DIY Painted Laminate Countertop

This is what the kitchen looked like when we bought the house. It was built in the 60's and we purchased it from the original owner. It was a time warp. The kitchen is a decent size thanks to the adjacent breakfast area, but the row of cabinets above the range blocked the view between the two spaces.

With an unlimited budget, I would gut the whole thing and start over with a new layout. One that included a large center island. But I don't have an unlimited budget, so I am working with the existing cabinets. For now at least. To open up the space, I removed the vent hood and upper cabinets above the range. I plan to replace the old electric stove top with a gas range. When that happens I will also have a downdraft vent installed.

It is so nice not to have to bend over to look under the cabinets when the kids are at the kitchen table and it makes the space so much more functional for when we entertain. Everyone loves to congregate in the kitchen!

As you can see in the picture above, the corner cabinet extended just far enough past the wall to look out of place once the others were removed. Unfortunately, it also extended into the corner leaving an odd nook once it was gone. 

 I decided to install open shelves here with some inexpensive wood brackets I found at Lowe's. I painted them along with the shelves the same as the wall color (BM Elephant Tusk). I have enjoyed having my everyday plates and bowls in easy reach. 

I also painted the upper cabinets the same color as the wall and the base cabinets are painted BM Ashley Gray. I plan to install stone countertops (and new appliances) in the future, but it is not in the budget at the moment. I was so tired of looking at the bad 60's faux granite laminate that I decided to paint it as well. It was so ugly I figured that even if the paint job looked awful it would be better than before!

I rolled on two coats of Zinsser BIN Primer and was amazed at how much better the room looked already!

I then painted two coats of BM Midnight and sealed it with two coats of polyurethane. I have been pleased with how it has held up. No scratches yet!

I even had a little help with the edges...

I also installed all new brass hardware which helped the space feel updated. The knobs and pulls are by Martha Stewart for Home Depot.

Nothing like a good before & after!

It is amazing what a coat of paint (or two) can do! 

Cooper's Baptism

Our sweet baby Cooper was baptized this past Sunday. It was such a special day. I made an effort to really slow down and absorb it all this time. Given the ages of our three, we were concerned with how they would all behave! At Bob's last year, Anne was 2 1/2 and she got scared standing up there in front of all the people. Once she saw her grandmother in the first few pews she wanted to go be with her. Luckily, it all went down without too much of a scene, but it had me nervous for this ceremony. Miraculously, they all did great! We had several talks with Anne about what would happen and she walked right down the aisle holding my hand like a big girl while I held Cooper in my arms and Will held Bob. She then held the hand of our minister and helped her present Cooper to the congregation. So sweet! Bob and Cooper both got a little squirmy, but neither made a peep. Hallelujah!

We attempted to take pictures before the service. The children were not into it. So much for my Christmas card pic :-)

Bob with JJ

Cousins

 Anne covering her face. She was not into pictures. 

My dad James Cooper with his namesake James Cooper

Mommom and Cooper

After the Baptism we had family and friends over to our house for a luncheon to celebrate. It was easy to plan since we had just done this a year ago for Bob! I had Cooper's little brass hand and footprints displayed along with the page from his baby book. I left it sitting out and Bob nicely scribbled all over it the next day. Typical.

Decorated for the party

It helps to have an empty room to put tables and chairs in :-)

Cooper and Aunt Jan

My brother and my dad

 Will and his sister

Sweet friends

The weather was great and so all the kids played outside and ate lunch at the picnic tables. I probably should have changed Bob's outfit before sending him outside...

My mom, me and my sister-in-law

Our guest of honor getting a bottle and heading off to nap!

Cooper will be 6 months old tomorrow and is the best baby ever. He is very laid back and definitely goes with the flow! He weighs 18 1/2 pounds now. Hard to believe he was ever 4 pounds! Thank you for all of the prayers that have gotten us to this point. All the trauma of my hospital stay and Cooper's time in the NICU seems like a distant memory, thank goodness! 

Gardening

We have been doing a little gardening lately. I know nothing about plants and typically have a black thumb, but I am enjoying gardening in our yard at the new house. It has such potential and I can see it from a design perspective. In my head the yard looks beautiful - like this house... 

and this backyard...

Here is our house below. The front yard is full of white azaleas. It was beautiful to see this spring (and a nice surprise as we didn't know what color they would be. I like the clean look of the all white!). This iphone picture doesn't do it justice.

Here is Anne in front of some azaleas showing off my old dress. She was very proud!

More wild white azaleas. 

And here is an after pic. The azaleas in the front bed had grown too tall and "leggy". After doing some online research I decided to do some drastic pruning and this was the result. Hopefully the guy at Southern Living is right and I haven't killed them all! We also planted five new hydrangea bushes you see along the front and added some ferns. I can't wait for it to all fill in :-)

Here is one of several piles of my azalea cuttings. Yikes!

 And more after. The brown sticks are what is left of the azaleas...

 We also planted three Jasmine to climb up the columns on the side of the house. I can't wait until they make lovely flowering arches. Hopefully it won't take too long to grow...

and look like this!

Fingers crossed I can keep everything alive!

*all images not my own are taken from my Pinterest "Secret Garden" page

Nursery & Animal Art

I am working on decorating Bob's "big boy" room since his baby brother is getting the nursery set up that both Anne and Bob have used. Here are some pictures of our nursery over the years. I could not find a good picture of the nursery in the "Anne year's" but here is a picture of her in the crib. This shows the pink linen drapes that hung on the canopy. I loved this detail on the crib and was sad to pack it away when Bob was born (and sad that I won't be able to use them again with #3). I guess I need to have blue ones made!

Here is the nursery during the "Bob year's" at our old house. Most everything was the same from Anne except I removed the pink drapes on the crib.

Here is the nursery today in our new house. I need to have a new pillow made for the chair (the one shown has Anne's initials on it). I opted for the baby blue black-out drapes on the window rather than roman blinds this go round. I found that since babies sleep all the time (and the roman blinds were kind of a pain to open and close) I never had them open. I want to have sun light in the room when the baby is awake, so I thought having drapes that I can easily open and close would be nice... You can also spy the DIY "you are my sunshine" artwork I made in the background. 

 I have no art work for Bob's room and while trying to be creative I thought of pictures I took on our trip to Ireland this past summer. We saw so many beautiful sights and when looking back through my pictures I realized I took numerous pictures of animals that might be cool framed in his room. Here are a few that I am thinking of using.

 

I'll keep you posted on how it turns out!