Shedding a Little Light on the Issue: Kitchen Lighting

Whenever you look at designer kitchens they always have tons of light sources and beautiful light fixtures.

My kitchen was lacking both.

As I started looking for lighting I had to get over the idea that all the lighting in your home needed to match. I have almost always lived in a home with matched lighting through out the entire house. I was also overwhelmed at how expensive it could be! You can easily spend $300-$400 on one light fixture not to mention the expense of hiring an electrician to wire and install new lighting. That type of cash was completely outside my budget.

Luckily I have a ridiculously handy husband who comes from a family of ridiculously handy men. They can fix, install or build anything.

We went with simple lighting from IKEA. They had clean lines and they would help us add a lot more light to our kitchen. We (and I think you all know by we I mean my husband) also installed recessed lighting we got from Home Depot.

We first changed out the light fixture above the dining table.

If you remember I had this light before.

And this is the light after.

This light set us back 50 bucks. Not bad.

Now, over the cooking area and bar I wanted a lot more light. I only had two light fixtures before. One was over the sink and one was in the middle of the ceiling. Every time I did anything in the kitchen I was always working in my own shadow.

We added pendant lighting above the bar but before hanging the light we had to decide where to place them.

I stood there staring at the ceiling over the bar wondering how I could figure out how to center them and make sure they were even. I finally went online and found some great suggestions. 

First measure the width of your bar.

Find the middle of your measurement and mark the center of your counter top with painters tape.(If you like my counters you can find out how I painted them here)

Next you want to mark where the pendants will hang. Mark these spots with more tape. You may have to play with this a little. Just make sure if you are hanging multiple lights, that the distance between each is the same.

Next you want to take a very long piece of string and tie something heavy to the end like a washer. Attach the string to the ceiling with tape so the washer hangs directly over the intersections.

You may need to play with the positioning a little until you are happy. I would also recommend opening any cupboards that may get in the way to make sure you have given them enough clearance. 

Now you need to figure out the length of your lights. Take another piece of blue tape and mark the height of where you think you would like your light.

Stand and sit around your counter to make sure the height is right. I had my kids and husband sit at the counter while I stood on the other side to make sure that they weren't too low and then my husband and I switched.

My husband cut the holes and wired the lights.

We (again my husband) also wired some recessed lighting and ended up installing 5 new recessed lights.

Here is the before lighting.

And here it is after. One of the recessed lights above the fridge was cut out of the picture.

We also added wireless puck lights under the cabinets. I am not sold on them yet. I don't have any "hidden" plugs behind the cabinets so I can't really use wired lights without cords and plugs dangling all over the place so I am stuck with them as an only option right now. 

I am so happy with my new lighting. It is so nice to be able to see what I am doing and to create a bright and happy atmosphere.

A big thanks has to go out to my hubby for crawling around in the attic all afternoon to do this.

Love you babe!

So how about you guys? Is lighting that important to you or do you not really think about it? I know I really didn't until I started working on this kitchen. I am happy I took it into consideration and decided to add it to our kitchen.

Happy Happy!

To all you current and future mamas. Hope it's a great one.

The Best Peanut Butter Bars

Like 1/3 of the world, me and some of my friends (and our kiddos) got to together to watch the Royal Wedding last week. We recorded it so we didn't have to stay up late to see everything and we all brought treats and snacks to share.

I brought The Best Peanut Butter Bars to share and now I am going to share the recipe with you.

These are seriously delicious and unlike most recipes they have peanut butter frosting instead of chocolate and did I mention they are ridiculously easy? 

So here you go.

The Best Peanut Butter Bars
1/2 C Butter
1/2 C Peanut Butter
1/2 C Brown Sugar
1/2 C sugar
1 Egg
1 C Flour
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
1 C Oatmeal

Frosting
1/4 C Butter
1/4 C Peanut Butter
1 3/4 C Powder Sugar
3 Tbs Milk
1 Tsp Vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the cookie cream the butter and peanut butter until combined. Cream in the sugars until fluffy. Beat in the egg. Add the flour, oatmeal and baking soda until combined. Press into a 9x13 and bake a 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

For the frosting combine the butters and beat in the powder sugar. Add the milk and vanilla and mix until smooth.

Frost while still slightly warm.

Yumm!

One Awful Bug

This week has just been yucky. My entire family has been hit by a terrible, no good, very bad stomach bug and it has been hectic at my home.

We are finally on the mends and since even momma was sick, my house was a disaster area. I scrubbed the house down today and I promise a new tutorial tomorrow.

Thanks for hanging in with me through all of life's adventures and we will see you tomorrow!

My Zinc Bookcase: A Faux Finishing Tutorial Part 2

If you remember from the first part of the tutorial, I recently have fallen in love with zinc furniture. My inspiration came from pieces like this from Restoration Hardware. Like this gorgeous nightstand.

Beautiful. But of course I don't have $1000 to throw at a new piece of furniture so I decided to try and create the look myself.

I finished the outside of my bookcase using my faux zinc finishing technique but the inside I had left to look like this.

Yes I know it looks great just the way it is (chuckle) but you know me, I am an overachiever.

It took me a few days to decide how to finish the inside. I kept going back and forth between fabric and the zinc look. All I knew is that I wanted it to have nice clean lines inside and I wanted to hide all the unfinished edges of the tinfoil.

I decided to go with fabric and to make sure my fabric would have clean lines I used poster board and mod podge.

First I had to cover the 2x2s that were in each corner. I cut my fabric to cover the two by two but I added 1 inch to the length. I covered the fabric with mod podge.

I folded each end over 1/2.

I pressed it over the 2x2 and moved it until it fit snugly and smoothed it out.

I did this on all of the 2x2s and then moved on to cover the sides and tops.

I first measured my sides and top and then I cut out my poster boards about 1/4" less. So if I measured 15 1/2 " by 23" I actually cut my poster board to 15 1/4" by 22 3/4".

Next I cut fabric about an inch bigger on all four sides and coated the poster board in a thin layer of mod podge.

I turned it over and smoothed the fabric out. I then wrapped the edges over and glued them down.

I then did another layer of mod podge on the back of the poster board and glued them the the sides of my bookcase until it looked like this.

I really liked how it turned out. It gave me clean lines and it added some interest to the piece. Here is another angle.

Here is a reminder of my inspiration.

I filled my shelves with things to help me get organized.

 

On the bottom shelf I put two baskets.

 I labeled the baskets with upstairs and downstairs. The kitchen is on the main floor and seems to be the gathering place for EVERYTHING in the house. This way I can throw things into the baskets as the day goes on and then take only one trip up and one trip down to put everything back. The baskets are from Ikea and I am going to do a tutorial on the tags.

On the middle shelf I have file boxes.

One thing I have struggled organizing since I have been married is mail. I have tried SO MANY different storage options but it always piles up on me. I am hoping that this bookcase will make opening my mail and then throwing away, shredding or filing right away more reasonable.These file boxes were also from Ikea.

On the top shelf I have my version of this Ballard Designs Desk Organizer.

This was the first thing I have ever built in my life. It is a little rough but I am like a proud mama when it comes to this organizer. I will share a tutorial soon on how to build one yourself.

You could easily use this technique on a existing piece of furniture but you could also build something new. You can visit Ana White's site for some great plans. You can even check here to see the kitchen furniture we built with her free plans.

I hope everyone had a great week. Did anyone else watch the royal wedding? I got together with a few friends and watched it today (thanks to a DVR). They were so cute and I loved watching them break into huge grins. I thought it was nice to see something so sweet on TV when usually it is just sad. My heart and prayers go out to those living in the areas affected by the crazy tornadoes they have been having down south.

An Apartment of Our Own

So we finally got into our apartment. I feel like I am 90% settled in and I had the internet installed and ready to go today. I should be back up and running soon, though I am considering begging the potty training phase with my 2 1/2 year old next week.

We will see.

My Zinc Bookcase: A Faux Finishing Tutorial Part 1

We have had quite an adventure up here. My husbands company finds us housing to live in while we are away for the summer but when we got here the apartments were not ready to move into, so we have been staying at an extended stay.

Oh, the fun you can have in a tiny room with 3 kids all day.... wait...

Well, after looking into the apartments they had for us I found out that they accepted animals and from most of the reviews it sounded like there are a ton of animals there. Well I panicked a little because my oldest has animal allergies, especially to cats, and those allergies induce asthma attacks.

Bad ones. 

I called the housing department at my hubby's work and they were so sweet and understanding and took it upon themselves to find us a new place on almost no notice! We get to move in on Saturday and I get to kiss this extended stay goodbye. Now that is exciting!

In my kitchen at The Starter Home I have an awkward empty space right next to the fridge. I have always wondered why they didn't just put more cabinets there...

Well I decided to build a mail storage/book shelf thing for that wall so increase my storage space and make use of all that empty space.

My husband built the bookcase using mdf, 2x2's, 1x2's and moulding.

Because the main part of this was made from MDF I knew I would have to paint it but I wasn't really sold on a color or even how it would look once it was all done. After scourging the internet I fell in love with zinc wrapped furniture. Zinc furniture is all over the place in super gorgeous/expensive designs right now. I mean just take a look at this piece from Restoration Hardware. I mean it is only a measly $795. Pocket change....right...?

www.restorationhardware.com

I loved the idea of adding another layer to my kitchen. I had painted wood cabinets, stained wood furniture so I thought a metallic piece would be a great addition but the real questions was how in the world could I create it? I thought about just painting the wood with metallic paint but I was worried that it would look just like that.

Wood painted with metallic paint.

So I decided to get a little creative and pray to the crafting gods that it would all turn out how I wanted.

I used some tinfoil, a ton of mod podge, craft paint (I bought black, cream, gray and brown metallic craft paints) and a foam craft brush.

The very first thing I did was apply the tinfoil. I planned out where I wanted seams and started going for it.

Cut your tinfoil to fit the area you will cover and then use your craft brush to apply a thin layer of mod podge to the wood.

Smooth your tinfoil over the wood being careful to not wrinkle it too much.

Keep up this process until you have completely covered your item. When my hubby walked in at this point you could tell that he hated it but wasn't sure how I felt about it.  He sat there quietly starring and not wanting to hurt my feelings.

I let him struggle for a minute before I told him I wasn't done. Big Huge Sigh of Relief!

Do you see that large container of mod podge! Seriously love that stuff.

Next I used small nails to create the look that the metal was wrapped around the furniture. I used pictures from Restoration Hardware to choose where to place them. Then I started the faux finishing.

I was going to use a glazing medium to create the the faux zinc look but then I decided to use the flat finish mod podge. Not only would it create a protective finish but since it drys clear it would work similar to a glaze.

I poured a bunch of mod podge on a plate and added my colors.

I used mostly the grey metallic color and just added spots of the black, brown and cream. Next I mixed the colors until they were kind of swirly.

Like this.

You don't want to mix it too much because you want there to be variation in the color. I just painted on a layer letting the colors go where they wanted and not trying to be too perfect with it. This was while it was still wet.

Do you see how it is kind of streaky and varied? Let that layer dry and keep layering. I think I ended up with four coats of different mixtures.

This was the side after the first layer had dried. It still looked a little tinfoily.

Now the sides were a little plain so I added metal straps to them. I cut out strips of cardboard and, using mod podge, I covered them in tinfoil.

If you like my granite counters in the background of these photos you can learn how I created them with craft paint here.

I attached the strips to the sides of my bookcase with nails and used my mod podge/paint mix to faux finish them.

I let everything dry thoroughly and then topped it with two coats of satin finish poly-acrylic.

 

Here is just one side. I decided not to finish the inside of it with the zinc finish so I will show you in the next post how I chose to finish the inside and I will also have the final after pictures!

Thanks to all you who come, read and share your thoughts on the happenings at The Starter Home and hopefully the next time I am posting it will be from an apartment and not a hotel :)