hey what's for dinner mom?: The Penny Worthy Project

How are you spending your pennies?

Not at thrift stores that's for sure. I only popped in ONE this week and I bought two shirts for my husband. Boo and bummer for me, I didn't even take a picture! I have been BUSY with the remodel preparedness stuff. Last week I showed embarrassing photos of my kitchen in a less than clean and perfect state. Not disgusting but I certainly did not prep for photos I simply snapped a few to show WHAT I was talking about. Ugh. You know those PERFECT blogger homes? Yeah I don't have one, someone is constantly finding better things to do than cleaning up after themselves (ahem).

Anyway I showed the photos of shame (as they will be known as) to try and illustrate WHAT we are doing with our house.

It's big but we have it chunked down to a list of steps--not each step is a ONE day thing though some will last for weeks as we finish and move forward out of pocket. That's right--- no credit cards, no acquired debt all out of pocket as we go along. We've been saving and cutting back along the way for a while now so we can buy outright the things we need, the rest we'll build or build around until we save the money up.

In order to remodel our kitchen we need to do these things

finish the living room celling
paint the living room ceiling
sand and prime the wall of ~~shame~~ paneling in out living room
investigate and possibly remove the alcove arch in the living room--
paint the living room walls
briefly enjoy the beautiful new living room color before we completely empty the house to refinish all the original wood floors--this includes demolishing the kitchen and removing all cabinets
once empty sand, stain, seal the floor
move living room dining room and bedroom back in
finish dining room ceiling/wall area
construct new cabinets at friends cabinet making shop
paint cabinets
install cabinets
install counters
move fridge to it's new home
install appliances
build out pantry-walls and shelves
make butcher block island to replace breakfast bar
finish pantry if needed--paint inside

Just 17 easy steps to completely disrupt our lives. And it's already started I spent EVERY free second this week mudding and texturing the living room ceiling so I can paint and move on.

MUD

CHECK one off the list. As the final mud was drying I fired up the belt sander and let it rip on the paneling. I will prime AND paint the ceiling AND the wall of paneling at the same time. Slightly out of order but the investigating will be done by my husband so it has to wait. And really WHO cares I'm getting it done, right?? I do love to check off the list.

I am also eagerly awaiting the arrival of a HUGE investment. I finally BIT the bullet and bought the fabric to recover our couch. I love the couch but it needs a new coat. A friend of mine gave me the couch when she moved out of state and said it needed recovering then, that was 10 years ago. I found some I liked, I ordered samples and then waited until it went on sale. It;s good linen fabric so it should last another 20 years or so. I don't ever see us buying a new couch we just love this one too much.

And the really cool part about the painting and the fabric buying is I bought the fabric before we looked at paint. Yet when we went to look at paint we found this gorgeous pallet of colors we like A LOT and decided to uses the pallet and not mess around with too bright or ugly colors (me of the carrot colored room!!) When we got home I grabbed the fabric and the base color is in the pallet and about 3-4 other colors from the pallet are in there too! We are going to match and be pleasing to the eye. Whoa.

OLD