something likes this or this or this.

DI finds!

DI has been my go to decor store.  Picture frames, coffee tables, old books, lamps and random decor.  DI has everything you need.  It just needs a little love.

Here are some of my DI finds.

$15 coffee table

$5 Small table and chair for P

Tons of $1 picture frames like this 

(unfortunately the "R" was not a DI find, but it did only cost $2 from JoAnns on sale)

All you ever need is a little paint.  I used this valspar paint + primer gloss spray paint.  For small projects it is AMAZING!

Because the coffee table was really glossy wood I primed it first before using the spray paint.  I did this a while ago, hence the nasty tile in the master bedroom.

After primed and dry, then you just need to spray...and spray...and spray.  My thumb and forearm were so sore the next day because of all the spraying.

Make sure to do the bottom first and then flip over once it is dry to do the top (I waited only 30 minutes but if you have more time I suggest waiting longer because it was a little sticky)

Before I reveal the afters I want to show a little progress of our living room.  Here is a picture of it freshly painted without any furniture.

Here is our first attempt at furniture.  

We decided the rug was too small so we exchanged it for a larger one.  We also wanted to add some more color.

Here is what our living room looks like now with a few more decorations and picture frames and my amazing DI steals!

We still plan on putting tall white bookcases on both sides of the french doors.  I really love the look of white bookcases with the back painted a fun color like this bookcase from younghouselove.com (one of my favorite blogs)

We will probably paint ours a brighter color (maybe green or a lighter blue)

Here is a close up of the coffee table

All of the books, decorations, frames and art was either free, homemade or from DI.  All of it including the coffee table was only $36.50.  I will blog on the decor and gallery wall above the fireplace in detail later.  I actually made 2 of the pictures myself.  With this close up picture you can probably guess which 2.

I am so glad our fireplace doesn't look like this anymore.

Here is Payton enjoying her new table.

Life in Layton

So we have lived here in Layton for 3 1/2 months now and we couldn't love it more.  We can say that now because the huge projects at our house have slowed down now that we moved upstairs.  If you asked us 2 months ago this would have been a downer post.  

Anyone who lives in the Salt Lake valley and has never lived north of it probably thinks that moving north of downtown Salt Lake is not an option.  I never thought that I would live anywhere but in Salt Lake valley.  I just loved the big open valley with the huge beautiful mountains and having the comfort of a big city feel.  Moving north means farm towns and no huge shopping malls or nice restaurants.  But honestly, after Tyler took me for a drive up to Layton before we started looking at houses I fell in love.  

TOP 5 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT LAYTON

1- We live right by the mountains and a beautiful reservoir (I love to hike and Tyler loves to fish)

This is literally a 10 minute walk from our backyard.

2- From our deck we have a beautiful view of the great salt lake and the beautiful mountains.

3- There is not even half the amount of traffic because it is a smaller town, but still has everything we could possibly need less than 10 minutes away (Lowes - lately we feel like we live there, even H&M, Gap and the Apple store in this amazing new outdoor shopping mall called Station Park in Farmington)

4- We are closer to downtown Salt Lake living in Layton than we were living in West Jordan (20 minute freeway drive vs. 30 minute commute on surface streets and freeway)

5- The people are amazing here!

My beautiful cousin got married this past weekend up at Sundance.  Her wedding was amazing and she looked gorgeous.  Weddings with a baby are a totally different experience than weddings without.  Despite the craziness of making sure she didn't pull the tablecloths off the tables and get into everyones purses, we had a blast!

She even broke in the dance floor for the bride and groom.

I wish I had a video to capture this priceless moment.

We finally have a cozy place to sleep...

Like I mentioned in this post there was a lot of work we had to do on our master bedroom before we could move upstairs.  Now that the walls are painted, the tile is out and the plywood is replaced we are ready for carpet and furniture.  

We decided to pay someone to install the carpet in all 3 rooms upstairs, although we did remove the carpet in the other two bedrooms.  It actually was a very easy process.  I will blog about that later.  

So here are some before and after pictures of our finally complete master bedroom.

BEFORE

 AFTER

BEFORE

   

AFTER

So we still need to get a new bed frame for our bed but this will do for now.

So one thing I want to mention about this room that really bothered me is that there was a really awkwardly placed window on the wall behind our bed.  

It looked like this before we put up all the curtains.

I tried to place the bed as centered as we could with the window, but the window was way too close to the outside wall.  I couldn't handle how awkward it looked.  We tried hanging up some decorations and pictures on the left side of the window to balance it out, but I just didn't love it.  

So I did some pinterest searching and fell in love with this and this.  Unfortunately we couldn't really make the second look work because we have cathedral ceilings so we decided to hang three panels of curtains to hide that off centered window and we LOVE the way it looks.

 Plus it was a super cheap fix.  We already had the blue curtain panel leftover from the one we used to hang to separate the bathroom and bedroom shown below.

The two white curtains are from IKEA and only cost $28 for both.  Usually for 96" extended length curtains are $25-40 for one panel.  The rod is also from IKEA which was really cheap.  The rod was $5.99, the wall mounts were $1.49 each (we needed 4) and the hardware on the ends of the rod were $5.99.  So it came to a total of about $46.  Cheaper than the two curtain panels alone that we used in our living room.

Unfortunately our bathroom still looks like this...

Well we did take down those ugly shiny maroon curtains and put up white blinds, but that is about it.  We do have big plans for this bathroom but it probably won't happen for a few years once we have saved up enough to make it what we want.  But we love how open and big the bathroom feels with the cathedral ceilings.