Are You Wearing Blue?

Are you wearing blue today......because it Autism Awareness day? I know I am. I will be wearing it in honor of our 13 year old nephew Reed who has Autism. I also am wearing blue in honor of Reed's family because Autism doesn't just affect the child it affects the whole family. Reed's mom, Dinnean, is super mom. Reed and his younger sister Claire could not have gotten a better mom and are very lucky. Their dad Kevin is pretty great too. Claire is two and half years younger than Reed and she is amazing. This family pretty much takes everything in stride, yes there are tears, but there is more laughter than anything.

All right on to my kitchen renovation. I decided last May that I was sick of the way my kitchen looked. I heard of painting laminate counter tops. This process is actually not that hard. I started off with taping off our small counter top that our microwave is on.

I cleaned the laminate counter tops with a very strong cleaner. (I don't remember which one, but it was strong.) I painted two base coats with Killz to make sure that everything on the counter top was dead. After the Killz dried I then wrapped all of the cabinets in plastic, the upper cabinets and lower cabinets, and the refrigerator. Then I spray painted the counter with Krylon Make It Stone Obsidian Spray Paint.

Once the spray paint was done I lightly sanded it since it is a little bumpy. Then the tricky part began. Dennis' was very skeptical of the whole process anyway, but even more so once I brought out the blow torch. (Yes, I said a blow torch.) It is just a small hand held one. The blow torch was for the next step. I found a product called Envirotex, which would give the counter top a glossy sheen. I followed the directions on the bottle and pored it directly onto the counter top and help spread it over the counter top. Then you use the blow torch to get any air bubbles out. Unfortunately I got a little to close and torched a small area and had a nice little burn mark, which is easily fixable you just do all of the steps again. Luckily the microwave covered it. The Envirotex did give the counter top a nice glossy sheen.

I proceeded to do this with all of the counter tops in the kitchen, but I didn't stop there. Dennis should have never of gone out of town because I made a big purchase while he was away. More on that tomorrow.

Dennis and I have a very busy weekend. My good friend Dustie is getting married tomorrow, so we will be busy with that today and tomorrow. I hope the Easter bunny is good to you.

Have a great weekend!!

A Real Crazy Life

What makes our life real crazy.....Dennis and I have been married for a year and half, but have been together for almost six and half years. We live with our two fur-babies Shea and Wolfie (two rescue dogs.) Dennis and I both work full time jobs. We are extremely close to our families so we try to spend as much time with them as possible (but we never seem to be able to spend enough). We both have hobbies that take up a great deal of our spare time. Dennis is a very good golfer and plays four to five times a week and I am the Treasurer for the Animal Rescue Foundation. I also love to craft and want to get back into my cross stitching and sewing. I also love to cook but I don't get to do that as much as I would like. So to say the least we don't have much free time and are usually running around like crazy. So with what little time I have I am going to start blogging.

I am going to blame this blog completely and totally on my friend Miranda. She has gotten me addicted to a great blog that has really gotten me motivated to not only get my house updated, but decorated and organized. At the moment I want my blog to be about what is going on around our house. That could be just about anything...decorating, crafting (not so much of that), yard work, gardening, fixing problems that arise in a 30-year old house (more than I care to count). It also may be about cooking and who knows building furniture (yes, I want to do that too.) Also I am secretly hoping that I can get Miranda's house on here a couple of times. Okay so maybe that isn't such a secret.

Dennis and I live in a house built in 1979, which Dennis purchased in 2002 before we started dating. I wish I had pictures of the bachelor pad that was his and his brother's home before my furniture moved in. It wasn't pretty with all the hand me down furniture. There was a yellow couch that I actually never sat on in the three years that he kept it. The house had a little updating when they moved in but not a whole bunch. The floors were redone and every wall was freshly painted.
I haven't done much to the houses since Dennis and I started dating because first it wasn't mine and then once we were engaged the plan to get back from our honeymoon and find a new house to purchase. Well that all changed with the Great Recession and both of our jobs became unstable, so we decided to stay put.

Well that is all today, but I am going to leave you with a picture of our before kitchen. The kitchen is one room that I have started and perhaps tomorrow I will post some pictures of where it is today. It isn't a finished product, but it looks much better.

Have a great day!!!