Halloween Costumes and new door

ZombieAngel?  FrankenFlapperButterfly? We're not sure what she was but she had lots of fun at the PTA fall festival!

Friday, we got our new door installed. The old one was falling apart due to dry rot. I love the additional light in the foyer. 

Craft Room and Women of Faith

This weekend was the balloon festival. Theo and the girls were home watching for them, but they only flew over the house once and they didn't get any pictures. I think they were going the wrong direction to fly over our house. 

I was at Women of Faith with friends and had a wonderful time! We were totally spoiled by our friend and mentor who gifts us this experience every year. We loved sitting in a suite at the arena, and were pampered at the W hotel. The messages were very inspirational. One of my recent favorite songs is Hello my name is, and Matthew West was there performing it! We all had a great time. 

Then today, since I needed something to do to procrastinate doing my homework, I organized our craft room. At Staples, I had found these track desks. They were originally $250 on clearance for only $20! I grabbed two. They were a pain in the butt to put in but I think they look great! Now I just need to padlock the door so it stays tidy. The gravity is thick in there and all of our crap just whooshes in!

Lizzy's new Paris bedroom

For a long time we had promised Lizzy that we would redecorate her bedroom for her 8th birthday. I was in school at that time though so we waited until summer. The past week and a half we have spent totally redoing her room. I think it turned out really cute. I had so much fun doing this and the girls and I both had lots of fun picking things out at the store. 

Lizzy finally decided on a Paris theme. We loved using Pinterest to save ideas and for inspiration. We had a hard time deciding on colors, but finally chose gray and pink. We decided to surprise her so she got to choose all the items to go in it, but then she wasn't allowed in to see it until it was completed. 

Here are the before pictures: I actually thought her room was cute before, but it was kind of pink. Like slap you in the face pink. 

And here is the new Paris themed room:

Katie wrapped the door in glitter paper. I'd have a great video of her bursting through had I actually pushed record. Katie says she got a video though so I'll have to find it on her ipod. 

This chandelier was the one thing she didn't choose and was her big surprise in the room. I added a plug and a switch so she can reach to turn it off from her bed. She loves it!

We found this awesome Eiffel tower at Hobby Lobby on clearance for 90% off and snagged it for only $20! It was antique black so we spray painted it pink.

I realized it is impossible to take a good picture of curtains on a bright window. I made her drapes from some cute Paris fabric we found at Hobby Lobby. 

Here's a better shot of the color. 

We ditched her old nightstand in favor of her being able to have her Barbie house more accessible since she doesn't need a bed lamp with her chandelier. 

We did a lot of recovering. I recovered her letters with some pretty glitter paper. 

And recovered her bulletin board.

And this cute garage sale chair (which was the third time it was recovered).

And recovered her old floor pillow. I think I need to add a tufted button though. 

I spent two extremely hot days in the garage painting her furniture, but it was totally worth it!

I love the this clock Eiffel tower we found at a flea market. I repainted it with Krylon glitter blast in posh pink and it turned out cute! I loved that paint and wanted to do the big tower in it as well, but it would have gotten too expensive. This took two cans!

It is really hard to find cute girl's bedding for her hand me down queen size bed (most of the cute ones are full/queen and they don't fit this super thick mattress) but we hit the jackpot at Target. 

 I think she's a pretty happy girl! She better be. After all that work, I think she'll have the same room when she leaves for college.

Kitchen Before and After

We finally splurged and got new counters for our kitchen. We also had the cabinets painted. We thought about replacing them but after getting estimates, we decided painting was better! Especially since the cabinets are in good shape and I am happy with the door style, just not the color. We added a slide in range which gives us more space than the cook top and a second oven to supplement the baby oven I have hated for years. We also put in a wood hood with lots of help. Then we installed slide-outs for some of the cabinets so the kids wouldn't be climbing on our new counters to get a dish. 

Before: Dated oak cabinets, builder grade hood, white laminate counters, tiny oven.

After: Thanks to lots of help from Steve, we installed the new wood hood and raised the cabinets. 

I love how pretty and homey the hood looks at night with the light on.

We had installed a new faucet and sink a few years ago, so it looked pretty good, but we decided to replace it so we could have just the one hole in the granite. 

By the time I thought of before pictures, I had already replaced the side of the island with bead board.

For this island, we debated going to one height, but decided to keep the pony wall because it hides some of the junk that always winds up there. We added back splash tiles to the back, and extended and rounded out the top counter a bit. 

Because we took out the cook top and put in a slide in range, we wound up with less pan storage. So we added these rev-a-shelf pull outs to help with storage. I think they are my favorite feature of the new kitchen!

I love the lid storage on this one!  And how many pans it stores below, easy to access! 

We also added this one so the girls could reach their dishes so they wouldn't have to climb on the new counters. And the best part of this is the girls can now unload the dishwasher!

I also found these cool spice organizers and installed them in the upper cabinet. 

This is our baby oven, which makes a great second oven!

I love having a regular sized range again, plus the range top has more space than my cooktop did. Plus, I found it for only $100 on Craigslist! Can't beat that!

During:

We decided to remove the old countertops ourselves, both to save money and because we had to change the cooktop cabinets after they were off which we wouldn't have had time to do during the granite install. 

I learned some new things like how NOT to use a pry bar, and how to repair drywall.

Grandpa was a huge help doing the hood work!

After getting bids from a lot of companies, we decided on HDS Stoneworks of Richardson and we couldn't be happier! They did a beautiful job. 

We are so excited about our new pretty kitchen! Now, to try to keep those white cabinets clean! If you were wondering, the paint color is cream froth by Benjamin Moore and the granite is Taupe.