Etsy Finds: Ceramic Mugs

The older I get the more I appreciate the beauty and quality of handmade things. One of the best (if not the only) places I've found to discover new artists and their works is Etsy. If you don't know what that is, I'm sorry because you're about to spend hours going down the rabbit hole of beautiful creations.

As I'm starting to think about replacing old dishes, I've found myself drawn to more handmade, unique pieces. I spent hours scouring Etsy for the best ceramic mugs, ones that would make any kitchen shelf truly stand out. All those hours added up to a really beautiful collection of mugs and I thought I may save you hours by doing a roundup of all my favorites.

Source: Studio McGee

2019 A Very Merry Christmas Home Tour: Minimal & Natural Christmas Decor

It may not be Thanksgiving but I bet you're already thinking about Christmas decorations! Let's be honest, most of you already have your seasonal decor up and most likely your tree too. I'm generally not that person, but this year my friend Carrie from Lovely Etc. invited me to participate in the annual Verry Merry Christmas Home Tour! Hopefully you've had the chance to follow along with the 2019 lineup already and are here from Lehman Lane — welcome! I'm Elizabeth and my husband Auston and I bought this house (our first) 3 years ago at the bottom of the market as a major fixer upper. We live on a budget and believe you can make your home designer-beautiful without spending tons of money.

New GE French Door Fridge for the Kitchen!

We've lived with a fridge from the 1970's since we moved in. It came with the house, but was originally an almond color so I spray painted it with appliance epoxy and we lived with it for 3 years. It was a whirlpool and was a really nice fridge for the time, it lasted almost 50 years! For the last 6 months we had to kick the bottom of the door for it to fully shut, it was time for an upgrade. We searched the sales for the last two months and finally Lowes and Home Depot came out with their pre-Black Friday sales.

Utilizing the Useless Space Above the Cabinets

Do you have an awkward empty space above your cabinets? Once we installed this side of the kitchen when there was 0 cabinets there before, we totally had one of those spaces. It nagged at me for 2 years and I finally found a way to utilize all that dead space. I just had to build it myself.

New Farm Table for the Dining Room

We hardly eat at our dining room table. We're either on different lunch hours or just plop in front of the tv for dinner to watch the Office. Partly because it's just us two, but mostly because the table is usually covered with stuff. And since it is so small, it doesn't take much to  cover it up! But this weekend, we moved in a big, beautiful farm table.

Our Kitchen as of January 2017

If you've been following along for a while, you will remember we finished our biggest renovation so far, the kitchen, back in October and shared it in our kitchen reveal post. There you can see all the cringe worthy before pictures along with links to all the products we used. In our Projects for 2017 post, we mentioned that one of our goals is to actually tile that backsplash. Why didn't we do it before we moved in when everything was still in construction and dirty you ask? Well, that's what happens when you get impatient. And we definitely were. 

For Christmas we got a few things for the kitchen including these acacia salad bowls, this smoked amber and balsam candle, this white utensil crock (only $10!!), this glass whistling kettle, and a blue and white vase (from CK Morgan and Co., similar one). The acacia salad bowls are so pretty but also have many benefits when using them! Like cast iron, the wood is seasoned over time and needs to be oiled after use. The wood keeps its season and gives the salad a more flavorful taste. This Overstock article gives some great tips on seasoning and cleaning your wood bowls.

Updating our 70's Fridge with DIY Paint: A How To Guide

Our house was built in 1957 and remodeled in 1980 when they put a brand spankin' new Whirlpool Mark I refrigerator in. But now that it's 2016, that almond color was just not in style anymore. It actually works perfectly fine and keeps things super cold, but that color was just awful. We looked into replacing it with a new stainless or black one, but we just couldn't justify getting a new one when the one we had was only aesthetically displeasing. So I did some research and decided I was going to DIY a paint job.

If you didn't catch  our full kitchen reveal the other day, go check it out. 13 weeks of work got us from 0 to 60 in no time, and we have big plans for some more updates down the road. The black fridge ties in the color palette for the kitchen and matches the black stove. If you don't get any further, the whole process took a total of 2 days, most of which was drying time and cost $16.

Before and After: The Full Kitchen Remodel Reveal!

It's been 13 weeks exactly since we did the first update to the kitchen by installing new cabinets on the once cabinet-less wall. And you guys, it has been a dramatic and long time coming. You can look through the entire kitchen timeline and see step by step how we got to this place. We still have a handful of ideas that we'd like to add to make the space more functional, like adding cabinets above the fridge and a storage/display system above the right side cabinets, and the backsplash(!). But for right now, we are incredibly happy with where our hard work got us. Our house was about as gross as it gets when we first bought it. The walls were yellow from smokers and the vinyl floor was sticky like duct tape. It took us 13 weeks to get here (including alot of work elsewhere in the house, but that's reality), meaning that it's a process. Don't go through these pictures and think you could never turn your kitchen around into a space that you really love. Life's too short to not be happy in a space where you spend a great deal of your time. With that in mind, see our transformed kitchen!

Here's just a refresher in case you forgot how ugly and non functional this place was before, a shot of the same space from the same angle. It's hard to imagine how sticky this place was and how clean it feels now. The thing that makes the biggest difference in visually looking bigger is the white flooring and the light gray walls. I'm glad we chose to stick with the black appliances we had because it grounds the cabinets and makes it seem full. Check out how we DIY'ed this black fridge from our existing almond colored one, spoiler: it took 2 days and $16.

Some Kitchen Inspiration: Devol Kitchens

We have some big kitchen projects in the works! The biggest of them being laying the vinyl tile floor we got last week. While those are underway, I thought I'd share a company that was a source of inspiration for me while we were planning our kitchen. Devol Kitchens is an English company that does kitchens, bathrooms, interiors, and flooring that your dreams are made of. They perfectly mix Shaker and English styles, leaving it modern and classic looking. My favorite part of this entire company, and part of what makes them so classy, is the velvety look they get from their flat paint. ChrisLovesJulia talked about the importance of paint sheen in their Podcast, especially in the kitchen. Sadly ours ended up being a semi-gloss coated with a satin top coat so they aren't quite as flat as I would like. Not to mention that low to no gloss don't get as dirty as glossy sheens.

During our planning, I was struggling with whether or not to do a color, a two toned color, or just a neutral like I talked about in this post. And that was all because of photos like these. The deep velvety emerald green is so enticing. The functionality of the kitchen is not anywhere near realistic for us, but it is still beautiful nonetheless. That marble countertop/backsplas must have cost a fortune and I'm sure was worth it, they're incredible. Having an art ledge in the kitchen is probably unrealistic, or so I thought at first. As I looked through the rest of the photos, I realized that this is England, and houses/apartments there are smalllll. You can see a corner of a table or island thing in the photo, but from another angle you'll see that it is their dining room table! Yes, they eat right in the middle of their kitchen. So realizing that wall space is probably limited, I can see why it could be in the kitchen.

I chose a tuxedo look for the cabinets in our kitchen, but I still love the look of a clean neutral space. These beige velvet cabinets leave the room feeling light and airy. The amazing glass cupboard is a great use of space, especially when it is paired with a clean marble counter top. Speaking of beige, Sherwin William's name their 2017 Color of the Year and it is "Poised Taupe." It is a very warm gray with beige undertones and it's awesome. In the store it is actually warmer than it looks on the website, so always see colors in person. That little green fern is just adorable too.

Putting Down Quarter-Round

We are getting anxious to get in this house you guys. So anxious, we just ripped out the old counter top and sink before we were done painting everything and moved some of our stuff into the bedrooms. No sink obviously makes things more difficult, but it felt like we were getting somewhere. After the last coats of top coating go on the cabinets, we really only have to have the vinyl and counter top guys come out before we can start moving stuff in, eek!

After the floors were refinished here, we were going to put quarter-round down to polish it off. The house came with some pretty hardwood natural quarter-round, but after taking the whole of it out we decided to buy new ones. It seemed easier to buy it than try to repair the ones we had broken, try to get the million and one nails out without breaking them more, and then painting them twice. In lieu of the hours it would have taken to do all that, we decided to scrap the old ones, run to Home Depot and get 200ft.(61¢ per ft.) of primed quarter-round for just $120. It was well worth the money. Auston lined up and painted them all trim white with one coat, and installed it over the weekend.

Here is the living room right after they refinished the floors, with no quarter round. There is a gap between the floor and the baseboards, making it look unfinished and a nice place for bugs to hide (ew!).

And here is part of the room with quarter round installed.

Fortune Cookie Friday 006

In case you haven't seen, Target is having a huge 30% off home items. I snagged this adjustable floor lamp that I have been eyeing for the living room and this double lamp for the office. Lamps are perhaps the best thing to happen to homes since electricity. Registries are such a wonderful thing becuase you can use them even after whatever event you got it for. I keep all ours we did from the wedding up to date just in case someone needs a birthday, Christmas, or whatever occasion gift idea. I love giving presents and I think registries are a great tool because you know you're getting something the person really wants.

Speaking of gifts, do you ever want to send someone a small, cute, personalized and inexpensive gift for any occasion? Greetabl is here to rescue you. They make a small box that you pick the pattern of, fill it with whatever gift at whatever price point you want, and then put in a personalized message and pictures. The gift giver in me is just jumping for joy. They have the best taste in patterns and gifts they offer, and give you great advice if you don't know what to write in your message.

Currently, I am dreaming about a cozy bedroom like this one from Room&Board. I usually don't like canopy beds, but this modern wood looks amazing in the fresh white room.

Sketches: Kitchen and Living Room

Once we painted the inside walls, the house was just an empty shell with abnormally (but awesome) large rooms. For a second I started to feel the anxiety set in as I thought of all the possibilities of decor and furniture. It seems that having an idea of a space is harder to put on paper than you would think. Planning is one of the most difficult parts in a project for me. I have so many ideas and thoughts about how I want the space to feel, but I the problem is I have so many choices! There's a million paint colors, a million side tables, a million pillows, and a million 'n one pieces of art to put on the wall. So, as I tried to figure out how to get my ideas into see-able form, my first instinct was to just save pins of pictures that had aspects that I wanted. That was a good start, but I still could not see how everything would work together in the rooms.

I finally came across the Houzz App while listening to a podcast. It has a feature where  you can upload a photo and the sketch on it. Among other things  like text and a pen feature, you can search for products and add them to your sketch. Houzz is great because it saves all of the products that you have inserted, and once you save the sketch and go back to the picture, it tags all of the products in the room. Now, these are ROUGH sketches, very rough. Almost so rough that they are a little embarrassing to share. But by doing these sketches, we were able to hone in our ideas. We decided that we like black fans better than the white. They also were a big help in deciding what colors to paint the cabinets. You get the point, just try different ways to envision your space so that you know what you want will actually work well together. How else do you envision your ideas other than in your head?

This cow print is just so cute right?! And I love that fiddle leaf fig. I wasn't so sure about the overarching lamp, but seeing it in the space solidifies my thoughts: love. I'm always on the look out for a similar moroccan rug. We have a similar grey love seat and hopefully soon a matching sofa. I'm thinking maybe we can DIY those wooden nesting tables soon maybe?

The kitchen sketch is way worse than the living room, but it was so hard to to put a million little tiles with a counter top that wasn't the same color as the one you're going to have. The first picture does not have the door wall tiled, but we have been toying with the idea of tiling the backsplash and the entire adjacent wall for more of a cohesive look. On the look out for a cheap but pretty Persian rug to bring some color to the room.

The Inspiration Behind A Black and White Kitchen

We got some paint samples for our kitchen cabinets and decided on a white and black! When we decided on black lowers and white uppers, it was not without hesitation. Auston's initial reaction was "Noooo." I knew that I liked two toned cabinets, but I didn't know if I had the guts to put them in my kitchen. So like any other 20 something that has a house, I turned to the almighty Pinterest for some inspiration. I was concerned that the modern black and white wouldn't mesh well with our mid-century ranch. But as we painted the walls grey and the trim white, I could see the black and white working well with our style and the house's style. I knew we wanted a clean and modern space, but I was afraid that all white would be too white - so the real question is, would I have the guts to do a black and white kitchen? The black lowers break up the white and give some color to the room. After testing the samples we got, let's just say the excitement is real you guys. Here are some pictures that gave me the vision and inspiration to do a black and white kitchen.

**Most of the pictures are linked, but if they're not, they are all sourced from Pinterest! Just search "black and white kitchen."

Below is my number one inspiration picture. It has the black and white cabinets, but also the whiteish counter top and brass hardware. After looking at all my inspiration pictures, I decided on brass hardware because of the warmth it brings to the room. It is just so clean and modern and amazing right?! I wasn't so sure about the industrial sized fixtures at first, but they are starting to grow on me.

I lovee this picture, but I'm not sure how I feel about dark grout. My first thought is that I like it, but someone mentioned that it might be dated really quickly so I am reconsidering it.  Maybe a darker color than just white though? I loved the dark blue lowers, but Auston seemed to like the black better, and in the end I think it works better for this house. The dark silver hardware is pretty, I just think the brass works better with the black. 

Kitchen Mood Board

The kitchen is one of my favorite places to be. For whatever odd reason I get a ton of satisfaction from having a clean kitchen (which doesn't necessarily mean it is clean). That is part of my goal when I think of how I want our new kitchen to feel; clean and organized. The house only came with half of a kitchen (see on the house tour here), we bought and installed stock cabinets from Lowe's for the other side. The hardest part of this mood board was deciding on what color(s) we wanted to paint the cabinets. At first, I was leaning toward all white with black hardware because the area does not have a bunch of natural light. But as I saw the cabinets installed with the counter top that we had gotten (it's white laminate with black speckles), I felt like all white would be too overpowering. I knew that I wanted the backsplash to be white subway tiles, which might even run across the whole wall that holds the doorway. My other choices were two different grays, one gray, or black lowers and white uppers. 

I finally decided on black lowers and white uppers. I love the clean and crisp feel and the black breaks up the white so it doesn't look like a serial killers house (Auston said that was his one request when I was picking out colors; don't make it look like a serial killer's house Elizabeth. Haha, okay?). The gold hardware brings a warmth and cohesiveness to the space while still keeping it modern and clean. Even though the idea appliance color is stainless steel, the place came with a perfectly working black range. We bought a black microwave/vent to go over the range so that we would have more counter space. It also came with a first generation Whirlpool fridge/freezer in the nice "once used to be white but is now a dirty yellow" color. We will either end up replacing it with a black one or DIYing our own paint job.

Pendant Light | Faucet | Subway Tile | Gold Pulls | Sink | Range