The Kitchen

If I can't be outside in the garden, I want to be in my kitchen. Several years ago we took down the wallpaper and painted the kitchen a buttery yellow. It is so bright and cheery. My goal is always to bring the outside in, and I felt like I accomplished that with the breakfast room part of the kitchen.
At that time, we decided to just leave the counter tops with the beige laminate . And I liked it just fine, but after 25 years of wear and tear, we needed to replace them. This was not an easy job for me--I am terrible at picking out things and making decisions. We knew we wanted granite, but there are way too many colors to choose from for me. We spent 2 months (yes, really!) looking at slabs and narrowing it down to 2 colors. It took 3 weeks to finally decide between the 2 colors, but we made our decision and are very happy with the results!

It is very hard to take a picture of granite-there is always a glare, but here are a few pictures of the "new" kitchen. The granite is New Venetian Gold. The back splash is tumbled marble Torreron. I used 4 x 4 tiles set straight with a rope border, then tiles set on a diagonal above.

I got a new sink--that is so deep!! Love the sink!

The faucet is new, and I even got a new coffee maker!

This is the area around the stove top. No back splash here, just a yellow wall. We thought this New Venetian Gold would go well with the brick, and we were not disappointed!

This project has taken lots of time and thinking and decision making, and we are glad it's over and turned out so well. And now...it's time to get back out in the garden!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

My Creative Space

Brenda at The Brenda Blog has posed the question

"Where Do you Blog?" Visit her blog and see all types of creative spaces.

This room many years ago was our oldest son's bedroom. It was cool. He had bedroom furniture plus a sofa for lounging. After he left home, we converted this room into a game room or TV room for our other 2 children. After they left home..and our youngest son took the sofa with him, we decided to again re-do this room and make it a combination home office and TV room---so guess you would call it a den.
I bought a nice big desk... plenty of room for a computer, printer and pictures. That white box you see is filled with wildflower seeds waiting to be planted. I have a dictionary and a few garden books in front of the laptop.

My husband picked out the sofa as this is his room for TV viewing.

But I got to pick out the TV cabinet!

This is just an old bookshelf that I think was originally in both boys rooms at one time. It is now home to vacation books and pictures and little souvenir's from our travels.

This room is not fancy, but it is very comfortable. The desk looks very clean and straight right now because I haven't used it all week. We have been helping Allie and her daddy move into their cute little rent house. They are moved, dh is playing golf, and I am off to do lots of catching up!

Garden Stitchery

It's hot this afternoon--too hot to be in the yard, so I decided to frame the garden cross stitch I worked on this winter. I know, cross stitch is not a craft many people do anymore, but I love to cross stitch and saw this pattern and thought it would be a nice project for me as I waited

patiently for spring.

I saw this little stitchery at a store in Waxahachie and thought it would look nice hanging with my

garden

"Welcome"

I hung both of them in the entry hall right above my garden hat.

Not a very good picture, but they do look good against the yellow entry wall.

It's a nice way to say "welcome"--to my home and to my garden!