Home with the Hills

Thursday, March 15

Kitchen Makeover

Last week I had Spring Break and man has it changed. Instead of flying off to some island drinking Mai Tais I was working all week on the house. My mom came up and we spent all of Tuesday tiling the backsplash in the kitchen.

Here is the progress so far...remember the before

And this is after we painted the cabinets and took out the one over the sink

Dad and Wesley patching the hole

Hole is patched! Here is our electrician Gary doing some pre-tile work for us. He worked all day Monday to install the recessed lighting and under cabinet lights; he even ate dinner with us.

We took out the pendants over the bar and until I find the perfect one, Gary moved one over our sink.

Now we were ready to tile.

Besides Gary here were our secret weapons for the project...

Simplemat... this is a sticky mat that makes tiling super easy to work with and

less messy than the thinset

A supermom tile cutter and wet saw

an eyeliner pencil...we used this to mark our cuts. The waxy texture stuck better than pencil marks while using the wet saw.

We started the project at 10am and finished at 10pm.

I cooked dinner in the middle of all the mess with the stove in the center of the kitchen.

We had this Strawberry Balsamic Chicken Pizza...Amazing! A must try!

You can spy my attempt to find hardware...finally solved!

Wesley learned to be a super tile cutter too!

Before the grout

On to the grout...wesley and I gave mom a break while

we got literally up to our elbows in gritty grout.

Can you even remember where we started? Here is a reminder of what this Kitchen looked like just 3 months ago.

and here is the after:

The wall on the left is a grey chalkboard wall and I love it!

Taking out the pendants over the bar really opens up the small space.

a peek of the hardware that finally made the cut

The recessed lighting and under the cabinet lighting makes such a huge difference in the space.

The only things left for this space are changing out the fixture over the sink and changing out the floor.

I love my new kitchen and have to give a big thanks to my super amazing mom!

Wednesday, March 14

A Night with Eddie Ross

Last night Nicole and I went to Travadavi to an Eddie Ross event. It was super fun! He spoke on setting a table and working with what you have. Here is the table he had set up for the party.

It was so beautiful. The flower arrangement in the center was absolutely gorgeous.

He used a mosaic patterned tablecloth with modern orange and gold rimmed dinner plates to become the backdrop for the antique chinoiserie plates he found in London.

He talked about mixing napkins, candlesticks, napkin rings, salt/pepper shakers, glasses, and other accessories around the table to keep the table interesting and fresh.