Heya! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! We were BUSY. Tis the season, eh? :)

My friend the Nester is hosting a holiday home tour, and I thought I’d share our festive kitchen and link up!

Warning: LOTS and lots of pictures!

A couple of years ago, I decided to make our kitchen FUN for the holidays. Like, lots of candy cane stripes, red and white, a little bit of whimsy, FUN.

Last year I made some super easy wreaths using dollar store forms and ribbon (that I bought half off the year before at Target). I hang them on the backs of the kitchen chairs:

I love how simple they are, but the candy cane stripe adds a little punch. :)

I kept it simple on the table by just adding some sparkle:

Who doesn’t love a little glitter in their salt and pepper? ;)

I usually surround our back door with garland and lights, but I’m not even kidding you – the lights on almost every. single. strand I’ve pulled out of the bins were burnt out. (I had to replace ALL of them on our outdoor garland.)

They were burnt out on the kitchen greenery too, and I was DONE with that. :) So I went with our simple wreath on the back door:

It’s just a cheapy wreath with red ornaments stuffed in, and a dollar store ornament hanging from the middle.

I hot glued the ribbon over the hanger too. Pretty cute, eh?

I told you about the score that is my kitchen tree last year – I think it was around $80 originally, and I got it for about $15 after the holidays at Michael’s. It came lighted, with the urn, and it is all sparkly and pretty – LOVE it:

I’ve put a bunch of white and red ornaments on it, including my absolute favorite – the little red glass birds from Target a few years ago:

I haven’t seen them there again – which bums me out because they are just the most darling little things ever!

Our Ikea sofa table is decked out as well – it’s the perfect spot for my Santa hats:

And various fun stuff from year’s past(WHY must stores keep tempting me with cauuute stuff?) at the end of the table:

A candy-themed snow globe train, an adorable gingerbread house that sings and lights up (be still my heart) from Hallmark, and the carafe and plate we use for Santa’s goodies.

I don’t have much on the counters – just a couple Goodwill cookie jars:

And another Santa carafe holds candy canes for my nightly hot chocolate:

A friend and I found those adorable carafes at Flower Factory years ago, and we each grabbed up a few extras. I just adore them. Cause Santa does rock.

My giant Goodwill cloche on the island is filled with my standard greenery, ornaments and beady stuff:

For those of you wondering, I take the cloche off, fill it up while upside down, then place the base over it and turn it right side up. :)

Last year I put gobs of greenery, lights and sparkly stuff up above our cabs, but this year I felt like I had plenty going on without them. So I just piled a few big ornaments here and there, and hung a couple from platters:

Originally, I had planned to place a very simple garland over our kitchen window and call it done – but then I pulled up the Christmas bins and it was kind of like Christmas when I opened them up – wink wink.

Every year, I forget about all the fun decor we have. Isn’t that so fun to rediscover everything?

I started with a little vintagey looking tree I found at a consignment shop last year:

Can I tell you how much I LOVE Santa boots? Love.

I ordered these blocks from my friend Amanda last year:

Oh my – they are so adorable!

I found these itty bitty Santa boots at Kirkland’s a year or two ago – and I fill them with red hots (one of my favorites!):

They are sooo small and insanely cute!

Since I still haven’t put any window treatments up on my nekked windows, I thought the window could still use a little somethin’ to dress it up for the season.

Instead of the garland I had planned, (which I have enough of around here anyway!), I saw a simple idea in a magazine a couple months ago and decided to give it a try.

I used a tension rod we already had and hot glued some red ribbon around it first. Because I’m freaky like that. :) I hung some candy cane ornaments from it with ribbon:

Those ornaments were $4 (on sale) at Hobby Lobby by the way – and you get a bunch of them!

I think it’s pretty darn sweet:

I think my absolute favorite spot in our Christmas kitchen is the Goodwill shelves I found earlier this year – I had so much fun playing around with this little vignette!:

It was all stuff we had, and I LOVE having this little space to decorate in the kitchen! It makes me HAPPY.  :)

So here’s our Christmasy kitchen:

Can you find our Elf on the Shelf in this picture?:

He forgets to move every couple of nights. ;)

Whew! Well, that’s the tour of our Christmas kitchen! Some of you have been following along as I’ve been working on the redo of this room – it’s definitely getting there. And I LOVE how it’s turning out!

The before and after pics aren’t the exact same shot, but you can see the difference a new sink and backsplash have made in the room:

OK, a few other changes too. :) And the after shot was taken at night – now that’s impressive! You can see more of the changes I’ve made in the kitchen by going here.

Oh yeah…there’s 530 fantastic trees linked up! Wooeee!

P.S. Kelly is hosting a linky too – you can go here to check it out!

Thank you to my sponsor!:

Hello there! Welcome to the Before and After Party for November! (Can you even believe it’s November?) I can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to! But first, I wanted to show you the pain-in-the-booty project that I am SO GLAD is done.

Remember the pantry door transformation I showed you?:

I was lucky enough to get this beauty for FREE with some help from an Amex Points promotion. But, like always, I saved some cash by installing it myself (with Dad’s help!).

It wasn’t the easiest project ever. Actually, it was really quite annoying. And the part I finished up this weekend didn’t help it’s cause. Sheesh!

I mentioned I wanted to cover the windows on the door with something – I originally bought window film -- but it wasn’t the texture I was looking for. (I ended up using it for the ghost in our foyer!)

So when I posted this project, a few of you mentioned you had used plain old contact paper to get the look I was going for. Bahhhrilliant!

I admit I was a little teeny tiny bit doubtful – I picked up some clear contact paper at Target, and when I got home I tore it open, I was expecting it to be perfectly clear.

Well…you Squeezies were right (I know, I should just believe) – it was exactly what I wanted! A very soft, hazy look – just enough to let light in, but block the view to the canned goods. :)

What you lovelies didn’t tell me was it was a TOTAL AND COMPLETE pain in the booty to install. Gah. OK, maybe you did. I may have blocked it out. 

I started with my supplies – not much needed:

I tried a few things, and the pan scraper worked best for this project by far! I cut out a piece of contact paper, slightly larger than the window pane. When I installed it, I used a razor to trim the contact paper so it would fit perfectly in the pane.

The problem was…1.) the contact paper is supersonic and I tried four razors and not one would cut it easily 2.) when I would push hard to get through the “paper,” the knife would grab at the painted trim around the panel and little itty bitty flecks of black paint were coming off and getting stuck under the plastic:

It was driving me batty. I tried everything possible, and finally gave up. I decided to just cut a piece that was the exact size of each window pane, so I wouldn’t have to do anymore cutting with the contact paper on the window.

It was a lot of trial and error. Lots of cutting, holding it up, cutting, holding it up, cutting, realizing I had cut it too small, starting over. :)

When I would finally get the right size, I’d make sure it was perfect one more time:

Then I soaked the window with window cleaner:

You can try to do this without soaking the window but you will realize quickly it’s next to impossible. :)

When it’s wet, you can move it around and make it fit just so:

Then use your scraper (or any flat surface) to push out the bubbles:

You’ll want a paper towel handy to soak up the cleaner as you go. Lots of pushing, wiping, pushing, wiping.

It took FOREVA. Mostly because I would cut it the wrong size, or scratch it when peeling it off the backing. I lost my mind a little more with each window pane. :) I think it took four days of me tackling it whenever I had a few minutes to tackle it. FUN stuff.

Did I mention I couldn’t use the same size cut out of the contact paper for every window pane? You’d think they were all the same size, but amazingly – NO. Most were just a tad different. How is that possible? Because it’s a Sarah project, that’s why. :)

BUT. Dare I say it…SO worth it!!

It helps just a tad that I decluttered and moved some items around in the pantry:

I adjusted my little labels so they were centered on the shelves:

And I LOVE it.

But I wasn’t done yet. :) Remember how I wanted to light up the inside of the pantry? Dad and I talked and figured out how we’re going to do it – but for now, I rigged it up with an extension cord just to see how it would look:

SWOOOOON. Exactly how I pictured it in my head all those years ago when this project first popped in my head. ;)

I used rope lights around the door frame to get the “glow” look. And now I can see to find my sour cream and onion chips at night:

Awwwww yeah. All is right in my world.  :)

**The instructions on the rope lights say to not put them in an area with no ventilation, as they get just slightly warm. I called the hotline on the package to confirm a pantry is OK, and the man on the phone had no record of the product number – the product they make – so he was zero help. But I have talked to two people experienced in wiring/lighting, and they said it’s absolutely fine. When the manual says the lights get slightly warm, they mean slightly warm.  :) 

The contact paper idea would be perfect for any smallish window where you want privacy but don’t want to block the light – for cheap! The roll was $5 and even with all of my mess ups, I barely used half of it. This would be a great solution for windows above tubs, sidelights by a front door – whatever!

So there’s my before and after for this month…I don’t have a before, before picture handy of the white door we had up initially, but here’s the new door unpainted:

Here it is painted:

And here it is all soft and purdy and lit up:

And here’s all of our food for the world to see before, and the softly lit after:

It makes even wire shelves look pretty. :) This wasn’t an easy project…but totally worth it. And only five bucks for the privacy! (Which, by the way, is WAY cheaper than the window stuff you can buy.)

I am one happy chick!! :)

It’s time to see your before and afters! Remember to only link to the specific post – not your blog. I’ll leave this open so you can link up till next week!

Link it up yo!

Well hello! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! My stepdaughter came home for fall break and we had a blast! The Bub was so thrilled…the two of them are 16 years apart, but you would never know it -- they play (and fight) like they are only a year apart.  ;)

I finally finished up a project last week that was about five months past due. I installed under cabinet lighting in our kitchen years ago – it was just the kind you mount under the cabs and plug in. It worked great for us because of the old black backsplash:

See the cord plugged in? I know…if you’ve read this blog for two hot seconds, you know I loathe cords. BLECH. Hate them.

But the black cords blended right in…even I didn’t notice them. ;)

But when I installed the new, white, beadboard backsplash, those black cords could be no more. I mean…are you kidding me? I would quite literally just pass out from it. Black cords on white?

No way Joe-say!

So the lighting sat in the basement for months while I tried to figure out what I was going to do. My first though was to have an electrician run connections from the outlets in the backsplash into the cabinets…but that just sounded like a mess (and not cheap).

Then I decided to try the battery-operated LED lights, similar to this one:

I liked that they were dimmable. But I wasn’t thrilled with their bright white light. (I know, I know…I’m supposed to love the energy-efficient lights but I am a warm white kind of girl – the LED is so harsh!)

I was living with them for a while, and then one night they were left on all night long, and by morning every. single. one. needed three new batteries. I knew it wouldn’t be the first time that would happen, so they went back to Home Depot. :)

So I kept thinkin’…and finally figured out what I was going to do. Last week I decided to just make a (HUGE) mess and finally git er done!! (Or is that “dun?”)

I figured I had three hidden outlets throughout the kitchen I could use – one behind the fridge, one in the appliance garage and one in the cabinet above the microwave. I only needed to plug in five under cabinet lights and knew I could get to all the outlets needed by going through the cabinets.

I used my 1 1/2 drill bit and started drilling holes under the cabinets for the cords to go through:

I drilled through the sides of the cabinets too, till I got to where the outlet was. To make the cords stay put, I covered them with my handy dandy cord covers:

Then I installed the lights under the cabinets, which is done by simply using a screw:

This part pretty much stinks. You have to contort your body under the cabs just so. I used a small drill bit to make a hole first, then drilled them in – otherwise the screws go flying and you may or may not say a cuss word.

:)

Because I positioned the lights so the cords would barely be showing underneath, I could have just left them alone. But I HATE CORDS (remember?), so I used my cord covers again:

In the past, I used these little jobbies to wind the cord around under the cabinet:

The cord fits in there and you nail it up into the cabinet so they are secured safely.

On that side of the room, I put two of the lights into the appliance garage, and I was going to put the third into the outlet behind the fridge. To operate it, I planned on using a remote to turn it on and off – but the box you plug in wouldn’t fit into the outlet because of the honkin’ cord from the fridge. So I just took it through to the appliance garage too.

The lights around the stove went to the outlet above the microwave, and while I was up above the microwave drilling, I had quite the mishap. :)

I (knock on wood) rarely have accidents…but this one had the potential to be a doozy. I was standing on a chair (first bad idea), and while I was drilling, I leaned against the front of the stove (second bad idea).

It started getting SO HOT all the sudden…and I’m such a fruit loop my first throught was DANG, two drills in one week are burning up on me! (The first one happened when we installed the new pantry door.)

I was so mad! But it just kept getting hotter…and hotter. Then I looked down and saw flames coming from the stovetop. (Within inches of my legs.)

Yeah…I had turned on the gas with my knee.

Awesome!!

In the process I melted the cord of one of my lights – so this free project turned into a $15 one (for a replacement) pretty fast.

But at least I realized it was ME that was almost burning, and not the drill.

Good Lord. Fruit loop, I tell you.

Oh yeah…and I have to warn you. This is easily the messiest project I’ve ever done:

An insane amount of sawdust. Crazy. Use eye protection.

I’ve had lighting above our cabinets for years now too, and I just drilled a hole through the top of the cabinet and used the plug:

On the other side, it’s simply snaked down behind the corner cabinet into the appliance garage.

I use rope lights for soft light:

Everything is plugged into a surge protector with a switch, so all of the lighting in the room is turned on with two switches. Which is WAY better than going around and switching on each and every light as I had it before. ;)

I missed our soft kitchen mood lighting so!:

I have them on every. single. night. Most nights, they are the only lights on in the kitchen.

Like I mentioned, this project was almost free – I’ve had the lights for some time. But if you’re interested in doing this in your kitchen, the small, (about ten inches?) lights are about $10. The medium size (20 inches) is about $15. I know they have a larger size and I think it’s $20.

I use the incandscent version because I like the warm light:

But they have a ton of options! I’ve purchased them at both Lowe’s and Home Depot.

Ideally I’d love to have them all wired and flip one switch…but for now, they take approximately four seconds to turn on and it was just a couple hours covered in sawdust to make it happen. 

I have noticed lately that I can see the reflection of the rope lights in some of my accesories above the cabs, so I think I’m going to try moving them behind everything to see how that works:

(Ignore the placement and accessories…most of it is changing.)

Oh, and I’ve mentioned my luscious dimmers (yes. I called them luscious.) before – I have them on almost every light fixture in our house:

They save money and the low light just plain lovely in any room!

Have you installed mood lighting in your kitchen? Did you do it the real way or the pretend way like me? ;) (If you’ve blogged about it, please link to it!)

DIY disclaimer: Again…I am no electrician – putting cords through cabinets is probably not the way an expert would accomplish this project. Be sure to watch rough edges so the cords to do not rub against them. (I have put duct tape around the edges of the holes I drilled just to make sure everything is smooth.)

OK…I promise to blog about something other than the kitchen this week! (But I’m on a ROLL!!)