Next Tech Invention

 The girls wanted their mom to send me some pictures.  I could not help but think that it almost seemed as though they could just walk right out of that picture and be at my house!  Maybe that will be the next invention! =) 
Well, Orson Pratt did prophesy in a quote I found in the Old Testament Student Manual when I was preparing my last lesson that "those who have been confined to the mortal sphere and its laws may be renewed with the light of truth and be enabled to move from place to place at accelerated velocity, even with the speed of light."  Orson Pratt lived in the 1800's.  Isn't it so true of technology today?!

And here is little Elivia sharing her latest homework with me--thanks to awesome technology!  

And thanks to awesome technology, I am sharing it with you!

Love This Picture!

A New Kitchen!!!

Seriously.  It's like being in a totally different house!

I can't believe I actually accomplished this!  Not many months ago I would not have even fathomed that my cabinets were actually paintable!  And I have dreamed of having white cabinets!  It took 3 ingredients:  paint, caulk, and a lot of hard work!

Before:

 After!!!

 Before:

After!!!

Before:

After!!!
It makes the dishes so much prettier on the white.

Before of dining room:

After!! 

The walls are an off white/cream color called spider web--ironic since I was trying to get rid of all the spider webs...but it's kind of hard to tell the color in this pic it look so white.

This is how bad my cabinets were before:

Some sanding, caulking, de-greasing (aka cleaning!), and spray priming and painting the hardward and it all looks pretty brand new--not without a few flaws from imperfect painting, but hey! I'm happy!

Here is a brief picture story of my 14 day (not counting Sunday's) project:

 Moving lots and lots of stuff and dishes...and finding some pretty nasty old dust!  (been meaning to get to that spot, ya know)

 Repairing and caulking.  I never knew how poorly put together this house was til I started painting and caulking.  I added patch pieces of trim in several spots.

 There was a big hole under the counter here and I was just pretty darn tired of finding cobwebs there!  Ick!

 These counter braces are so awfully made!

 Added a piece of trim between the wall and this counter space...my war against nice places for spiders and dust.

 Ooops!  We had issues hanging this cabinet door for some reason and Tom was trying to do it himself while I was painting elsewhere and the door slipped!  It wasn't the first blooper.  I helped hang the doors after that one.

 Yeah, whatever.  Apparently they put the shelf in and THEN finished building the cupboard????  Needless to say I just painted it inside the cupboard.

Taking off the old wallpaper border was one of the worst parts.  It took a long time and a lot of elbow grease.  We didn't have that problem in the living room so I am thinking it was the paint I had on the kitchen wall...stuck to it like glue.

 Ah, yeah, more dust...top of the china cabinet. 

 hahaha!  Taking down the vertical blinds by myself they pretty much came crashing down.  (Was glad it didn't break the glass pitcher!)  I threw them out on the deck and the cat (Garfield) thought they were his new toy/bed.  Tom wasn't happy that I wanted to get rid of them.  They actually look pretty white here, but they were 19 years dirty and honestly, we never used them, and they are out of date, so I was happy to get rid of them!

 Yeah, more wallpaper mess.

 The 'neighborhood' didn't want to leave.  I did love this border.

And piles of dishes...but I painted in shifts and got stuff back in the cupboards as fast as the paint would dry on the insides.

 I got my own caulking gun, and have to say I have become a very good caulker!  This gun is lighter and easier to use than Tom's...and a lot cleaner, too!  His is covered in disgusting old caulk...kind of like Eli's green ladder--lol.
I even thought to caulk the tile and it looks so amazing now!

Before:

 After:

And this little roller brush was THE BIGGEST LIFESAVER!  I will never go back to big roller brushes ever again.  I painted all the walls using one that was a little bigger and wider.  They are so perfect for getting into tight spaces!  I wish I'd have known about them when I started all my paint jobs.  This one came with a cabinet painting kit I bought.  They are not also small but light weight compared to bigger rollers (even the short fat roller that I thought I liked) and this one still holds an amazing amount of paint and paints very smooth!

Now I am pursuing miracles for the linoleum and the carpet!
Although the family room is the next paint project on the agenda for this year, and then I will finish up in the 2 bedrooms in 2015.

The Sink, You Think?

This topic deserves it's own post.  It's about my porcelain kitchen sink.

I was soooo impressed when warm vinegar and Dawn dish soap cleaned all the hard water stains and all the long built up scum out of my shower.  Especially after years of trying to scrub them clean.  I only could wish for as much success on my kitchen sink. (the vinegar/dawn didn't do it for the sink)  I have spent years scrubbing it and then filling both sinks with hot bleach water and letting it sit for a few hours hoping it would whiten up, which it never totally did.

Well, if only I had known about this NEW idea sooner.  I stumbled upon it looking at Sister Osterson's pinterest page.  But I didn't get a chance to try it til I was about done with my kitchen painting project.

And I totally forgot to take a before picture and I sure wish I would have, so I borrowed one from google images.  Only I think my sink looked worse.

But basically, you get the idea.  Lots of nasty scratches from washing things like pots and pans.  Here are the miracle products:

I saw some web posts about using a pumis to scrub off the black marks so I tried a pumis stone I had and it wasn't working super great (not without a lot of elbow grease) so I decided to wait til I could find some Bar Keeper's Friend, which has a lot of rave reviews on Amazon.  Then when I was in Lowes getting paint for the kitchen I happened to check over in their cleaning supplies and found not only the Bar Keepers friend but the 'scouring stick' which is pumis!  Haha!  So there is a specific pumis for this job!  And it works a lot better than anything else you will find.  I can't wait to try this on some other things.  (the toilet bowl stains for instance)  It took some super hard water deposits off around the sink drain in my bathroom and around the kitchen faucet.  The BKF worked almost entirely on it's own to get the black marks, and built up stain, out of the sink but the pumis was awesome for the larger, hard to scour spots, with less effort.
Here is a pic of my sinks after I had scoured the worst one on the right (plus I had scrubbed the divider):

The lighting is not the greatest, and the sinks could actually use some more scrubbing--I didn't have enough time or energy to do it as well as I wanted to...but here is a better pic of them both clean.  Pictures just don't do it justice!

I wanted to tell Tom I had also installed a new sink while I was doing the kitchen, but then I decided to wait and see what he'd say about it.  Well, he has never noticed it or mentioned it.  Sheesh!
But every time I go to use the sink I am stunned by how bright and clean and wonderful it looks!

And on top of that I also didn't realize the caulking in my tiles had almost completely deteriorated...no wonder I couldn't get that clean either! 
Before:

 And my new favorite tool.  I have to admit that when Tom insisted on caulking everything I thought, 'oh bother' but then I saw how much better it looked after it was painted to fill in the millions of gaps in the trim...and so I got my own caulking gun and I have become quite good at it.  It occurred to me that the tiles needed to be recaulked!!

After:

Add new wall paint and the window seal being painted and it's pretty spiffy!  Clean, white and bright!!
So yeah, you ever think it would be so easy to make improvements that would make such a huge difference?!  Wish I would have known this years ago!

Pumpkin Patch Fun!