Fresh Coat of Paint and a New Name

It's amazing how much of a difference a fresh coat of paint can in a room! That's what I spent most of my Saturday doing, cleaning, prepping, then finally painting our kitchen, and we LOVE how it turned out! We are slowly (and I mean slooooooowly) renovating our kitchen piece by piece. Here's a picture of what we started with when we moved in almost four years ago:

It makes me cringe everytime I'm reminded of THAT wallpaper lol. This is the wall between the kitchen and living room. Since then we have tore out the chair molding, removed wallpaper, repainted twice, and added an opening in that wall.

This is the new paint, it is 7669 Summit Gray from Sherwin Williams. This is also the end result of the opening that we added about three years ago, I really love how it helped to open up the kitchen.

This is before my hubby tore out the wood paneling soffit above the cabinets. Also the set of base cabinets with the green countertop used to be the island in my in-laws house. When they renovated their kitchen a year and a half ago, they saved it for us. It fit perfectly under the two upper cabinets on the one wall that didn't have a set of base cabinets.

Then we had to take the upper cabinets out so our new fridge could fit :). This was taken after I had primed the drywall. Getting rid of the wood paneling soffit really helped to open up the kitchen and made the ceiling appear to be higher.

Pardon the mess, my talented husband is currently in the process of installing new upper cabinets to replace the old ones. He's also building an open shelving unit to go above the fridge, we sat down and designed it together and I can't wait until it's done! The cabinets will be stained dark cherry and i'm excited to see how it will all look together. We're also playing around with the layout of the kitchen, for now we're using the island we received as an island, and so far I'm really liking how much extra food prep space it's giving me. Eventually we'll replace all of the cabinets, but since we're doing it all ourselves, it's going to be a slow process and we'll have a mismatched kitchen for a little while but we're saving money so we both think it'll be worth it in the end. Once we've replaced all of the cabinets we'll have someone install granite countertops and replace our backsplash, and sometime during that process we'll replace our tile floor with 18x18 tiles that we already picked out and have sitting in our garage. The following pictures are the before and afters.

                     

                     

I pulled this photo off of Bower Power Blog here, the open shelving above the fridge is what our shelving above our fridge will look like.

This is similar to the color our cabinets will be and what kind of granite we'll eventually get. Until it's finished i'll keep dreaming on pinterest ;). 

One last thing, I decided to change the name of my blog from "Matt and Ashley" to "The Martin Home". The reason behind the name change is that I want to continue to grow my blog and use it to share all of our home improvements, all my craft projects and eventually share our journey into parenthood (when that happens ;)), so I felt it was an appropriate change. Thanks for everyone that stops by and reads my blog!

-xo Ashley

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House updates

While on my winter break, I've been working on organizing and updating our home in my spare time. I also realized it's been a while since I've written any posts on the house so i'll start with what we've done so far . . .

This was the ugly wallpaper that was there when we moved in

This is what our half bath on the lower level looks like right now (sorry for the poor picture quality), I would like to update the vanity next, i'm thinking espresso.

I got this image from a Little Bit of Paint blog, I love the molding, this was were I got some of my inspiration, I just need to find the finishing touches to add to our bathroom.

This was my least favorite guest room when we moved in, the bright blue was too much for both of us to handle and neither of us could wait to see it go

We decided to go with an accent wall with a much lighter blue and the other walls are a khaki color. Again it's still a long way from being finished, but I do think it looks better than it did. Eventually I would like to get new bedding and curtains. It also drives me nuts that the previous owner painted the trim on the floor white and just left the trim around the windows and doors. (another project for later).

This is similar to the look that I would like to go for with our guest bedroom. I got this image here.

I'll update you on the rest of our projects next time :). Have a great Friday!

-xo Ashley

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Happy Holidays!

I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to a new year and a new healthy beginning for my little family and I (the hubby and our dog, don't get too excited yet fam ;)). The hubs and I got a juicer for ourselves and we're looking forward to all the benefits from all the different recipes we'll be trying and sharing with you as well! I am also determined to be a healthier and fitter me in 2014, and I WILL be sharing my success with you throughout the year, so don't wish me luck, just keep encouraging me! :)
I also plan on posting more of my DIY projects that i've been working on, starting with the gifts I made for my mom and my mother-in-law for Christmas: Yarn & Twine wrapped wine bottles!

Supplies Needed:
4 empty wine bottles
Yarn
2 rolls of 120ft twine
mod podge
accessories to write the letters
hot glue gun
scissors

First I started prepping the bottles by soaking them in warm water in our sink to get the labels off and any leftover residue on the inside of the bottles. Then once the bottles are clean and dry, get your twine or yarn ready to start wrapping. Apply mod podge around the top of the bottle where you'll start wrapping, make sure to leave some of the yarn to wrap over to secure it and pull it tight.

When you get to the curve of the bottle, it gets a little tricky so you'll need to apply more mod podge and make sure to pull the yarn tight, but not too tight otherwise it'll start to bunch (like it did at the top of my first bottle). Then when you get to about 1/4 of an inch from the bottom of the bottle, add more mod podge around the bottom, then secure the end with it. Each bottle takes approximately 20-30 minutes to wrap, I wrapped all 8 bottles while watching movies, it also helped being snowed in too :).

Once the mod podge dries, you can add your accessories to them. I got all of my materials from Michaels, as well as the little accessories to spell out the words. Both mom's loved their gifts! My hubby liked them soo much too that I'll have to make a set for us! :)

I hope everyone enjoyed my post and had a safe and Happy New Year!

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DIY Burlap Wreath

Hey everyone! After Halloween, I took my wreath down and replaced the holiday ribbon with two new ones and I'm just now getting around to sharing it. You can see how I made the first burlap wreath here, and here is my new one that I love! The only thing I want to change is the "M", i'm going to paint it black so it can be seen from the street. Once i've updated that, i'll share that photo with all of you :). I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

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DIY Halloween Burlap Wreath

Happy Halloween everyone! One of my favorite days of the year! School AGAIN has overtaken my life, haha, I will try to post as often as I can. Before we left for our trip to Branson earlier this month, I made a Halloween wreath that I would like to share with everyone. It was pretty easy to make so I think anyone can do it! :)  I got the original idea on Pinterest (of course :)) from The Sassy Momma blog, she did such a great job explaining how to do it! Here's my step-by-step tutorial:

Supplies needed (all from Michael's) for less than $15
1 Medium Wire Wreath form
1-2 rolls of 10 yard burlap ribbon (depending on how full you want your wreath, I used 1)
2 rolls of accent ribbon
Pipe cleaner or string

1.To begin, flip the wreath over to secure the pipe cleaner or string to the crossbar on the wire form, then pull the burlap through to secure the end of it onto the crossbar. Flip the wire form back over (so it's right side up) and start pulling the burlap through the slots in about 6 inch segments, I usually work from top to bottom and left to right. I fit 6-8 loops in each section (you can add more  if you want your wreath to look fuller).
2. Keep working your way around until you get to the beginning and secure the end with the pipe cleaner or string.

3. Now it is time to add the accent ribbon. Start by carefully pulling another piece of string or pipe cleaner through the crossbar that you started with. Then pull your accent ribbon through (don't secure it yet). Keep pulling your accent ribbon through each crossbar, making sure to "fluff" your ribbon over the burlap in each section to make it look pretty as you go. When you get back to the starting point, cut your ribbon and secure it with the string/pipe cleaner.

4. Now we can add our second accent ribbon. I typically tie a bow at my starting/finishing point to cover up the string/pipe cleaner. Here is a really good tutorial that I use to tie my bow.

If you have any questions on how to make this wreath feel free to make a comment or email me with your questions!

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Motivation Monday

Today was our first day back in clinicals, our two week break went by too fast but I was ready to get the fall semester started! For today's motivation, I found a couple pins from pinterest that I keep referring back to when I get into a rut and find it hard to just get out the door. My next 5k is three weeks away and I feel very behind in my training, but I know I can do it, it's only 3.1 miles, right?! The weather hasn't helped with outdoor training either, it's been soo hot! Thankfully our country club has a fitness center so I can go there to train, so no more excuses! Today's workout was short and sweet, but tomorrow I will be stepping up the intensity and not holding back, wish me luck! I'll leave you with my favorite motivational pins, in case some of you may be feeling the same way as me!

                                                  

                                      
                                      
This one is my favorite, I've heard it takes 21 days to form a habit, and that's what I intend on doing, here's to day 1!
                                               

This is my mantra for my half marathon training!

                                     

-xo Ashley

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Updated Mirror

   When we first moved into our house a little over three years ago, there was ugly wallpaper in almost every room, but slowly and often times it was very frustrating, we removed almost all of it (I'll get to that in a later post). There was a mirror in the downstairs bathroom that I absolutely loved, but there was one thing that I didn't like about it, so I decided to paint it. After we removed the wallpaper, we repainted the bathroom Gray Shingle from Sherwin Williams. I then chose to spray paint the mirror Brilliant Blue in Gloss from Rust-Oleum. I loved the color and how well it stood out against the gray wall, white vanity top and trim in the small room.

   I started off by taping newspaper to the mirror to ensure not to paint the glass, then took it outside to paint. It's best to spray at least 6-8 inches away from the surface so you won't get any bubbling. The whole project only took one day and I only needed two coats of paint. I loved how it turned out, here's the before and after!

Don't worry, the hideous wallpaper is now gone, yay!!!

This project only cost me around $4 for the spray paint, and it has a BIG effect!

I love the detail on the corners! Can you believe my husband just wanted to throw this gem away?! Good thing I convinced him I could make it look great again :)

   Try not to pay attention to the door in the reflection, eventually I would like to paint it white, or replace it with a prettier door ;). (Also I'm really sorry about the quality of the photos, the before was taken with my old camera and the after was taken with my new canon powershot and i'm still learning how to use it.) It's amazing how paint and a "new" accessory can completely change the look and feel of a room! I love this little bathroom now and I'm no longer terrified to go in there anymore, haha. Although it isn't 100% complete, it still needs a few accessories to pull the room together, till then I can make do.

-xo
Ashley

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