Faux Brick Backsplash

Phase one of our kitchen project is to get it feeling clean and less dated while we save our pennies for the kitchen renovation project we want to do next year.  This phase includes painting the cabinets, ripping out the plastic tile backsplash and installing a faux brick backsplash, switching up the lighting and freshening up the walls with a cool-warm gray.
We painted the cabinets.  I'm not going to go into extreme detail on that because there are so many tutorials out there.  To make a long story short, we cleaned them, lightly sanded them and painted them in a cabinet paint. Darker lowers, one shade lighter uppers.  So far they are holding up pretty decent.  We painted the inside edges and I've noticed that some of them are peeling, but it's not the end of the world.  *Make sure to keep all the hardware for each cabinet together, mixing them up can cause major headaches when trying to reattach them.* We labeled all of the bags and had coordinating letters from bag to cabinet.

The *faux brick* backsplash I've seen floating around on Pinterest.  I wanted something that was not going to be hugely labor intensive, relatively inexpensive, but would make a difference.


This did the trick.

I was a little nervous at this point, but figured "what the hell" and continued on.  Anything can be fixed with a little *lot* of caulk...

and a boat load of paint.

 

We had this light over our sink.

I wasn't a fan, so I found this one.

and ended with this:

Bathroom Shower Tile

So months and months and many more months ago, when I was pregnant I knew that before the boys arrived I would want to retile the bathroom.  We had this plastic surround that would always get grimy and gross, so I wanted something fresh and clean.  This is what we started with:

and after some tile, a little grout and a new shower head:

We bought the subway tile from Menards, got the tile for the niche, along with two preformed niches from The Tile Shop and bought the shower head set from Home Depot.  I'm in LOVE!

We did our usual thing and wrote inside the wall to mark the occasion and memory.

Once the walls were up we started tiling.  Getting the niche done first, followed by the subway tile.

Followed by grout.

We ended up with a decent size gap between the top piece of tile and the ceiling. 

Like the three little bears it was too small for tile, to big for grout so....

We added a piece of quarter round to the top, caulked and painted it the same color as the ceiling.

Just perfect.

We love the showerhead, but it didn't come with a handheld attachment so we bough this one and it works great for giving the boys and the dogs baths and matches great with the showerhead kit we bought..

With all of our other bathroom projects, we always wanted to do a niche to have a place to store all of our things, but when it came down to it we never did, thinking it would be too much work or too expensive.  It did cost a little more, and take a little extra time, but it was SO worth it.

I found this little guy at Steins last fall.  It is called an "air plant" and literally you do NOTHING to it.  Set it and forget it.  No water, no dirt, nothing.  I found the little pot at Steins too, plopped the plant inside and put it in our bathroom.  The steam from showers helps it and I have not watered it at all!  Maybe I've found a plant that I can actually keep alive.

Outside Updates

In the midst of our patio being done...

















and our yard looking like a bomb exploded on it...





















We decided that we needed to add a little more cohesiveness, so we ordered mulch.

I measured, and figured out we needed about eight yards.

The hubby thought, the more the merrier, and added another EIGHT yards....making 16 yards TOTAL! (please excuse my oh so stylish outfit, I obviously didn't care and was covered in sweat and mulch)

Needless to say we were swimming in it, but on a positive note we won't have to mulch for the next couple years.

My dad had a field stone wall that he had replaced last year and gave Chad and I all of it to use for our landscaping.  I was not sure where we were going to use it, but knew that we would somehow.

We finally figured it out, bumped out all of the edging around the house and beefed things up with larger field stone we had stored behind our shed.

We also planted a ton of perennials mostly, and opted to keep the bushes that were already established in the front. 

Giles van Heese (Spike Speedwell)

One trip left me with eight spireas that we planted on the edge of our property between our house and our neighbor to the west.  It's nothing against him, he's actually a pretty awesome neighbor, but we want our yard to feel a little more closed in. 

Now we just need a lot of water and a little patience...

Rooftop Garden Mix Stonecrop Sedum

Fox Red Curly Sedge

Weeping Cranberry Cotoneaster  (we have named him "Berry")

Baby Tut

and pots...who doesn't love to add a little color with annuals...

Cerveza n' Lime (smells amazing)