Kitchen Makeover Pictures

Since gutting our kitchen for new custom cabinets was not in our budget, I settled for painting our existing cabinets. Our old cabinets had a country look with the grainy wood showing through the varnish. They're cheap with only the fronts and doors being actual wood, but standard issue for homes like ours. There's nothing completely objectionable about these cabinets, but their appearance definitely didn't do anything for my downstairs. Here are some "before" shots that I snapped just before we started dismantling.

One of the biggest kitchen improvements we did was replacing our sink and faucet with a deeper sink and taller, sleeker faucet. Mr. Morgan and Dad replaced the sink over the Christmas holiday. My "before" shots were after the sink replacement, but imagine a shallow, ugly, barely-functional-for-washing-dishes sink.

After four days of labor-intensive work, the newly painted cabinet doors were back in place. I spent several more days rearranging the stuff in the cabinets and paring down to what I decided I couldn't live without.

I worked hard to eliminate all unnecessary items from my countertops, since counter space is so limited.

Our black appliances seem to pair much better with the new colors of the cabinets.

I opted for a minimal amount of stuff on the fridge. Sometimes it's easy to get carried away with pictures, the kids' masterpieces, and reminders.

I feel like I'm cooking in a whole new kitchen.

I reorganized my spices, oils, and vinegars, moving them away from the heat of my stove. I love the way the new labels turned out, and I decided to keep only my most-used spices on this rack. The other seldom-used spices are in the cabinet in a basket. Yes, they're in alphabetical order. Is there a better order?

The drawer pulls and door handles are the same ones; we installed them soon after we moved in. However, with the painted surfaces the modern pulls and handles show up so much better.

I'm so thankful for my revamped kitchen--and especially for my parents who watched the boys for five days and for Mr. Morgan who helped on his day off, lived in a mess for close to a week, and endured fried eggs for several dinners in a row.

Middle September

How is it the middle of September and I've posted only once this month?! Yikes, time flies. I've made a list to help organize my scattered, blog thoughts.

1. School's in full swing for both Claire and Hamilton, though it's different this year for both of them. Claire's not only at a new school, but she's also going by a new name--Elaine. She's told all her teachers to call her Elaine, but her friends from her old school still call her Claire. She insists that we still call her Claire, though sometimes Mr. Morgan jokingly calls her Elaine. So all her school papers and books come home with "Elaine Morgan" written on them to which Mr. Morgan responds, "Who's this 'Elaine' person?" At Open House, I had to introduce myself as Elaine's stepmom. For Hamilton, he's learning so many new things at school that he's able to share with me this year. Last week all I heard was "AY-bee-see" over and over, though sometimes his pronounciation of the first three letters would morph into "ay-BEE-see." I'm pretty sure he thought "ABC" was a word. This week he's saying, "Gah may pee-puhl," so I've been saying, "What did God make?" He replies, "God made people." It's an awesome truth, though I wonder how much he understands.
2. I cleaned the master bathroom yesterday.
3. While to most folks the above statement doesn't deserve its own, separate number, trust me, it does. The master bathroom took over three hours to clean; the shower alone took an hour. It was disgusting. I won't even venture a guess as to how long it had been since the last cleaning because it would be embarrassing--even for me. But the bathroom sparkles now.
4. I'm looking forward to an upcoming weekend away with some women from church. I'm happy to have enough milk stored for my trip, and I'm thankful for a husband who'll watch the kids--yes, he'll have help. I love fall getaways!
5. I wanted to post my own memorial for Sept.11, but I missed it by a few days. So here's my I-remember-exactly-where-I-was tribute. I was a 21-year-old, college senior spending the fall semester at Keene State, which was only five hours from New York City. Students at my school knew people who worked in the Towers and as first-responders. In my Tuesday-morning class, we watched The Today Show's coverage of the attacks. I watched the towers fall live on television. I heard Katie Couric's live conversation with Jim Miklaszewski at the Pentagon when he said, "I just heard something that sounded like a bomb." I had been in New Hampshire--in a new region of the country, at a new school--for about two weeks, and I felt so alone. The local paper's front page showed a picture of the burning towers in its afternoon edition, published actually on Sept. 11, 2001. In writing about the attacks, it's hard for me not to focus on how life-changing it was for me--to make the events of September 11th about me. I didn't lose anyone or even know anyone who lost anyone that day. My fellow countrymen suffered that day, and I can't memorialize the events as well as news programs. But I can remember their sacrifices, our country's loss, and our only Hope for the future.

Resolutions

I don't always make resolutions for each new year, but I have a few this year. I wanted to share them because it'll help hold me accountable.

Houseclean for 30 minutes each day. Must include cleaning products or devices. Laundry does not count. My lackluster housecleaning habits have been discussed here before, and I really want to be better in the new year.

Blog every day. I want to spend more time blogging and reading good blogs, so my blog style can develop and deepen.

Write more. Not just blog posts and picture captions but writing that exercises my brain and stretches me.