Practical Scrappers Sketch for Aug. 13th

Once a week a new sketch is posted on Practical Scrappers website. I used this weeks sketch to create this layout of my nephew Landon, using some recent pictures I've taken of him. I cut out the stars and title using my cricut and Make the Cut software. Thanks for looking.

Our House ~ Kitchen/Dining Room

From the living room, you walk into our dining room/kitchen. This room was one of the selling points. In most of the other houses we looked at, the kitchen table had to go right in the kitchen and made the kitchen feel very small and cluttered. We liked this house cause the dining area is kinda separate from the kitchen itself. So that gives you more room when cooking.

We did a lot of work to this room. We put in the new laminate floor, painted and put in new trim all around, put in the new white six panel door that leads to the basement, put in new countertops, new backsplash and new hardware on the cabinets. The light fixtures in the kitchen and dining room are all new as well. The cabinets were in very good shape and so were the appliances, other than the dishwasher. So those all stayed and we got a new dishwasher while we still had the warranty that the previous owners added into the sale. So we got a brand new dishwasher for free!!

I am a theme kind of decorator, so you'll notice I have a theme for every room. This room is a Japanese Tea Garden theme. I started collecting Japanese/Chinese teapots to set out on top of the cabinets. And all the decorations are Japanese themed. The place settings and linens on the dining room table are from Target. All the candles and the centerpiece is from Partylite. Thanks for looking.

This is a picture of the kitchen before the previous owners moved out.

And here are some after pictures.

This picture shows the transition the kitchen went through while updating it. Thank goodness we weren't living here when we were working on it. :-)

This is a picture of the kitchen from standing in the dining room.

This is a little table we got for free from a friend of ours that worked at Quiznos. They were remodeling the resteraunt and were just giving the tables and chairs away to their workers. They gave us two and we put one here and one in the basement. I recovered the stools and bought a table cloth at Walmart to go over the top. I got the tiles on the wall at my Bridal Shower from my aunt. They are the 4 seasons in Chinese symbols. The window treatments are bamboo. I got a Target gift card from my co-workers as a wedding gift, so I bought the window treatments there. I love them. They go really well with the rest of the decor in this room. The candle holder on this table is of course from partylite. My dad did all the trim around the windows as well.

This is the dining room while the previous owners still lived here.

And here it is now.

A close up of the table.

The fan on the wall was a gift from my MIL. I had been wanting one for this wall, so she got it for me for Christmas the year we moved in.

This bakers rack, matches the dining room table. I love having it. Of course, all the candle holders are from partylite. I just got the digital frame (which I love). I'm still growing my wine collection, but I only need one more bottle.

A close-up of one of the table settings.

These are a couple of  pictures of the transition of the dining room. Once again, I'm so glad we were able to do all this before we moved in. Yikes!

The new floor going down over the old floor.