Future Kitchen

My step-son Joe pointed out that the colors I liked for the cabinets and floors were too close in color so I decided to try a darker shade on the cabinets and see how it looks. Plus the picture that had the closest to the right angles of the picture I took of the kitchen had mahogany or black cabinetry. I would want more of a dark chestnut but you get the idea.

Prior kitchen orientation the sink was against wall and there were no cabinets along two of the walls including the one with a window. One wall was almost completely removed already when this shot was taken.

Prior kitchen....

Current kitchen after rest of wall between dining room and kitchen and wall between kitchen and living room gone. Pat and friend, Denny, put up the support beam to replace supporting wall. And they did it for $400 compared to the Property Brothers $2500, and the latter screwed up their calculations so had to add steel jacks to help support the ceiling! So I was impressed. But now the gas, water, electric have all been rearranged as needed and we're set up for the main sink being under the window and prep sink in the island when it is built. VERY EXCITING!!!! We'd be a lot closer now if I hadn't broke 2 teeth, abscessed tooth and root canal, 2 crowns.... bummer. But we're going to restart here real soon. He's currently rearranging and organizing the wood shop in the garage which should help projects tremendously and then we start again!

Current Kitchen....

Future kitchen....

Have to see if this passes the muster now with Joe!

If you could start from scratch?

How would you organize a house? I'm a messy, often overwhelmed, ADD to the max MOM so I need a house where everything has it's place and that means a system. SOOOOOOOOOOooooo part of the plans for the renovation is also to figure out a system and build it in. Now days you see a bunch of pictures of fancy shmancy drawers and organizers for kitchen and I even noticed they're applicable to other parts of the house. But where to start. What to do until then? Help!

So I've been reading a lot on organization... So I'm adding a button from a blog I'm following on organization. Modern Parents Messy Kids. Although I think mine should be Modern Kid Messy Parents.

Oh how I miss my tablet, snif snif

My "tablet" is not the lightweight cute little iPad like things they have now. It was however, one of the first touch screens and stylus laptops. I guess. Anyway... it wasn't all that great for doing the electronic medical record but wow it's fantastic for making photo collages. Well, Rylie's leap frog handheld (Grandma bought and I never liked it) messed up my tablet! So this weekend I am doing this sans stylus and wow is my wrist burning. Mouse just not as good at outlining no surprise.

Pat is setting up his wood shop so we can get back to work on fence, tables for shop, desk for himself, multitudes of shelving.... fix my raised beds... potting shed. The list is LONG! He moved my stuff from one side of garage to the other. Had I known he was going to do this I would have like to have input on what he piled my stuff on but he wouldn't have time to make now anyway so I'll wait for shed or try and talk him into a "remodel" later.

So I used many of Martha Stewarts pictures on organizing spaces to plan how to organize this space. And I also added in some goodies. Like the green machine garden style!

Potting Shed

 Showed Pat the plans I bought (twice I bought 2 books and discovered both had same plan in them) for this potting shed and he said, "No problem!" or something like that. Actually in order to put this in garden will have to sacrifice the her garden or at least reconfigure. Would also turn so windows were completely facing sun's summer path so you would not see sides from this angle and entry would be from yard and/or garden. So 2 doors instead? Or just from garden would work too. Compost bins would also move to back fence behind shed. And area below windows would add cold frames.

They have similar kit called Solar Shed at Home Depot but the man that doesn't buy fence panels but puts together peice by peice isn't likely to go for kit.

So can you tell difference. See the one in the Black and Decker book si bigger with windows coming much further down! So much better!

Another view from street

 This wasn't really a whole new collage. I just took a picture that was taken with regular camera instead of GoPro and then pasted the Arts and Crafts version of the house onto it. So unlike most of these which take 20 hours this took 20 minutes. Notice it's got old roof on it. But this one is spacially more correct unlike the GoPro pics which are fish eye like.

I'm just itching bad to hack down the bushes in front of door and start using one of those mini jack hammers to the front entry. Of course after destroying it I would have no clue how to proceed. So I guess I have to leave it alone until we have plan for what to do after to get to this? I mean really how hard can it be? Just need to build some forms, pour some concrete then cover with mortar and flagstone or reasonable facsimile. And whallah! New entry. Oh wait forgot also have to build out the portico. Hmmm going to have to start asking around about that one.

Front yard and entrance to garden

Ok back to the house project. This is what I would really,really, really, like to do next. But we'll see if I can convince him. I am sure fnishing the back fence should really be the priority first. But if we did this instead I'd have a much bigger area to plant!

This is with retaining wall made from timbers. Still used flagstone for steps. I would really like to have entire thing be stone but I'm just about certain that would be way too expensive. So I didn't spend too much time on that rendition.

I also worked on the inside a bit with the living room. Wouldn't this be great if we had walls and added this fireplace and 2 small windows.

Here it is with a massive fireplace that probably would be too much for such a little house.

So that's this last weeks ideas. Now just have to wait for money, time, and yes TIME.

More ideas for Proctor Entrance

So here's some more ideas along same vane for Proctor Entrance outside Sue's windows.

Some of this coloration will never occur together unless we get lucky. End of August? Because the big bush in background is burning bush and it's already established and it's green until fall when it turns this brilliant red. It's one of my favorite plants come September-October. Also the smaller red bush here is a purple smoke tree that would have to be kept pruned down to bush size along with the willow I'm told can be kept that way as well. That idea again came from http://www.barkandbloom.com/. We already have a lot of echinacea at the island between the drop off drive and parking lot so this would tie it together but I don't like too much since half the year it looks pretty straggly. Also the reddish colored Autumn Joy Sedum I think would be that color later summer but then changes to more bronze when that bush is red. Too bad we can't get all the red's together BUT we can get some red always there and that's how it should be when you're planting for a REDHEAD!!!!