My Budget Kitchen Makeover Finished!

My Budget Kitchen Makeover Finished!
I finished painting 2 days ago and then took another day to weed out some things. We hung prints, frames and the shelving unit today. I also moved a few things around, recycling within the room. You'll see my personal style is Scandinavian/French country mixed with vintage. Here's a re-cap...
we decided to live with the counter a few more years, so I installed a new backslash, plumber installed a new sink, faucet, replaced undercounter water filter, got the thrifted dining table and I painted. I used Behr's "Yogurt" paint color. Here's the "afters", on a small budget!

still loving my new fridge!

  

I may refinish this thrifted piece soon, it's either oak or mahogany! $40.00 at Goodwill!!!

I'll be painting the inside soon...

my fave iron towel bar, soon to be drying herbs

my computer/blogging desk

shelf went from black to navy blue

my new thrifted French clock on my $10.00 window :)

I may slipcover my desk chair to something lighter and refinish our china cabinet, otherwise I'm done for now!!!

Record Breaking Rain! Fresh Paint, More Thrifting, Veggies Ready!

From The Idahostatesman

Record Breaking Rain!
We had some real serious heavy rain this week! What a joy :) We had 1.28" of rain Wednesday night according to the news. Went from 90 f to 68 in 2 hours, and lots of thunder and lightning. I put the chickens in early as they were getting soaked, and it filled my empty 55 gallon rain barrel in an hour or less. It was great the next day, much cooler and everything got a good soaking and then some. We won't need to water for a bit and hopefully this helped with the local fires. When you live in the high desert we're really grateful for the rain!!! It's down in the low 80's for the next week, a nice break from the early triple digits we had. 110 is just too hot...

Fresh Paint-

There's nothing better than a clean slate to work from, some fresh paint! I prepped then painted the kitchen/dining room this week. 10 years had taken it's toll with too many nail holes, dings and wear. I went about a 1/2 shade lighter, really bright and sunny yellow. You can see on the right top edge of the door the paint change color-wise. This is the last stage of my kitchen makeover, except putting things up. A "after" photo will be up this week, and a little free re-decorating with some new vintage things going up! More coming!!!

More Thrifting-

I hit another thrift store the other day and found the beautiful ceramic iris spoon rest, a buck. I also found a cute Corning Ware folk art pan, perfect for small baking-

A wood mini greenhouse for displays or seeds, $5.00! I will use this in the winter with pine cones, snow and lights :)

I also scored a really pretty Jones of NY blouse for work, sort of British pink cabbage roses, $5.00...

Veggies Ready! 

I'm so excited to be picking our first tomatoes and peppers! This is an early harvest for us, with the very mild spring we were able to plant extra early. I'm keeping an eye on my apple tree with all the growing apples. I see lots of applesauce in my future hopefully before school starts. Nothing worse then starting to can after I go back to work :(  We had a pretty American quail couple visit this week, taking a rest break. I love their little tufts on top of their heads. Cute little guys...

Road Trip, Quick Italian Pasta Salad, Big Thrifting Scores!!!

Road Trip-
We had a great time this last weekend going to Baker City, Oregon. It's about 2 1/2 hours from here, and an easy drive. We wanted to do a day trip somewhere we've never been. Baker is just off the hiway and we'd seen it but never been in town. We went to the Baker Heritage Museum and the purportedly haunted Geiser Grand Hotel. We also had lunch, hit a yard sale, and saw the sights. Great trip! It really was a extremely RICH mining town, a lot of $$$ there. Here's some photos of the sights-

From the Heritage Museum, examples of historical life-

miner's cabin

winter coat

old time store

I've never seen purple jars!!!

love the wafer tin box!

kitchen, love it

apron, how cute!

I've never seen an electric range this old

canning time!

My Grandma had one of these :)

Love the blue stove

Looks like a Hoosier 

I've never seen a piece like this- desk and cabinet

I LOVED this portrait, sadly no name of artist, large and stunning!

flapper dress

From The Geiser Grand Hotel, a $7,000,000 restoration-

Incredible stain glass ceiling, huge!

 

19 of these chandeliers from a palace in Venice, incredible!

all original mahogany restored, gorgeous

Austrian buffet with swans

All gold leaf

ceiling detail

Photo from Allrecipes

Quick Italian Pasta Salad-
I found this recipe and made for the 4th of July dinner. Everybody loved it! I added celery and used 1/3 of the dry dressing mix. Yummy and cool and crisp!!! Quick Italian Pasta Salad recipe.

New thrifted table

Big Thrifting Scores!!!-
I had been looking for a used dining table for several years. We found the one above yesterday! At a thrift store for $150.00 with 4 chairs, which were too big. The table has a leaf and was perfect with our existing chairs. After talking to the manager, and using a forgotten frequent buyer discount, it was $83.00! It even fit in our mazda hatch back, a match made in heaven :) Gorgeous heavy wood and fits perfect. I love the big legs.

Our old one, wobbly and cheap, now on Craigslist-

After taking a wrong turn (lucky for me) we found a storage facility with all kind of things for sale-

A Fossil Hanover organizer purse, expensive with pebbled leather, like new! $2.00, yes $2.00!!!

Not a knock off, the real deal :) A small town so maybe they don't know the brand, but I do...

Nice rusty metal bin, $3.00 

Fun little wooden scoop, $3.00

Target 1/2 price summer sale, heavy outdoor thermometer, $10.00

$3.00 solar LED outdoor lights, I got 4

Anya enjoying the new sink :)