Kitchen Remodel: DONE

Aside from one last tile on the backsplash that needs to be replaced and a few paint touchups....were are DONE!!! Can you believe how much it has changed?!?!

Fall Fun

We have had a week filled with perfect weather! It has been so nice to be outside with the kids...because we know that all too soon it'll be time to hibernate and avoid the chilly Chicago winters. I'm not quite sure how we'll survive days on end of being stuck inside, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there!

The nicer weather made me decide to take the kids to a nearby park/forest preserve. We don't have a lot of big trees near our house, so the kids don't really get to experience the leaves in the same way I can remember doing as a kid (we had tons of huge trees, which I LOVED and miss so much). They both seemed to enjoy it, and surprisingly I think Leah had a better time than Caleb. I hope that as these kiddos grow, they will have the same love for nature and the outdoors that I have. I can definitely thank my dad for that trait....he always had us outside on walks, bike rides, etc.! I have so many awesome memories of spending time outside with my dad and I hope my kids build plenty of their own memories of being in the great outdoors!

Kitchen Remodel Part 3

We're almost there! Yesterday, the new countertops and sink came in. I love, love, love the dark countertops and the huge sink. All that's left is the floor....which we have to wait until Friday to see!

Kitchen Remodel Part 2

Friday morning started out looking like this:

And we ended with all that! Wow, those two guys are some of the most talented people I know!

Kitchen Remodel

If you know anything about me, you know that I LOVE to cook and bake! The kitchen is definitely the heart of this home and we spend plenty of time in it. When we bought this home three years ago, I loved the layout and size of our kitchen. We have all the cabinet space we need and plenty of countertop space. The only downside of the kitchen has been the aesthetic appeal (or lack thereof). We have talked for awhile about redoing the kitchen and explored a lot of different options. After much contemplation, the projects have begun and we are super excited!

Our wonderful contractor started on Monday by tearing out the old floor. We had ceramic tile, and although it was durable and nice there were a few downsides. Aside from how light it was (and thus hard to keep clean), the grout was cracking. We also couldn't find any extra pieces of it to add into our hallway area (which I have wanted to do since day one of moving in). We used to have carpet running from the front door into the kitchen and that stretch of carpet has gotten SO beat up from wear and tear. The flooring took a day to rip up because there were several layers of flooring to pull up and it was quite the mess!

And then there's the light....oh, the light! When we moved in, this beast was the same oak color of the cabinets and it was quite unsightly. My mom painted it white and it's served its purpose for a few years, but boy am I happy to see this go. It doesn't give off nearly enough light, which makes it tough to cook now that it gets darker earlier in the evening. We had contemplated taking it down when we moved in, but found that it wasn't screwed into the ceiling, but instead the person who installed it used some sort of super strong glue!

Enter the handy, dandy, most wonderful contractor in the world....he ripped that thing down with no problem and we were left with a bit of patching to do (but not nearly as much as we probably would have had if we'd done this on our own). We're just hoping that the paint matching machine at Home Depot won't fail us when we try to paint the spot to match the rest of the ceiling. Otherwise, we'll have to repaint the entire kitchen and living room ceiling since they're connected.

We decided to go with track lighting to help give more light throughout that part of the kitchen. I just about shed a tear when it was all done because it makes SUCH a difference and I love the way it looks!

Right now, as I sit and type, there are two incredibly talented men upstairs getting ready to transform those lovely cabinets of ours. We debated a lot with the cabinets: replacing, refacing, refinishing....so many options. When all was said and done, we went with refinishing. Refacing was just as costly and replacing and refinishing was about half of what we'd pay with the first two options...and since we really don't need to change the layout or add more space, we figured keeping the cabinets we have just makes sense. We found this great guy (let's hope I'm still saying that at the end of the day) who will refinish all the cabinet boxes and replace all the doors/drawers. Since we didn't really like the darkness of the entire room, we decided to go with white. It was a tough choice because we're worried about too much white with all of our appliances being white. Our cabinet guy decided to offset it by doing white with an antique glazing on it...and based upon the sample he gave us, it's going to look great!

So there you have it, week one of kitchen remodeling. Although I wish this could all have been done in a shorter time period (picture two kids under age three...one of whom only gets places by crawling or being carried...thank goodness Grandma's house is so close), I'm enjoying watching each step and waiting with excitement to see what's next. After today, we still have several parts left of our project:

*new countertops and a new sink will be here Monday

*major cleaning of the house will be done after that. good thing dusting is my favorite cleaning chore because there has been SO much dust from these projects...oh wait, that's right, dusting is my least favorite...ugh

*we need some electrical work done to fix some problems we've had with our microwave pulling too much power

*later in the week, we will be having our new flooring put in. this was another highly debated choice. we went with a vinyl plank floor. it looks like hardwood, but will hold up to all the wear and tear that this area gets.

WE CAN'T WAIT TO SHARE MORE PICTURES SOON :)

Happy (belated) Halloween :)

We hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! It sure was a fun time in the Sturm home. Seeing every holiday through the eyes of a child is ten times better than just experiencing it for yourself. We can't wait to see how much fun the kids have with the upcoming holidays!

We had fun carving pumpkins.

We went "trunk-or-treating" with our good friends, the Watsons.

Daddy took Caleb to work to hand out candy to CPAs....

....while Leah and Mommy had some fun, quality time together.

We had a blast trick-or-treating around the neighborhood!