Why Does all the cool stuff come out at the holidays??

....when my money should be spent elsewhere - like Christmas gifts, the holiday party fund...etc?

That's what i get for getting caught up on my blog reading i guess.  If you read Rene's post today - you'll see these awesome chairs from World Market.  I think my jaw dropped when i read World Market.  No offense, WM, but i'm used to uhh, not so great merchandise from ya.

i very rarely fall in love at first sight - but oh... the worn grey patina - the old appearance - can you blame me?

At some point i'm getting a table like this back from a friend (you know who you are) OR i'm buying a new one if she can't part with mine.  I would understand the reluctance of giving it back -  it's beautiful.  And paired with those chairs up there - it's pretty much perfection.

And of course - now that i've fallen in love with chairs - i had to go look at barstools - AND CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS...I MEAN GET OUT OF TOWN ALREADY....World Market, i may have to marry you.

These would be great at my kitchen bar.  I think i'm off to sell some stock.  I mean, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do right?  


Linking to The Picket Fence for Inspiration Fridays!

New Kitchen Color.

I've been away so long i forgot my password to sign into google.  I don't think that's ever happened before.

Life has been crazy lately - not in a bad way - just gas pedal to the floor for a few months.  The little time i had free i spent either at kids' games, practice, or gathered with friends and family - and that equals a pretty good time.  No complaints.  Life is good.

I am still reading blogs when i can't sleep and keeping up with everyone - there have been so many great things to catch up on out there - i think fall does that to everyone.  The whole "gotta get the house in order before Thanksgiving" thing.

We kind of did the same thing this weekend - it rained for almost 48 hours straight between Friday afternoon and Sunday mid-day, so with games canceled, and kids playing with their cousins (in the rain no less - no idea what makes a kid want to be outside in a deluge is beyond me) - we decided to re-paint the kitchen and family room to match the PB curtains we finally bought.

This open floorplan thing really throws one for a loop when trying to decorate and coordinate. At least it throws ME for a loop. 

It was very hard trying to find what worked with things we were keeping from the merger of 2 households, and me," Ms. Holdmycashwithaclosedfist" , not wanting to spend anymore money than necessary.

This is what it started with - realtor pics b4 we bought.  Very gold.  i called it 'walk on the sun' yellow'.  Yellow is not a favorite color of mine.  This house is very odd, the way it captures colors on film, good or bad.  Trust me when i say it seemed even brighter than this when i was standing in the middle of it.

So, now the kitchen is in it's 3rd revival since we moved in a year ago.   We painted it blue the week we moved in.  Ok, really, my dad and husband painted it blue.  I was in Vegas. (on work people, really!)

which i really liked, but i didn't have window treatments to consider at the time.  Now we do, and they are more gray-blue than this pretty powder blue. 


So now we are here:

Notice the light differenct in afternoon light (blue paint pic) and morning light (last gray blue pic). That's part of the reason this whole paint issue made me batty.

Here are the PB drapes that you see when you walk in the front door, and you can see how your eye goes all the way thru the breakfast nook into the family room?  Crazy madness.

 

But it is coming together - even though we still have a ladder left in the room. Not quite finished yet...Oh, and a little Halloween scarifying thrown in for the boys....cute, huh?  TJ Maxx is the bees knees for stuff like that.  They've got little bats instead of snowflakes, so when you shake them little glitter bats fly around.   Adorable.

And, what would a decor post be without a decor dilemma.  And here is mine.  That entire area around and above the desk.  Right now i have a few tins from Homegood up there, that you really can't see in this pic - and the entire ledge is very short - so i've had a hard time knowing what to stick up there.   

Also, i think it needs a sink skirt even though it's not a sink. We don't use it as a desk and the only thing i want to put there is my cookbooks.  The underneath becomes a catch all for pet food bags that are too huge to fit in the pantry - so i might as well go with it and just hide the darn thing with some cute fabric.


And if you're thinking that the corkboard is too low - it's because it had it's twin chalk board above it until yesterday.  When it fell, hit the floor and broke into about 5 pieces.


So this my friends, is my kitchen.  I would LOVE any input.  Oh, and the color is SW Sea Salt.

Linking to Cottage and Vine's Room by Room series.

My Kitchen

Some of you already know I have this fascination with crisp. and with kitchens.  I also have this thing with the color (absence of color?) white.  and lately some industrial (no idea.)  But I don't think I ever showed you what we started with in our own kitchen.

This is the kitchen from the realtor listing pre the Kibler-Simasek invasion.

I'm not a huge fan of yellow.  Especially when the sun beats in the house the way it does here. Just look at that fireball coming at you in the front door window. HOT.HOT.HOT.

I think I was leaning towards blue just to cool it down in here.  

I have been saving pictures of kitchens that just scream out to me - and you should know, they are not HGTV kitchens, or Candace Olsen kitchens, or even Sarah's kitchens.  They are, instead, YOUR kitchens from blogland.  The crisp, fresh looks that i keep going back to. Lissa, Ashli, Flea Market Trixie, and Canadian Cottage.

 

I have no idea when the white cabinet thing is going to kick in here at casa Kibler, so i have to make do with what i have right now. And that's ok.  My biggest issue is that here in Florida, the builders seem to want to give you all of these nook or shelves to decorate, and i'm not a fru-fru tchotchkes kind of girl.  I'm a farmhouse fresh kind of girl stuck in a tchotchke shelf house.

Anyway. 

Here is where we are now...i love the way that even in the middle of the house, it's still sun-lit. The cabinets bother me less now that the walls are not 'walkonthesun' yellow.  And I think I'm going to paint that kitchen table white, since my bar stools just got here and they are the exact same chair as the table, but in white.

My Sarah came home this week, and did a little project for me too, for this space.  I am totally smitten with zinc letters right now.  However, at $30 a piece or more I was starting to lose that lovin feeling.  So little miss "I can make anything" did just that.  Gotta love having a daughter that majors in design.  Up over the pantry they went. (see what i mean about stupid niches/alcove spaces)

I'm not really sure that picture does them justice either - they truly look like zinc IRL.
 

 And i have no idea what to stick up there along with that crab can either.  Obviously, it's a much longer process than i planned. :)

Kitchen Clutter

I wanted to start this post with "I have a dream" and then i remembered it's Martin Luther King Day today.  And i think what i'm posting about would almost be offensive in it's 'smallness' to MLK, so i will just call this a wish.

I have a wish that my kitchen counter would stay absolutely free of clutter.  I hate clutter.  CANNOT STAND IT.  But....I have children with legos, trains, matchbox cars.  That have decided that my counter makes the perfect launching pad for car races.   I have parents still in town that need their medications laid out so they don't forget to take them, and i have this man i live with that has my family room completely torn apart right now in a home improvement project. (which he is doing absolutely for me because he loves me and i just need to do an Edith and stifle.  And if you don't get that reference you are far too young and should just stop reading my blog and go watch Jersey Shore.)

Some people dream of these HUGE kitchens with all the gadgets.  Not me.  I dream of Lissa's kitchen, in it's small, clutter free sense.  With grapefruit or seashore candle burning and a simple dutch oven sitting on the stove waiting to be filled and warmed.

 So...at 7am this morning, i cleaned off the counter again, determined to maintain my space and sanity, only to be reminded that it's MLK day and the kids are out of school.   Does the schoolboard not get the whole "kids should be in school, and in Japan go to school 7 days a week"  - ok i just made that Japan thing up but really....it is time for these wee ones to go do a math problem and bug a teacher.

Today is a big day for us at The Project!

We got our first ever SHOUT OUT in the blog world :0) WOOHOO!

Vanessa at Southern In My Heart asked if I would mind if she featured me the blog and guys, I wish I could say I was all cool and stuff and waited like a few days to return the message and was like "uhm, sure, whatev."  RIGHT.  THAT HAPPENED. yeah.  What really happened is i kind of yelped out loud and scared the crap out of the cat that was in my lap when I saw the message on my blog.  And then i shoved Max to the floor and started typing back as fast as my little fingers would type and said PLEASE DO PLEASE DO - I was a little more than excited.   

So, today, Vanessa is hosting Inspiration Fridays where we all can post what we found that inspired us this week.  Anything.  Posts about scripture, posts about decorating, pictures posts, it doesn't matter. What matters is that YOU were inspired by it. And bless her ever-lovin heart, she was inspired by my front door re-do.  Now i'm embarrassed that I didn't do MORE.  It's a project half completed - it needs it needs it needs... BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER, i'm on cloud 9 feeling all Sally Field at the Oscars.

THANK YOU VANESSA.

So, let me tell you what inspired me this week.  It came from 2 different blogs and it was all about the kitchen in both. 

First...from A Dash Of Humble Pie.   This is Lissa's kitchen. 

Yea. I know. Right?? I think I have gone back to her blog and stared at this kitchen no less than 100 times.  It's the muted, soft colors yet the crispness of it that just draws me in. I know, it's a dichotomy - that pale versus crisp thing.  Whatever, it works.  I love how it feels so very Martha but a lot warmer.  (Sorry Martha. Still love ya. Promise.)  And i have been searching high and low for a similar candle holder/vase.  You guys, i have kitchen envy.  

Then there's Ashli's kitchen.  You can see more at her blog Maillardville Manor

Are you dying laughing at me right now? I know what you're thinking.  DUH, blondie, it's almost the same exact look. Yea, i know. But i can't help it.  I love the white cabinets, the color of the counters - and once again - IT'S SO CRISP. And again, still very warm.  And aren't you just dying over that lemon tree on her counter? I know Lissa would :)  She has an entire post about having her own lemon tree. 

And this, sweet girls, it what inspired me this week to keep moving forward on all of my kitchen dreams. 

The Style Dilemma #1 - Meet My Kitchen and tell me what YOU would do.

I wish I could say wonderful things about my kitchen. Let me try....  uhm......still thinking......ok, i know! The subway tile we put up last year - LOVE IT. This pic was taken pre-tile - here is a closeup of it below..  That's about the only thing i love in this kitchen.  And that project was FREE. Tile was free and i did it, so labor was free.

but the rest - not so much love going on, i gotta say.  It's a small house that was great when it was only me and the boys, but now that there are 5 us and 3 cats, with me and the fiance working from home - it gets tiny really fast.  But that's an entirely different post about putting your house up for sale in this market.  Back to the issue at hand.

The question at hand is this - can i put up wainscoting or beadboard in that breakfast nook - or is that too casual for the cherry cabinets?  I want to trim out my windows and throw some serious chunky trim in there like you can see in the post a few days back, but i'm afraid it won't "go".

Anyone have an opinion?