Take the Side Street

Water and Your Yard

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Wed, 08 May 2013 19:15:00 +0000

Post and giveaway sponsored by Pennington Smart Seed, but all opinions are my own. Please see below for additional disclosure.

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First up, I wanted to congratulate Danielle on winning the giveaway for the $50 American Express gift card from Pennington Smart Seed! She said they needed grass for their new house (congratulations!) so the timing of this all worked out perfectly.

It's finally starting to warm up here in Southeastern Idaho (I don't want to jinx anything but the weather says it may even get into the 80's this weekend... fingers crossed!) which means the sprinklers have come out full force. I can't wait for a thicker, healthier lawn from this new seed I tried!

(wish us luck... bare spots be gone!)

One of the key points in keeping a lawn healthy and green is water, right? This is why I am so excited to see how this Pennington Smart Seed does! We spend so much time and water on our lawns every year, and anything that can help minimize both of those is something I can get behind.

Pennington Smart Seed is a pure bred, drought-resistant seed that not only uses 30% less water each year when compared to ordinary seed, but will remain green for up to three weeks without water...which blows my mind. I can't wait to see that one in action!

Each seed is enhanced with Pennington's exclusive MYCO Advantage technology, which essentially introduces beneficial microorganisms to the seedlings to help them establish deeper, healthier root systems. These deeper roots make less frequent waterings possible. This appears to be a seriously smart seed, people. No joke.

With those water saving thoughts in mind, here are some easy ways to lessen your water usage this summer:

1. Condition your plants for less water. When you water, go for longer times, less frequently to encourage deeper root systems that are more drought-tolerant.

2. Use smart irrigation. Things like drip irrigation and harvested rainwater (in places where it's legal, check with your city!) can really improve water efficiency.

3. Buy the right plants. Grass like Pennington Smart Seed uses less water, and there are countless drought-tolerant, beautiful flower varieties available for your flower beds. Plan your yard smartly and you'll save money while conserving water!

4. Don't overwater. Overwatering is really common, and can lead to shallow roots which feeds back into the overwatering cycle by having a less hardy lawn that needs more water. Wait for your grass's color has fallen by 50%, and then put down 1-inch of water... that's all it takes!

5. Check your sprinklers. Don't water your driveway, guys! Did you know that up to 50% of the water we use outdoors is wasted because of inefficient methods and practices?

6. Water in the morning or evening. This lessens the water loss through evaporation during the heat of the day. Mornings are my favorite time because the lawn dries a little faster to help avoid problems that are more likely to crop up in a wet lawn.

7. Plan for wind. If the breeze is blowing the water away, your lawn isn't benefiting!

8. Mulch. Spreading mulch over soil and new areas when reseeding helps protect them and retain moisture.

9. Sweep, don't spray. Use a broom to clean your walkways instead of a hose.

10. Fertilize thoughtfully. Fertilizer is great for helping plants build healthy, deep root systems which helps them be more drought tolerant.

We can't deny that for whatever reasons, we are trending hotter... last year was the hottest year on record and 36 states anticipate continued water shortages. Most of us still want that fabulous looking green lawn, and Pennington Smart Seed's more efficient use of such a precious natural resource as water is worth noting.

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Central Garden & Pet partnered with bloggers such as me to help educate us all about their Pennington products. As part of this program, I received compensation. They did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about the use of the products. Central Garden & Pet believes that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Central Garden & Pet’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.

Color + Texture - Actual Work = My Sort of Decorating

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:47:00 +0000

I'm finishing school this week and taking my licensing tests in about 10 days, so decorating my house is pretty low on my list of priorities these days. (so is making dinner... but what do you do?)

I needed some bright color in my dining room so I felt like I was trying, though...

Turning some of this yellow fabric into a table runner was an easy project, even for me! Then I added a recycled glass vase I picked up at World Market a month or two ago, and I was done. Voila. Just my sort of slacker decorating project.

I actually really like the vase, and I'm glad it made it into my cart as an impulse purchase. The greenish color and uneven thickness and texture make my heart race a little. I may need to see a doctor, or at the very least get out a little more often.

It just goes to show that you don't have to go to a lot of work or spend a lot of money to make a change in your home. Or, it goes to show that I am completely and totally, 150% too busy washing clothes and not folding them, making menus then forgetting to make dinner, and pondering the idea of vacuuming, to spend a lot of time on a decorating project. And hey, that's okay too!

Lawn Care 101 with Pennington Smart Seed + a Giveaway!

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:52:00 +0000

This post is brought to you by Pennington Smart Seed

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Great lawns are something to admire, and they can really increase a home's curb appeal by making it look well cared for. I love to play around with the interior of my home, but it's important not to forget about the outside. Enter Pennington Seed, the #1 selling seed in the industry. We had a great lawn when we lived in Utah, but our sweet little Idaho house has a shadier lawn and it's always looked a little sad.

The good news is a nice lawn can be closer than you think, and it doesn't require a complicated maintenance plan worthy of a golf course!

First, choose a great seed. Pennington offers several different varieties and mixes so you can pick the right seed for your lawn; we picked up a mix called "Sun & Shade" for our tree-filled yard. I was also impressed to read how much work has gone into developing Pennington's Smart Seed: there are no fillers, and the seed has been formulated to germinate faster, grow deeper and denser root systems, and use up to 30% less water each year.

So why would using a drought tolerant seed be important? In a nutshell it comes down to time, money, and the environment!

First, less water needed means less time spent watering, and since Americans spend an average of 73 hours a year on their lawn (most of it with a sprinkler!) this translates to a nice time saver for you.
Second, depending on where you live, homeowners use 30-70% of their total water outside; and in most places water isn't cheap!
Third, we are getting hotter: 2012 was the hottest year on record and 2/3 of the country went through some sort of drought. Saving water has never been more important!

Next, prep your lawn & sow the seed. We decided to overseed our healthy grass to help eliminate thin or bare patches resulting from heavy traffic in certain areas, plus a couple kids and a large dog.

We do fertilize (which helps) but we've noticed that it doesn't fix the patchiness completely so we decided overseeding was a good idea to help thicken our lawn.

Pennington recommends conducting a soil test to make sure your lawn is healthy and is getting all the nutrients it needs. If needed, go ahead and fertilize or add soil amendments at this point.
Mow your existing lawn, remove clippings & rake the area lightly to help the new seed make good contact with the soil so it will grow.
Sprinkle the seed (we used a spreader we already had) and gently rake to cover it lightly with soil.
Keep your lawn moist to encourage the seed to germinate and start growing. After it's established you can start watering only as needed and enjoy your thicker lawn!

I'm really excited to have a thicker, healthier lawn!

Giveaway Time! not only is a nice lawn just a couple steps away, Pennington has been gracious enough to offer one of you a $50 American Express gift card so you can get a jump start! The giveaway is now closed.

Mandatory Entry: Comment on this post with your favorite lawn and garden tip!
Bonus Entry: Follow Take the Side Street on Facebook and tell me you did so in a separate comment on this post.
Bonus Entry: Follow Pennington Seed on Facebook and tell me you did so in a separate comment on this post.

Giveaway Terms: Giveaway is limited to US residents 18 years old and above. Winner will be chosen using random.org and will be contacted via email and given 48 hours to reply to confirm win. By entering you give me permission to release your contact info to the giveaway sponsor for prize shipment purposes; Take the Side Street is not responsible for prize fulfillment. Please allow up to 8 weeks for delivery. Giveaway is not affiliated with Facebook or Twitter. Void where prohibited by law. All entries will be verified.

Disclosure: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Pennington Seed, and I received compensation for my involvement. I was not told what to purchase and all opinions and experiences are mine.

Kitchen Progress: Shelves! Paint! Counters!

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 03:41:00 +0000

I've been pretending I didn't have a blog or a kitchen that needed paint over the last couple weeks.

Bad news: my kitchen didn't paint itself while I ignored it.
Good news: It's painted now!
More bad news: I spent my entire weekend painting.
Good news: I'm done painting in there!
Even more bad news: I'm lying, I'm not actually done painting.
Good news: I've got at least a week or two of denial to go through before I paint again.

Last week the shelves finally went up...

And this weekend I decided I couldn't put it off any longer, so I gathered my supplies, including my big girl underoos. I filled nail holes, caulked, and primed. I repainted all the trim bright white and painted the walls with the new color.

I even dragged the butcher block outside and Mike and I took turns sanding it smooth and pinky promised not to use it as a cutting board anymore.

So after all the sanding and painting, plus some mineral oil (on the wood, not the walls), this is what we've got:

Doesn't it look great?? I love the paint color and I can't wait to fill the shelves up and put subway tile on the walls.

In other kitchen news, I ordered the laminate for my counters last week, too! They're by Formica and made to look like Calacatta Marble. It wouldn't make financial sense to install expensive countertops in our neighborhood, so if I'm going to go with laminate I might as well have fun with it, right?

And in non-kitchen news, I'm less than a month from finishing school and reclaiming my life. That's worth a celebration, right? The count down is on!

Chicken Partying

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:30:00 +0000

Cold temperatures, coupled with human laziness and a poorly patched coop, thrown together with a flock of bossy birds...

...equals a two month free reign, free range backyard chicken party.

And it's time for the party to stop. The weather is finally "nice" enough (I use that term loosely, as I do live in Idaho where summer begins in July...) for a coop patch job and some new house rules. I'm excited to have my backyard back before plants start coming up only to be eaten by my surly backyard flock.

Yeah, I'm talking about you.

That one's sort of a brat.

eShakti Dress Review

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 02:49:00 +0000

I am so excited to pretend to know what I'm doing when it comes to clothes for a few minutes, guys. Last month, the online company eShakti contacted me about the possibility of trying one of their dresses and sharing my experience with you, and (of course) I jumped on it. I'm no fashion blogger but I sure do love me some clothes, and since I recently decided to jump into the deep end of the red head pond, I thought I'd look for a green dress!

The great things about eShakti are that they offer clothing in sizes 0-36W, and they also offer the option to customize their clothing in both size and design. For example, you can order a standard size 8 or input your measurements for a custom fit; and you can also adjust skirt lengths, sleeve types, etc. They have skirts, jackets, and tops, but I will say they definitely have a ton of cute dresses -- and while lots of them are very feminine or vintage-inspired, I still saw plenty of styles that would work for most anyone.

I picked a green knit dress with a draped front because I didn't want to iron the thing (I hate ironing) and I wanted something that would work as a day dress. eShakti asked me to input some customizations, so while I went with a standard size, I did shorten the skirt to above the knee, and I asked them to remove the pockets.

My thoughts? My dress arrived eight business days after placing my order, and it was shipped from India so I'm feeling like that turnaround time is pretty impressive. I love the length, it fits great, the material is a nice weight and drapes very nicely even with the fuller skirt... but they didn't remove my pockets. Sadface.

Except not really a big sadface because I have made peace with the pockets for the most part, and they don't make me feel hippy like I was worried they would, so maybe it was all in fate's hands and I was supposed to have a dress with pockets. Hmm... food for thought? I only mention it because I believe the option to remove embroidery embellishments and pockets is a new customization option, so perhaps they're still ironing the kinks out of it. But I would just be aware of that in case you placed an order.

Custom dresses for everyone! After you comment and tell me how fab I look in green and that I don't look silly at all in these pictures, hop over to eShakti and have a look at their clothing options! They've even sent a 20% off coupon code over for y'all...

Coupon code (not case sensitive): SIDESTREET
valid through: March 20 (I'm going to see if I can work on extending that a wee bit!)

Happy Eight Years To Meeee

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:55:00 +0000

It's my anniversary today, and last year we got chickens -- I'm hoping for a much less exciting day this time. Mike and I have been married for 8 years. We've lived in six homes in two states, had two kids, too many pets, and zero trips to Tahiti. Not to drop hints or anything...

Just for fun, I thought I'd share a couple of photos from when we were dating. To be clear, it's mostly fun for me. So I can look at them and giggle.

And here's the last family photos we had taken, in 2009. Maybe that should be our goal this year.

He's such a cute guy. And I'm glad I have more eyebrow now than I did in that second photo, yikes. Eyebrows are good, y'all.

Have a fabulous day!

Kitchen Cabinets: the Paint, the Application & a Review

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:08:00 +0000

Painting your own kitchen cabinets is a big, long job. My cabinet doors literally took over my house for a week while they were laying on every available surface! In the end it's definitely worth it, but you want to make sure you do a project like this right the first time -- the idea of doing this again in the next several years is enough to make my stomach turn a little.

Earlier this month I wrote a post about prepping the kitchen cabinets for paint, so feel free to hop over there for a review. Today I want to talk about the paint I chose, how I applied it, and my thoughts on the product now that I've finished.

Paint

The paint I used for my doors was Sherwin Williams ProClassic Waterbased Acrylic-Alkyd. I chose this relatively new product because I wanted a paint that was self leveling to help eliminate brush strokes, and one that would dry to a really hard finish, both characteristics of oil (alkyd) paints. This paint combines those traits with a water based (acrylic) paint's lower VOC levels, a non-yellowing finish and water cleanup. It sounded too great to pass up!

The color I chose was a custom mix called "L4 white" that my Sherwin Williams mixes for a lot of painters - I don't know if it's a company-wide or a regional thing, but I first heard about it from our contractor friend and have been using it for my trim ever since.

It's regular white paint with just a touch of raw umber to tone it down the tiniest bit. It reads as a true, bright white that goes with everything but doesn't have the glowy, almost flourescent brightness that pure white paint can have. I had zero desire to flip through 50 white paint chips or read blogs about the right white. The right white for me is white. Ha :)

As you can see in the photo above, I went with a satin sheen because I have a sneaking suspicion my cabinet doors were homemade, and they have little warps, dips, and knots in them that I wanted to minimize. The lower the sheen, the more imperfections it hides -- and the Sherwin Williams product webpage says this satin paint is cleanable, so I went with it!

Application

I used a 2" angle sash brush, like this one:

It's my favorite type of brush, and the one I use for my trim projects too.

When painting, I started on the edges/details and worked my way toward the center. I painted quickly and put a thick enough layer on that I could smooth it out over the entire door. The goal is to have complete coverage without any little spots, patches, or lines where the paint skimmed or "hopped" over. This allows the paint to level itself smoothly across the entire surface.

However, don't apply it so thickly that it starts dripping off any higher details. (the door may be horizontal when you paint but I will bet that it's not perfectly flat, and if there are height differences the paint can drip or pool!)

I will say that this paint is a bit trickier to apply than wall paint, but not so tricky that it would or should be intimidating. It's a good reason to paint the backs of your doors first, so you can practice your technique!

(Left: a cabinet right after application with visible brush strokes; Right: a cabinet after being left to dry for an hour or two.)

My Thoughts

I'm really pleased with this paint. True to the product description, it did clean up easily with water, there was no oil-based paint smell, and I feel like the finish, when applied carefully, is excellent and smooth. It was a little drippy in places and I can still see minimal brush strokes in a few spots, but I picked up a few tips that I'm sharing with you at the end of this post that I think will make a difference in your experience if you decide to try this paint on your next project.

The satin finish has a nice glow to it that I'm happy with, and the lower sheen hides a lot of the weird cabinet imperfections while still cleaning up nicely from the couple of jam spills we've already had.

I think my cabinet frames (painted with the ProClassic acrylic enamel by mistake) got that hard, finished feeling to them faster than my doors have, but the frame paint didn't have the oil-based component that takes longer to cure. I'm sure I'm going to be happy with the extra strength this paint will bring to my doors and I'm willing to baby them a little for a week or so while they set up!

All in all, it's a win. I'm going to remember this paint!

Tips:

Don't skip sanding if your surface is glossy at all. There were a couple doors where I missed a small spot when sanding down the high gloss paint, and this paint would bead up during application. I'd wipe the wet paint off, let it dry then re-sand. If you want your finish to last, remember: prep, prep, prep.
Wash your brush each day - I felt like a soft, clean brush made for a much smoother finish, and when I saved the brush and wrapped it up overnight, the stiffer brush left deeper marks in the wet paint that didn't fill in as well when the paint leveled.
Don't overbrush. You hear it a lot, but apply the paint, smooth it out a little and then walk away.
Apply thin coats on vertical surfaces. Since this paint is self leveling, it will flow together after application and on a vertical surface this means it's prone to dripping, so be careful with how much you apply and don't forget to watch it.
Paint the backs of your doors first so you can practice and also so they can have a head start drying and you can carefully re-hang them a day after the fronts are painted. (if you're impatient like me)
To replace your cabinet hardware soon after painting, just leave the screws loose and keep the cabinets open for a week or so to help prevent sticking while the paint cures (the water may evaporate quickly but the oil-based part of the paint takes a little longer to fully dry and harden.)

(I'm not affiliated with Sherwin Williams and I received no compensation or products from them for this project -- I simply wanted to share my thoughts and experience with this paint!)

Painted Kitchen Cabinets

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:38:00 +0000

Last week, after what felt like an eternity, I finished painting my kitchen cabinets. I am so relieved to put this project behind me, especially considering how much more painting I still need to do in this room. Let's not talk about that right now though, I'm still in my happy place.

It looks like a subtle change on the screen, but I swear it's made a big difference in person. The entire room feels so much brighter. It matches the color scheme of my house now, instead of being a big off-white sore thumb of a room and a testimony to thinking paint colors through carefully and in context with the bigger picture of a house's design.

As a reminder, here's a photo of the north wall before we started monkeying with anything:

And here it is after we messed with cabinets and the painting was all done:

Some of the difference in color is lost due to different lighting and my poorish skills in photography, so here's a better illustration of the difference:

See? Totally worth painting. The previous color ended up looking dingy and dim when surrounded by all the crisp white trim of the other rooms that my kitchen is now wide open to.

The halfway unpainted box is where our new over-the-range microwave will go and not match my bisque-colored oven.

Instead of adding wine storage to the space where the microwave was previously, you can see that we created a sort of coffee nook. Because that space is between my range top and the weird cabinet-covered heating duct, I decided it was too warm for wine storage. Improvise, adapt, overcome. That's what I say... when I'm writing blog posts.

On the plus side, now I get to buy a cuter coffee maker. And then I get to slowly come to terms with having an appliance on display. Wish me luck...

I'll be back tomorrow with details about the paint and the process!

Update: Learn about the paint I used and read my tips for achieving the best finish!

Cabinet Painting Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:45:00 +0000

Sometimes we need reminders from the universe to do things right the first time, instead of cutting corners. And occasionally, those reminders aren't fun. And maybe those reminders may trigger a panic attack as we imagine our cabinet doors still spread around our dining room floor when our kids graduate high school. This is all purely hypothetical, of course.

On Saturday I took my cabinet doors down, believing that the long weekend would help me get them taken care of quickly. I painted the fronts of them with some porch and floor paint that I had seen someone recommending for cabinets because of the self-leveling characteristics (it was oil based) and its super hard finish.

Problem #1: The porch and floor paint dried glossy. Crazy, crazy glossy. I still can't explain how I missed that on the paint can... I think school may be affecting my decision making abilities. Solution? Grab some clear satin spray and tone those babies down...

At first it looked like I was a brilliant problem solver... but then?

Problem #2: The clear spray made the white paint buckle and crack in places. I checked the temperature, I checked ingredients... the only explanation I can think of is that I didn't allow the oil-based paint to properly cure before applying another product on top of it, which made it go Britney-Spears-shaving-her-head crazy on me. I waited over 24 hours, people... I don't have time for high maintenance paint issues.

Problem #3: At the same time the crackling paint disaster of 2013 was happening, our contractor buddy came over to put a cabinet box above my range to mount the microwave to, and when he got here we realized the cabinet next to it was too deep for the microwave to open... so he had to rip out yet another cabinet, cut it in half and replace it before he was able to even get started.

Problem #3 1/2: This doesn't really pertain to the story, but it's a problem nonetheless. Take a look at my ridiculous cabinets:

Anyway, this was the point where I started to panic and thought I was having a heart attack for a good 30 minutes before I realized that I was just freaked out of my gourd. I knew I should have chosen my paint more carefully, so I started doing research to try to fix my mistake.

(admit it, if your kitchen looked like that and you realized that you were going to have to repaint... you might have a panic attack too!)

While searching I discovered a really interesting newer product -- a water based (acrylic) oil (alkyd) paint. This is fancy stuff, y'all... it's non yellowing, lower VOC and cleans up with water... but it's self leveling and super hard like a traditional oil paint. It's pretty much the paint gods' gift to furniture, trim and cabinetry. Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore both make one, and so I decided to go pick up a gallon while I kicked myself for not doing it in the first place.

On Monday I bought my new fancy paint and started painting my cabinet frames, since I still couldn't look at my messed up doors without my eyeballs starting to twitch; I needed to make some actual progress before I would be emotionally ready to tackle those again!

Problem #4: After two coats on my cabinet frames, I looked at the paint can for the first time.

Umm...

The paint guy gave me the wrong paint. Aaaahhhhh!!! This was regular acrylic latex (albeit a bit fancier and harder because it's in their ProClassic line). The chipped stuff all over my cabinets was acrylic latex... I wasn't going down that road again, even if this paint was 10 times nicer than the stuff I had sprayed 3 years ago.

I called the store, they apologized and replaced the wrong paint with the stuff I had asked for:

And that's where I am now. I've decided to leave my frames as is, since the ProClassic Acrylic Latex I received in error is still harder and smoother than a traditional wall paint, and the frames receive less wear than the doors. Plus if I had to repaint the doors and the frames I might literally never paint another thing again.

So today I start painting the doors. Cross your fingers that the can doesn't spontaneously combust? At this point I wouldn't be surprised!

Moral of today's worst case scenario survival story: Cutting corners is not always a good thing! And, you know... maybe look at products salespeople hand you.

Update: See them painted!

Prepping My Cabinets for Paint

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 19:31:00 +0000

I can't lie, I have approached painting my kitchen cabinets again with a mixture of dread (obvious) and excitement (finally, it will look nice!) -- we just had them sprayed three years ago when we bought this home, and I've been unhappy with the finish for about 2 1/2 years. So even if I had wanted to keep the creamy off-white color, which I don't, I would need to paint them again because of the large amount of nicks and hairline cracks they have accumulated.

When I painted them last time I didn't research ~~at all~~ thoroughly enough and I chose a latex paint; this time I'm pulling out the big guns and going for a really durable oil-based, self leveling one. I saw it recommended on a DIY forum for kitchen cabinets, and I asked the paint guy at my Home Depot and he agreed that it would work. I had it tinted to match my trim. So here goes nothing!

This paint does have a poly in it, which means it will yellow over time -- but since I hope to replace my doors in a few years and my kitchen is not a sunny room, I decided to give it a try. I am pretty sure Sherwin Williams makes a water based porch and floor paint, but I really wanted a self-leveling paint (oil-based) to help hide all the imperfections in my doors. So I'm taking my chances and I'll be sure to let you know how it holds up.

Here's what I did to prepare the cabinets correctly, so I don't have to paint them again in another three years (fingers crossed):

1. Caulk and apply wood putty to imperfections.
My cabinets are weird and they look homemade. I don't love them. There are lots of knots (they are knotty pine, after all) and textural issues, not to mention holes and dents (pine is soft). If you're making your own cabinets for some reason, maybe don't choose pine. Maybe. Just my thoughts. I look forward to the day I can get new doors -- like I said above, they're in bad shape with lots of nicks and cracking issues.

Did I mention that they're trashed?

2. Remove hinges and hardware.
Do me a favor and put them somewhere safe, okay? Loose screws are like socks in dryers... just asking for a black hole to appear and snatch them away.

3. Sand
Like I mentioned above, I did use wood putty in several spots so those needed to be sanded down, but I also sanded the entire surface front and back to remove any trace of a glossy finish that would prevent optimum paint adhesion. (I feel like I sound so smart right now. It's an act, y'all.)

4. Clean
This step is pretty common sense. It's not the best idea to paint over your 5 year old's sticky pudding fingerprints. Not that those ever show up on my cabinets... nope! Grease and dirt are not paint's friends.

5. Prime
According to the paint can's directions, I don't need to prime over painted surfaces (i.e. most of the cabinet doors), even though the existing paint is latex. In general, it's latex-over-oil that is a seriously bad idea. From what I've gathered, there are oil-based products that do need a primer to go over existing latex finishes because the two products flex and expand at different rates which can be a recipe for bad finish (oil is harder, latex more flexible) but it seems that most newfangled oil-based products are formulated to work over latex.

I used my regular oil-based primer on the nicks where the orange pine in its original glory was shining through. It's always a good idea to prime raw or unpainted surfaces before painting, plus my paint can told me to.

After it dried, I sanded the primer smooth. You should never skip sanding the primer because it dries with an unpleasant gritty finish, but after sanding it becomes quite literally one of the smoothest, most delightful things in the world. Am I a giant geek that I love the feel of sanded primer? It's like a baby's butt and my husband won't let me have more babies. I need to seek counseling.

(my crowded cabinets wait for open shelving to be built)

Now it's finally time to paint. A thorough prep job makes such a difference in the results, but I swear it ends up eating 75% of the project time. Not fun for impatient folks such as myself who are dying to slap some paint up and move on with their lives.

Update: Read about the paint I used and my tips for a great application!

Kitchen Wall Prep & Texture

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:46:00 +0000

Psst... have you entered for a chance to win either a Kindle Fire HD or $200 at Amazon? Go do it, we'll wait!

________________________________

Last Saturday, I rolled up my sleeves and removed a couple of cabinets in my kitchen, and was left with a little mess to clean up. I can do a lot of things, but mesh tape + joint compound + fancy textures isn't on my list of skills. (although I do have nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, and computer hacking skills... Mike only wanted a wife who had skills.)

I knew it was time to call a professional to work his magic on my kitchen walls while I took a DIY break and ate something. Preferably something chocolatey.

Before I got to the good (chocolate-flavored) part though, we had some prep work to do.

I removed the old wallpaper:

And Mike patched the sheetrock (The fact that he's helping me a bit with this project gives me warm fuzzies all the way to my toes. I heart him and his DIY-hating ways).

And yes, we removed the outlet in the middle of the wall even against the advice of several commenters! Don't be sad -- if I ever need a lamp on my open shelving you can all say that you told me so :)

Then I munched on Valentine's Day chocolate while the professional magic happened.

voilà!

I'm enjoying it today before I have to start thinking about priming. And painting the walls. And painting the ceiling. And painting the cabinets. And painting the floors. Chances are, if it's in my kitchen and it's standing still, it might get a fresh coat.

P.S. Who else is excited about Cadbury chocolate mini eggs? I do love a good early Easter season!

Enter to Win a Kindle Fire HD or $200 Amazon GC!

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:30:00 +0000

Can I enter a giveaway I'm a part of, y'all? ;) Thanks to Ashley for writing this up!

___________________________________________________________

Welcome to our first ever

Idaho Bloggers Giveaway!

This week is Valentine's Day and what better way to show some love, to you our awesome readers, than to host a massive giveaway?

I got together with some other rockin Idaho Bloggers(we have quite the talented bunch in this little state of ours) and we are hooking you up big time!

Drum roll please....

The winner will receive either a Kindle Fire HD or a $200 Amazon Gift Card!

Your choice!

Enter using Rafflecopter below!

Giveaway will be open until Feb 15th.

Open to US and Canada only.

And please take time to check out these awesome ladies who helped make this possible!

Sheena of Life in My Heels

Adrienne of Free Time Frolics

Marcie of I Gotta Try That

Emily of The Benson Street

McKenzie of Girl Loves Glam

Sarah of A Thrifty Mom

Kim of A Girl and a Glue Gun

Andie of Maybe I Will

Shatzi of Love and Laundry

Tauni of SNAP!

Megan of Crafter Club

Anna of Take the Side Street

Becca of Love Our Disney

Sky of Capital B

Holly and Nat of My Sister's Suitcase

Ashley of flats to flip flops

Good luck everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Another Box Bites the Dust

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:55:00 +0000

When I begin a project, my technique usually consists of impulsively knocking holes in things or slapping paint on half a wall and then adopting a "well, I can't stop now!" sort of attitude to carry me through. This works really well when you are a compulsive over thinker and you're married to a forgiving man.

Eventually however, the time for considering ends and the time for doing begins.

And even though I'm only half talking about my kitchen shelving project because I'm half talking about my terrifying decision to (maybe, probably) chop all my hair off before I lose my nerve from thinking too much, today I'm actually talking about my kitchen. Sort of.

Today was the day for removing cabinet boxes. Before any open shelving can go in, the wall behind this cabinet box needs to be textured so it will match the existing walls. And on the other side of the kitchen is a second spot that needs to be taped and textured, where the tall glass front cabinets used to be. I'm hopeful we can get that taken care of soon and get some shelves made!

First things first, I had to empty the cabinets. Now all my other cabinets are absolutely squished full of stuff, but I'm not concerned with losing storage in the long run as we'll be adding shelving for some of my dishes and freeing up the cabinet space where they are stored now.

After the cabinets were empty, I removed the doors and turned off the power in order to cap the wires in the weird little outlet halfway up the kitchen wall.

Next I used a utility knife to score the seams between the trim and wall, and also between the cabinet box to be removed and its next door neighbor. This step makes removal easier and helps minimize any potential damage to the surrounding walls or cabinets.

After the trim was off, I removed the screws securing the box to the walls and ceiling.

Then I realized the box was going to be too heavy and awkward for me to remove alone, so I wedged it against the wall and waited for my husband to come home and rescue me from myself. Good news: he still loves me!

Now there's a big space in my kitchen where there used to be cabinets.

There's also an outlet box that needs to be sorted out, some yellow plaid wallpaper from another lifetime, three different textures and a hole in the wall. Nothing ever goes how you expect it to when you're pulling your house apart -- projects are always full of unexpected surprises to keep you on your toes and make you swear you'll never start another one.

Well... I can't stop now!

Open Shelving Decision

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:29:00 +0000

One of my hidden talents is taking a simple idea and running a million miles away with it until it's nearly unrecognizable. Case in point: after we chatted about adding a shelf below my squatty too-short upper cabinet, I naturally began considering my options...

While browsing online, I found a couple examples of what I was talking about with a single shelf hanging below cabinet uppers:

(source: Domestic Imperfection)

The problem was, I liked how the single shelf was carried around a longer length of the kitchen in both the example photos, and I knew I only had that one small length of wall above the butcher block counter in my kitchen.

A commenter on my original post suggested adding open cubbies, like this:

(source: Apartment Therapy)

It was okay, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. So I kept going through photos of open shelving that made me happy... (we call these web and Pinterest sessions "research" when we talk to our husbands about what we were doing the last ~~two~~ hours)

(source: BHG)

(Source: Cultivate)

I realized I was being repeatedly drawn to small walls of open shelving among traditional cabinetry. Why fight it? I think I'm just going to remove that short cabinet over the butcher block counter entirely and put open shelving in its place; three floating shelves, probably.

Next, since we're on a roll (and why stop now?) let's remove the other weird short cabinet over the oven and replace it with an over-the-range microwave. Last, close off that open sided nook where the microwave currently resides, add some wine storage and who knows what else. Make it cute, dang it. Make it cute.

Long story short, I've decided to mess with my kitchen even more. That's how a person such as myself moves from simply adding a shelf below a cabinet to removing half a wall of uppers. I think it takes a certain amount of bravery (foolishness?) to start pulling out kitchen cabinets, but I've seen enough people who are wonderfully happy with their decision to add some open shelving, and it seems like a genuinely good solution to my out-of-proportion cabinet problem, so I've decided to just go for it.

And the best part? I have a couple fewer cabinets to paint now!

Hacking IKEA Pendants

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:32:00 +0000

I stumbled across a blog post recently where a smart, smart lady had turned IKEA's Foto Pendant into a DIY barn light for over her kitchen sink and I said to myself, "self! $14.99 for a pendant is just the right price for your kitchen."

So that's what I did. An old neighbor of mine in Salt Lake traveled to Idaho this past weekend for a family function, and before making the trip she was kind enough to grab a couple pendant lights at IKEA for me -- what a gal, saving me seven hours of driving (and some unknown amount of money... IKEA is dangerous like that).

These pendants come with a plug so I had to have to flex my electrical muscles. And I'm mildly afraid of electricity so really I made my husband do most of it. Since he never works on house projects with me, it's secretly fun when I get to rope him into helping me out... quality time, you know.

In the interest of full disclosure, I also purchased a couple of ceiling canopy kits for about $6 each which brought the grand total to $21 a pendant. And since this was a little jury rigged, I also had to tie a fancy knot in the cord above the metal cross bar to keep the pendants at the right height, which means we assembled the light and the ceiling kit first, tied the knot in the cord and then my husband mounted the whole unit to the ceiling (as seen in the photos below). Lucky for us (him) this pendant weights next to nothing, so it wasn't a big deal.

I'm not 100% sold on the color I chose (Krylon's Ocean Breeze) as I was hoping it would be a little more muted. I think I might like Krylon's Catalina Mist on these, but then I'd have a pair of Catalina Mist pendants right next to a pair of Catalina Mist lamps, so maybe I should find a new color for those living room lamps before I do anything hasty! Or maybe spray paint companies need to come out with more colors. Just a thought. I like blue lights, okay?

For now though, they'll do! I like 'em, and $21 a pendant is well within my budget kitchen makeover plan. Now to just sort out that unfinished wall...

Filling My Kitchen's One Blank Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:21:00 +0000

I'm still plugging away in my kitchen, but this whole "budget" concept seriously cramps my style, so today I'm sharing my zero dollar kitchen art! I think kitchens need art, even if it's not Art with a capital A. So in the spirit of having no budget left for the month, I got creative with a couple frames I already had in a closet.

First, I sat down and created a little graphic using a favorite lyric from a Leonard Cohen song called "Anthem." The lyric reads in part, "there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." I love the sentiment behind this, I feel like it's about how imperfections are everywhere and that these imperfect things are beautiful and wonderful because of their flaws, not in spite of them; perfection is overrated and stifling. It's a freeing, lovely thought and one I wanted on my wall.

I also printed off a photo from a creative commons set I found on flickr a while ago made by a lady named D Sharon Pruitt. I like the colors in it and so it will work for now, while I'm looking for something more permanent. Something like... this painting, maybe. My birthday is coming up soonish after all, and if I must turn 30 I might as well pick my own presents!

While I was working on my little budget art project, I got an idea, stemming from my bizarre half-height upper cabinets...

What do we think? Would a shelf under that cabinet look too country or maybe even out of place on its own? I'm not sure how I feel about the wooden brackets... I like them in other kitchens but wonder if floating shelves would be better in mine. Let's discuss.

New Master Plan for a Mini Kitchen Makeover

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 17:48:00 +0000

Even small makeovers deserve big plans!

Remember when I was going to do a major overhaul of my kitchen? Yeah, about that... I don't think that's going to happen. I've decided to make peace with some of the issues I have with the kitchen and focus on making it the best little room it can be without entirely breaking the bank.

There are so many beautiful kitchens out there in blog land, and with the popularity of fun sites like Pinterest we are practically drowning in gorgeous design. Similar to how our self esteem and idea of "normal" can be affected by the constant deluge of super thin models we are subjected to in the media, it's easy to get caught in the same trap when it comes to the "perfect" house or kitchen. There's no such thing! Large, small, new, old... rock what you've got.

The truth is, your kitchen (and your body!) are great. Make the most of what you have and learn to love it. Happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have. I'm excited to show y'all that you don't have to gut your kitchen and spend tens of thousands of dollars on a new high end space to have a kitchen you love.

So while eventually I do hope to make a few changes to the cabinets in my kitchen and move a few things around, I'll be keeping the majority of them, reusing boxes when I can (a great way to save some money) and matching new doors to the existing ones instead of replacing them all.

For now though, I'm concentrating on a few details to make the most of the kitchen I have. Details like:

1. Replacing the existing laminate counters -- I'll stick with laminate again as it doesn't make sense to upgrade to a more expensive material in our neighborhood, even if I wanted to spend the money on it right now. I will be using a higher end laminate (as much fun as the beige graph paper counters have been...)

Counter Exhibit A

(click to enlarge its graph paper fabulousness)

2. Replacing the beige sink with something less... beige.
3. Patching the walls and ceilings.
4. Painting the ceiling.
5. Installing some attractive pendant lighting.
6. Adding trim to the unfinished walls.
7. Painting vinyl flooring (yes, you heard me. Shhh... it'll be all right. I promise.)
8. Replacing my stove and fridge to match my microwave and dishwasher. Okay, that one's not a priority (except for me). It'll happen eventually. Sigh.

I'm sticking to a monthly house budget so I have to make the most of my money and it won't all happen next week -- but I'm excited to look back in a few months and see the transformation!

Wall Be Gone! Poof

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:10:00 +0000

I'm done painting the paneled wall and the new column, and even though there's still some trim work on both sides and some wall patching and texture in the kitchen that needs to get done, the difference the paint alone has made is huge.

I feel like that horrible mini wall, the one I hate because it disrupts the flow, has disappeared. Or disappeared as much as a wall that's still really there can disappear. Painting it the same color as the surrounding walls in both rooms has made it fade into the background and my living room feels larger, brighter and more open. Win.

Remember what my living room looked like on Saturday? Of course you do; disturbing stuff like that gets burned into your memory for years.

Without that jarring wall of knotty pine, the entire space feels roomier and all the windows really pop -- have I mentioned that I love the dark mullions with the white trim? I didn't know how I would feel about them when I first decided to paint, but now I'm 100% on board. Kind of quirky. Lots of charm.

Even with the work that still needs to be done, I'm so over the moon with my "new" space. Tomorrow I'll be back with the list of things that still need to be done to finish the little kitchen makeover!

This little project just goes to show that no matter how much we all dread painting sometimes (and come on, even I do -- it's not on my top 10 list of favorite things), in the end it is so, so, so worth it.

Kitchen cabinets, you're next. (I just have to keep reminding myself "it's worth it, it's worth it, it's worth it...")

Paint-a-Palooza 2013: It Begins

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 05:58:00 +0000

Hey friends... I've spent the last couple days girding my loins (ha, who says that?) for my plans this weekend. I don't know what you've been up to, but I truly doubt it can compare to me beginning the great paint-a-palooza of 2013.

First up, the paneled wall in my living room that has been on my "to paint" list since... oh, forever. Now that there's an unpainted column in the middle of it I was forced to admit that two unpainted wrongs don't make a right.

I see you judging me for still having the foosball table in my dining room. It's heavy, y'all. Heavy!! One day I'll be able to walk through my dining table without having to do a shimmy past it, and that will be a very good day in my world, indeed.

Tonight, after much loin girding, I turned on a movie of questionable merit (rhymes with Shmilight) and I got my primer on.

Tomorrow I'll caulk and get some color on the wall... and then next week maybe I'll finish out the paint-a-palooza by repainting my kitchen cabinets. Because yes, that's happening. Of course I'm that crazy woman who is going to repaint her not-white-enough kitchen cabinets to a white-enough-white. It's a sickness and I love it.

Edited to add: I just noticed one of my kitchen cabinets is open. Oh, the shame of a poorly styled photograph... ;)

I Hate Plumbing: Main Line Miracle

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 18:09:00 +0000

Early in the month I was doing some laundry while Mike was doing dishes, and I walked down to my ugliest laundry room in the world in order to move the clothes through, when I was confronted with this terrible, horrible, no good very bad sight:

Our main line was backed up and my laundry room had flooded. Again. Gross. Sorry for the photo, it had to be done. Y'all need to understand just how dire the situation was.

We've had some issues in the past with our 50 year old home's main line to the sewer. Shortly after we moved in, the floor drain would flood the room a little when we did laundry. Gradually it started flooding more each time... no good.

We had plumbers come and look at it -- they climbed on the roof with a snake and cleaned it out, but they said some older homes just have problems like this that come back repeatedly, and worst case scenario we'd have to replace the main line (ouch! expensive!). I cried a little inside when they said that. A year and a half later it happened again and we called more plumbers. Even when the line was clear it was always slow, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I walked downstairs to a flooded laundry room again.

Both plumbers recommended a powdered enzymatic cleaner that is supposed to introduce enzymes (duh) and helpful bacteria to the pipes to really clean them out instead of just cutting a hole through the gunk like a snake would.

Geek moment time out: think of your plumbing system as similar to your digestive system (sorry -- again, it has to be done). Helpful bacteria are necessary for proper function in your gut, and when you use a heavy duty chemical drain cleaner on your pipes or take an antibiotic for an illness, all that helpful bacteria gets killed too. This can lead to drains that clog again faster or in the case of our body, tummy troubles. So if you can solve a slow drain with an enzymatic cleaner and then do routine monthly treatments to keep it clear, it's a healthier alternative but it's also better for the system in general.

Back to the story. I was using the enzymatic cleaner and it helped but it never eliminated the problem in the main line -- it seemed our issue was just too large. I cried inside some more.

Finally, this month when I had standing water that took hours to clear and I wanted to kick my house in its imaginary face, I started googling and found this product:

Instant Power's Main Line Cleaner. I started reading reviews about how it was some sort of miracle cleaner for frustrated homeowners. And I saw that it was guaranteed. I didn't want to get my hopes too high after hundreds of dollars spent on plumbers who couldn't fix it... but I still dropped everything to run to the store and pick up a bottle for $10.

I brought it home and anxiously watched the clock until evening; see, just like an enzymatic cleaner, this product is best used when you're not going to be using sinks, showers, toilets, dishwashers, etc. for several hours -- overnight is perfect. Right before bed I poured the entire bottle down my laundry room floor drain and said a prayer to the plumbing gods.

Fast forward to the next morning: I boiled a berzillion pots of water and trudged downstairs to flush the drain as per the instructions. I poured the first gallon into the drain... and it went down. It wasn't instant but the water... went down the drain... in front of my eyes. I was intrigued.

It wasn't draining slowly, but it also wasn't draining incredibly fast... so I decided to test the line and see if I needed another bottle (as some reviewers said their lines needed two treatments). Mike and I turned on all the faucets in the house at once and flushed the toilets... and at first it looked like it was going to start backing up through the floor drain again, but then we heard a big gurgle and saw some bubbles from deep in the pipe like something was knocked loose, and the drain immediately emptied and never filled back up.

Holy plumbing miracle, Batman.

My floor drain has been dry for a week, which is amazing. We've had zero back up, we can run the dishwasher and the washing machine at once, and my life is complete. Or at least I don't want to kick my house in its imaginary face anymore. Success!

(I received nothing from this company, they don't even know I exist... I just found an awesome product and wanted to share it with you guys!)

The UPS Man Always Rings Once

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:55:00 +0000

Yesterday afternoon, right before I left for school, the UPS man left a surprise at my door...

...and I couldn't wait to tear into the box. And today, my little post-Christmas purchase looks like this:

I like them! I think I'll like them even more once that wall and column is painted. My kids like them! They're happy to be able to sit up there and have a snack or keep me company while I cook. Mike...doesn't like them. Oh well -- you win some, you lose some. Maybe they'll grow on him.

I wanted something affordable, tall (30"), with a smallish footprint, and a little more industrial looking just 'cause I'm a fan of eclectic decor and I thought it would be fun. I found these Tabouret stools on Overstock.com, which come in a whole bunch of fun colors... in the 24" height. Either they were out of all the colors in the 30" size or there's just not as many options in stock, but I went for the silver. If I decide they need to be tangerine I can always paint them!

Adjusting to Less Cabinet Space

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:38:00 +0000

Yesterday, a couple people asked me how we were dealing with less cabinet space ever since I decided on a whim to remove a set of uppers to open my kitchen a little more to the surrounding rooms.

some of my cabinets now

I wish I had the forethought to photograph the cabinets before the shuffle... but trust me, they were full. We tend to fill the spaces we have -- even if that means accumulating lots of stuff. And I admit, I had the stuff. And the piles that accumulated in empty spots.

The truth is, I did have to do a bit of rearranging and I did end up getting rid of a few things. Lucky for me, I'm naturally a 'tosser' in all aspects of my life and I think an occasional review of the items in a home is healthy! It's just like going through your clothes and asking yourself, "have I worn this in the last year?" and deciding if it's worth the extra space in your home and life. Except we're doing it with our 27 commemorative mugs and our quesadilla makers.

I suspect we can get by just fine with less than we think. And I'm not hurting... for example, I still have:

2 crock pots and specialized gadgets like waffle irons and popcorn poppers
approximately 96 spices jars
around 11 spatulas
a whole drawer full of rags, another for towels, another for heating pads
a cabinet full of random things like dog food, wireless routers, and Swiffers.

We also have shelving in the basement where I'm able to store things I use less frequently like:

my fancy china
extra glassware for entertaining (big box o' wine glasses, thanks TJ Maxx!)
canning jars
seasonal dishes

So obviously I'm not an extreme kitchen minimalist; I'm not mixing things with my hands or washing out my one pot between side dishes... I'm just taking my boyfriend Alton Brown's advice as often as I can and making a lot of my tools and gadgets work overtime to multitask.

After all is said and done, I don't feel cramped at all, even with my "no gadgets on the counters" rule. It's all about being smart with the space you have. Do you have any kitchen organizing tip you want to share?

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

-William Morris

Kitchen Progress - It's a Column!

noreply@blogger.com (Anna @ Take the Side Street) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:15:00 +0000

Months after I surprised Mike at work with a picture of holes in our kitchen walls, I can finally see the room beginning to take shape.

As evidenced by unpainted MDF, garage light fixtures, exposed wires and studs and a well placed 1960's wallpaper remnant... well, there's still plenty of work to be done. But since my focus during my time at school is to finish projects instead of starting new ones, and my kitchen is a top priority room, I have a good feeling that this room won't stay unfinished for long.

I had Joe remove the wall behind the top later of slate tile so normal 30" bar stools would fit this new mini breakfast bar space.

Joe also added a couple of lights; once the under-cabinet lighting was removed with those glass doored cabinets, my kitchen was plunged into dungeon-esque darkness... and it was already a poorly lit room.

Those fixtures are, of course, temporary!

Let's take a look back to Christmas 2011 and see what my kitchen looked like:

Fast forward to Christmas 2012:

Okay, it's less finished. And there's a giant foosball table in my dining room because we're too lazy to take it apart and move it downstairs. But can't you see the potential? It's already so much more open and it feels less like the galley kitchen that it is. Progress!