The Sweetness of Home: June 2014

Kitchen Remodel #3

Homemade Curtains with lace tie backs

So far 2014 has continued the trend of being one set back after another which has seemed to be the pattern for our lives these past few years.

I'm all for trying to live as frugally as possible, but for this month I have to admit that I've been continually resisting the urge to shop. In fact the weekend that Debbie completed these projects for me I didn't want to go to work, I didn't want to pay the bills and I most certainly wanted to "blow some steam" by thrift store shopping.....Instead I went to work, I paid the bills and I bought some food treats and came home to my sweet girls and mother-in-law.

A few weeks ago Jason and Joey went on a camping trip for Boy Scouts. It was a rare occurrence that Debbie, my mother-in-law, had both that Friday and Saturday off from her job. She suggested a "girls sleep over" weekend after a field trip day that I had originally planned got postponed for a week. She also brought up the idea of completing the curtains and bench make-overs that I had been talking about completing for almost two years now. I actually have had the bench fabric for two plus years and the curtain fabric for almost a year. (Yes, my mother-in-law lives directly across the road from me, and yes, she did sleepover in the guest room. I will admit it seems kind of funny, but remember the guys were also gone for the weekend. She finished the curtains at midnight so she just walked upstairs to sleep versus across the country road. Plus I had to leave early for work the next morning.)

Last summer I "kidnapped" Debbie for a day as her birthday present. We went thrift store shopping in Amish country, which is just an hour's drive away from where we live. One of the great things about Amish country is that at certain stores you can find amazing fabric that has been donated since most of the people still sew in that area. I found these two pieces of fabric at one of the stores for at total of $4. Jason had just "flipped" the kitchen and painted the cabinets blue so I thought this would be pretty fabric for the door in between the sink counter and baking counter:

The daisies are just beautiful and lend a soft romantic look to the "Tuscany Country" look that I am hoping we will eventually achieve in here when we can paint the wall panelling. (Though I have to admit it may end up looking more "French Country"):

I had been brainstorming about what kind of curtain to hang in front of the tupperware cabinet. I wanted something waterproof with blue tones to match the cabinets, yet something to somewhat match the door curtain. I hadn't found anything since last July that I liked. One day when I was putting linens away I saw this vinyl tablecloth leftover from a previous summer and thought it had great potential, so I will now have daisies and sunflowers to use as accents for my kitchen:

The three curtain fabrics together

I had bought two curtain rods to hang the curtains on back in January from Wal-Mart. They cost somewhere between $10-$12 total. Debbie and I talked and decided that I had enough fabric for a valance. Thankfully Debbie had an extra curtain rod for the valance at home for the great price of "FREE." She also suggested tie backs and brought over some gorgeous lace that she had bought at a garage sale for fifty cents.

Debbie is a craft queen....she made these curtains without a pattern....just measured the spaces, measured the fabric....had to do some creative thinking for the daisy material to figure out how to lay the fabric so that we could get two curtains and a valance out of it...but in less than four hours on Friday the tupperware cabinet and my kitchen window had new curtains!!! (Debbie did say that the vinyl tablecloth was not the easiest material to sew-it stretched while she was sewing it.) I personally break into a sweat just threading the needle on my sewing machine. These projects probably would have taken me two to three times the amount of time it took Debbie. I also would have had to buy a pattern to make the door curtains.

Completed sunflower curtain hiding our tupperware

This is the fabric that I was able to buy at Joann Fabrics two years ago when it was on sale and I had a coupon. I don't remember how much the material cost, but we do have enough material that we will be able to cover any kitchen chairs we choose to match:

Red vinyl material

It's durable and waterproof! Jason's mom had a 50% off coupon for Joann Fabrics so she measured the bench Friday morning and then managed to find a 2" thick by 24" wide piece of foam that we were able to cut in two to fit the 12" wide bench so that it would have new padding...so we got $36 worth of foam for $18. Debbie glued the pieces onto the bench besides gluing them together so that they wouldn't separate over time. (A few days after Joey came home from camping he thanked me for putting new foam on the bench. I guess it had been getting painful to sit on though neither he, Jessie or Katie had complained yet at any of our family meals.)

Bench with new foam with the new sunflower curtain behind it

Debbie covered the bench while I was at work on Saturday. Katie, Anna and Libby (affectionately known as "The 3 Littles" around here) were quite concerned about this project. I guess they kept asking Grandma Debbie if I KNEW what she was doing to our kitchen bench???? They informed her that they were going to tell me right away when I got home. They also watched her like little hawks. Here was a picture that she sent me (ignore the messy kitchen please):

Katie and Anna watching Grandma Debbie's every move with their stuffed "Eddie" poodle which is named after Grandma Debbie's real live Eddie poodle

She even said that they were quite distraught that she was throwing out the old fabric and foam from the bench, so I guess they are picking up on thrifty habits of saving/reusing as much as possible. After a few hours, since Debbie did have to make one trip into town to get different staples for the staple gun, here was the finished bench (again, ignore the messy kitchen):

Libby, Katie, Anna and Jessie on the finished bench

After I made it home much later than planned, we watched a movie while eating some splurged for cheese cake and frozen mini-eclairs that I had bought for the girls night sleep over:)

Completed Bench

Curtain Project Costs:

Amish Country Curtain Fabrics: $1.25 and $2.75=$4.00

2 Curtain Rods: $12.00 (high end estimate-also one curtain rod was free)

Table Cloth Curtain: $8.99 originally (used for one picnic and then stored)*

*Still have 3/4 of it left for future projects

Lace Tie Backs: $0.50

Curtains Final Cost: $25.49

Bench Project Costs:

Bench: $10.00

(bought it at a thrift store)

Foam Padding: $18.00

Material: $20.00**

(**estimated price for just the material that covered the bench, have tons leftover)

Bench Final Cost: $48.00 approximately

Kitchen Remodel Costs to Date:

Previous: $1542.98

New Total with Curtains and Bench: $1616.47

Jason is planning on working more on the kitchen while the kids and I go on our annual summer trip to visit family....I am looking forward to being able to show you more kitchen pictures in July or August.

Here are the first two posts that I made about our Kitchen Remodel:

Kitchen Remodel #1

Kitchen Remodel #2