Diaries of a Whimsical Wife

How can you not love blog posts written diary style by a whimsical wife?

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Especially when she’s a whimsical  wife with amazing DIY talent.  Click the links below for more details, tutorials and pictures or to just say “hi”!

She’s turned an old window into a French Menu Chalkboard for her kitchen…




Her kitchen transformation is a rags to riches.  Plain to gorgeous.  

Here is the kitchen before they bought their home…


Now close your eyes and make a wish … for a beautiful, fresh, bright kitchen. (If only DIY worked that way, they would be less broken fingernails!)


Ta-da! 


{For more before photos click HERE}
{DWW Kitchen Plans HERE}
{DWW Kitchen Inspirations HERE}


WOW, huh?  I’m still so in love with all white kitchens. Great job, Melissa!
Beautiful projects (I love old windows) and the before/after kitchen is night/day. So pretty! Thank you so much for sharing, Melissa!

Kitchen Makeover at That Saint Paul House

Lindsey from That Saint Paul House has been busy transforming her Saint Paul home into a comfortable haven for her family. She is also dedicated to making a home that takes it easy on the environment. 

Her kitchen transformation was a lot of hard work with unexpected challenges.

See all before and after details and pictures:

Before

BEFORE: Ugly Ugly Ugly OMG UGLY!
New floor!

I love this clever storage solution too (from Ikea). Her lids were sliding off the lazy susan…

Before
Now within easy reach and freeing up more storage space in the corner cabinet…
See more from Lindsey at 
That Saint Paul House


Pssst. Kitchen Update.

There’s progress going on in the kitchen!  Here is a little of what we’ve been up to!

I wanted soapstone, but we needed something with less maintenance and a lower price.  We chose a granite called “Jet Mist”.   The template has been made and our granite cut (Custom Marble & Granite – friendliest, most helpful fabricator in our area).  See the dark gray color with white veining?

GOOD BYE blue laminate!

As you know, we painted the cabinets.

Question:  Have you distressed your painted kitchen cabinets?  I’m doing a test on an old door this week to see how it goes/try a technique I hope will be cool.  I’ll keep you posted. 

Before
After

GOOD BYE orange oak!

We have yet to pick out the flooring, but we know we’re going with a dark Bamboo and keeping my fingers crossed that I can talk Mr. DIY into handscraped.  We’ll be heading to Flooring America and/or Lumber Liquidators this week.
GOOD BYE vinyl/linoleum!

We’d love to have this kitchen faucet, sprayer, hot water and soap dispenser from the Waterstone Towson suite.  I’ll let you know! 
And Mr. DIY can’t help but dream of a new free standing refrigerator and freezer.  We’re looking into it…but still undecided on if it will happen (involves demo of existing pantry).  It depends on where our budget is and if we’d rather go on a tropical vacation this year and live with our existing one for now.  We’ll be demo-ing the pantry either way so the floor is completed – we’ll have more storage in the island and around the corner in a “Butler’s Pantry” area coming sometime to a DIY house near you (ours). 
I’d LOVE to have a farmhouse sink, but “compromise” makes a happy DIY couple so we’re getting this stainless steel zero radius sink (thanks again to our friends at Custom Marble & Granite for the advice and help!):
We’re still going back and forth on the new wall color too.  I want white/light. He loves contrast and color. I’ll let you know who ‘wins’.  I’ve told you that I pretty much get to do what I like in this old farmhouse, right?  Well, the kitchen is Mr. DIY’s domain so it’s important that he has a say in this room. He can’t always see my vision, but he always loves the results.  So, maybe I can get him to consider white…but probably not. 😉
We really do use the lazy susan spice loft
We have new recess lighting and the $5 Habitat pot rack…
We’re also going to have a kitchen island and we’ll likely have help from our contractor or a custom cabinet maker (referral from Custom Marble & Granite) since it’ll need to support the weight of the slabs of marble that we found outside when we bought the house and I hope to use reclaimed barnwood. We also have plans to build a PB inspired console table with barnwood shelving above for the microwave, antique scales, antique meat grinder, etc. 
More to come…hopefully a reveal by spring!  🙂