DIY IKEA Vanitiy

While the crew is on vacation for the holiday I decided to get one of the vanities I had bought at IKEA put together.  This one will go in the 1/2 bath.

Ta-dah!!

I have to wait to do the drawers because they have to make cut-outs for the plumbing to fit under the sink.  But hey, it's a start.  

Christmas Miracle or Mean Mom of the Year Award

     The new house provided a great place to hide and wrap all the Christmas presents and since we were living in a tiny tiny house, I thought it would be great to have the kids open their presents in the new house.  But how would we go about doing that Christmas morning?

     Our oldest is in 5th grade and surely this will be her last year believing in Santa Clause so he might as well go out with a bang.  

     I had a master plan to set up the basement in the new house with a tree and all the presents but prior to the kids coming to the new house we thought we might put a damper on the sugar plums dancing in their heads.  We planned to have the awaken to no presents in the rental house and lead them to believe Santa had put them on the dreaded NAUGHT LIST!!  Then surprise them with all of their presents in the new house.  

     They played into my plan nicely by being especially naughty on Christmas Eve.  Our normally well behaved children had been overcome with a holiday spirit that was anything but nice.  There was crying, fighting and even biting if I remember correctly.  It almost pleased me that they had picked this night of all nights to be as naughty as I had ever seen them.  They were so naughty indeed that I couldn't even take them to Christmas Eve service at church!  

This would make the Naught List story all that more believable!!

Here's how it went down (Excuse the videography with the iPad.  I'm aware it's horrible)

After the horrible news they opened up the gifts they had bought for each other.  Then they had a plan:

This is what I had set up at the house on Christmas Eve:

Keep in mind I had kept them out of the house for quite some time so they had not seen the cabinets or anything yet.  

And finally the big reveal:

Some thought it was a very mean trick but none of the kids took it that way.  I think it will be something we will all look back on and laugh….except maybe Owen:)

It was a great Christmas Morning! Happy Birthday Jesus!!

While the builder is away the children will play

While the crew is on break for the holiday.  I came in to find the kids had been having fun with all the shims lying around.  They must have been building some kind of track is all I can figure.

Kitchen Cabinets

     We had a great experience with  Compton Cabinet Company in Centerburg, Ohio.  They do amazing custom cabinetry work and I would recommend them to anyone looking for high quality cabinets.  We researched using big box stores cabinets to save money but for the price we made out much better using Compton.  I'm a firm believer in supporting local family owned businesses whenever possible so it was a great fit for us.  Jarrod, sat down with us and we were able to design all the cabinets for the whole house.  I knew I wanted white shaker style cabinets in the kitchen with a black island that had some distressing to it.  I gave him a few pictures and he did exactly what I wanted.

Here are some of the pics I showed him when designing our cabinets:
I chose this pic because I liked the look of the white cabinets with the dark counters and dark island.  It also has a farmhouse sink similar to the one I had chosen and much of the character was similar to what I wanted.

Another component I wanted to add was a wine rack and cookbook shelving.  

This pic I chose again for the dark island but more because our island was also going to have some seating on the end.  I also liked the style of the leg on the end.

Here is the drawing that Jarrod created of our kitchen design.  Pretty accurate except for the countertop color - ours is black.  But this gave us a good idea of what our kitchen would look like.

My favorite part is if you look at the corner cabinet, that is an appliance garage with an outlet on the inside. My toaster and mixer stay in there without being out on the countertop - LOVE!

Here is the layout

Here is the finished version - well almost.  Clearly appliances and countertops are missing.  

Researching TV mounts and Locker Styles

Next task was planning some of the built-in features of the house.  The two biggest projects would be the lockers in the mud room/laundry room and the wall unit in the great room.

This is where websites like Houzz are a great resource for ideas and finding specific features you want.

There were certain things I wanted.  First was the color.  I wanted them white to match the trim.  Ideally I wanted 5 lockers total (one for each child and one grown up locker). 

I also wanted them equipped with outlets.  I'm a big advocate for not allowing devices in bedrooms, especially after a certain hour.  So a charging station in each one would make this an easy place where they could plug in and know where there devices are and make sure they are not in their rooms at night.  

While I liked the clean look of both of these style lockers, I was hesitant about doors.  For one I knew they would get a lot of use and that's a lot of banging around.  Secondly, I did not want my kids to think they could cram anything they wanted into their locker as long as they could get the door shut.

I liked the look of the grey but I wanted a shoe cubby for each locker that was more of a drawer.

I also wanted the ledge to be deep enough to sit on.  Just taking little pieces from many different pictures helped me design the look I wanted.  

For the built-ins which would include a place for a TV above the fireplace.  I am not a huge fan of television, mainly because it prevents those in my house from getting done what needs to get done.  So I wanted to be able to put it out of sight.  I also did not want a beautiful stone fireplace with an eyesore of a television smack in the middle.  Finding a way around this proved to be challenging but here were some of the places from which I drew inspiration.

I love the barn door look, but the X's were a little busy for my taste.

I really liked the ability to slide them out.  This would provide maximum visibility.  I loved the track look but with our set up, it probably won't work for us.  But these are the ideas I took to the builder to create the final look.  

Stay tuned to see what the final look will be!