Quarantine Project--Kitchen Reveal

Before:

After:

 

Well, I wish I would have taken "before pictures" but this was a spur of the moment project that just keeping turning into doing more and more work. If you don't know me I am a very on the go person and can't just sit. Quarantine was killing me just sitting around. 

Back when I did the work on the laundry room I repainted the trim and doors in that area white so during quarantine I decided to continue the job and do the trim and doors in the kitchen. After the doors and trim were done I decided to do the ceiling. I have painted the kitchen multiple times over the years (always the same color Valspar London Coach) but the ceiling was never done. I decided to just go ahead and paint the ceiling and put a fresh coat of paint on the walls when I was done. 

Once that was all finished and everything was nice and white my floor looked even worse than it had looked. I regularly push my kitchen table across the linoleum floor for photoshoots and it was so scuffed and worn. I started looking at flooring options similar to what I put in my laundry room. I wanted something that I could do myself and that was affordable. I came across this TrafficMaster Carrara Marble Peel and Stick Tile from Home Depot and read every single review about it. It is a peel and stick floor that you can also grout. I decided to just go for it. I mean what was the worse that could happen!? I used the spacers and just kept moving along the floor. I also used the same trick as in my laundry room which was to use a paper cutter to cut the edges along the walls. It saved so much time and work. This flooring is thicker than what is in my laundry room and a different material. It seems durable and well made. Once the flooring was in I grouted using the grout the manufacture recommended in the comments on the product page. As someone that has never grouted I was very worried about messing it up. It actually came out really good! There are a few places that aren't perfect but unless you are laying on my floor looking at it I doubt anyone would notice. My Dad came and helped me put back on all my shoe moldings and that I lightly caulked around them all which gave it a nice finished look. 

Once the floor was in I changed all my window coverings to pure white since they were all off white like my moldings before I painted them. I also changed all the light fixtures, faucet, and door handles/hinges. I decided to put wallpaper on the one wall that is constantly getting banged into to hopefully camouflage all the marks always on it. 

My next project was a huge fail. If anything had to fail I am glad this one did because I would never have bought a new kitchen table (I was trying to do this as inexpensively as I could with the stimulus money). I tried to paint my kitchen table just to freshen it up. I had an all black kitchen table that I was planning to reuse with just new chairs and a new rug underneath it. The table just wasn't looking good. I kept sanding it and repainting and the finish was not smooth. Finally I decided to "shop" for a new table. Of course being during quarantine I couldn't go look for a table so I started looking for one online. I thought I would have to go with another black table since my cabinets are a different color and hard to match. I looked at every store online I could think of and then this table popped up from IKEA as an ad on my Facebook (thanks Facebook for looking at my searches). I measured it out and decided to go for it. I ordered it and it was delivered the next day by the local IKEA. It is the most perfect match for my kitchen and I LOVE it. I am so glad my table project failed because I think this made my kitchen. 

Once the table was in I was able to reuse all the stuff that was already hung in my kitchen or there (bar cart, vases on the wall, and wall art). I only added two new pieces on the walls. 

This job was a lot of work but every time I walk into the room I am so proud of myself for accomplishing it mainly on my own. I never thought I would lay and grout a floor on my own. 

Everything I can link is linked below:

Floor: TrafficMaster Carrera Peel and Stick Floor

Table: Skogsta

Dyslexia Awareness month

 

October is dyslexia awareness month and it is something that is important to me to discuss and share information about. As most of you know both the girls have been diagnosed with dyslexia and school has not come easy for either of them, or for me as their parent. It has been a non-stop struggle and fight to make sure they are receiving the appropriate accommodations and remediation. 

Learning what dyslexia is and how it affects a person is the first step to identifying if you or someone you love could potentially have it. Statistics show, 1 in 5 are said to have it, and most don't know or have received any type of help. It affects everyone differently so different accommodations and remediation are needed for each individual (hence, why an IEP is an important part of this process). 

I was told so many times not to worry and that they would catch up, they weren't that behind, and they aren't failing so why was I concerned? When you watch your child in 4th grade struggling to read a one sentence easy reader you know that isn't right or how it should be. Every time she would read a page she would read the same words differently and lack fluency. My heart ached for my sweet girl that hated to go to school and was always complaining she felt sick. She spent hours doing extra work, studying, tutoring, etc. with no improvement. Her writing was just as bad as her reading. Everything was always misspelled, lacking punctuation, and just not making sense. Finally in 4th grade she was diagnosed with dyslexia and with the help of both an amazing teacher and resource room teacher she began to flourish. 

Fast forward to now being in 7th grade she is almost reading at grade level and no longer hates school (well she still claims to but hasn't faked being sick in quite a while). She will read to me in the car and the kid who I couldn't bear to listen to even read me a one sentence on a page easy reader is fluently reading chapter books. I now have to ask her if she actually wrote something or she copied it from a board because even her writing is starting to show what she actually knows (still misspelled but everything else has improved). 

They say a lot of people with dyslexia excel at other things and are usually some sort of creative. They are out of the box thinkers as well as learners. My little dyslexic may "read at her own pace" (thank you Walmart for having the perfect shirt for all of our little dyslexic kiddos) but her brain definitely works differently and creates things I could only dream of making with such ease. She created this dress for a photo challenge in a few short hours. To her, books can be used for much more than just learning.