The weather outside is delightful...

The inside of the house has stayed pretty much the same over the past few weeks. The quartz arrived and looks fab. The Annie Sloan Chalk Paint was purchased and is sitting on the kitchen table. Jeff installed crown in the family room, but it needs to be painted. A few hooks have been hung up, but that is about it inside. Outside is another story. The weather has been so nice, a lovely long summer and I want to take advantage of it before the rains come.

So I have been busy tidying up the yard doing all sorts of fun things. I have loved it all. I have been weeding, weeding, oh and weeding. I have also been removing invasive species like English Holly and Lamiastrum, which I suppose is another form of weeding. I loath English Holly and Lamiastrum and forbid you from ever purchasing these two invasive plants from any nursery or garden center and ask that if you have them in your yard, get rid of them! Please. Click here for reasons why. Remember, forbid you! 

Oh, tangent. 

Before: Big green, tall bush by fence- Ivy

After: See that dead tree leaning over, culprit Ivy

 Here is a nice Echinacea for you instead of that Ivy.

Love me some Echinacea

I am also super proud of my ability to now sit in the garden with multiple spiders hanging out around me. Which is OK because these are Canadian spiders that wont kill me, much unlike their Australian cousins whom would view me in the garden as a nice afternoon tea snack. But we did have a 2 foot long Garter Snake and even though it is totally harmless I squealed like a little girl and ran the other way. Some fears will always stick.

I managed to plant some things too, scored some great Hostas and a Rhubarb plant from my work, thanks Demonstration Garden, and things are starting to look pretty. Plans are in the works for some apple and pear trees too. 

After Hosta

I also did some planting out front by the wishing well. I planted some pansies for the fall, and removed some Yucca's and put in some Lavender for the bees.

So the inside list is still pretty long. But that is OK, it will start to rain soon, then I can paint the kitchen cabinets.

The quartz has arrived!

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home, and ours is well on it's way to becoming such. It is the one room that we have spent the most money in, and it will probably be the most impressive reveal once all is said and done. Slowly but surely things are coming along. Last night was an exciting evening in our home, our new quartz countertops were installed and geez they sure are pretty! But more on those later.

Here is what we started out with in our 70s dream home, and no it wasn't the dream kitchen that sold us on our lovely place.

Needless to say, that was quickly ripped out, and we went searching for a new kitchen, finding one on Graigslist for $400. Sweet deal. But I recall most of this has been blogged about already.

Update to today. These are our new cabinets, awaiting some paint as the oak look is oh so 1990s!

Now if you have been following my Face Book page you will know that I have been contemplating colours. The thought of prepping, sanding, priming, painting, sanding, painting, sanding, painting etc just didn't really appeal to me, so I was so happy to discover something called chalk paint! This stuff is amazing and not the same stuff that you paint chalk boards with. I discovered Annie Sloan Chalk Paints, which are the biggest and greatest thing in the furniture restoration business... or so they say. Word is that all you do to your  item wanting paint is a good old scrub down with TSP and then fill any holes, nicks etc and apply two coats of paint, then this special wax that seals it all up. The wax also brings out the grain in the wood, so that should appeal to those of us whom balk at the idea of painting wood!

I think we might go with the Graphite paint, which is a gorgeous black, stunning, classic and should hide all those finger prints young children are apt at leaving on everything! Remember Harold the fridge, he looks stunning with finger prints all over...

So here we go with our paint options:

Graphite on the left, Cocoa on the right. Thoughts are to do Graphite on lowers, Cocoa on the top cabinets. This is what it looks like on our sample cabinet doors:

Graphite on left, Cocoa on right. Think they look pretty nice, what do you prefer? Notice on both images how there is a darker area? Those are the spots with the wax applied. Now we are at a standstill when it comes to the actual painting as this paint is only available at selected stores in our area and they are all out of our chosen colours, apparently Hurricane Isacc has shut down the plant in the US and until it reopens and they can get shipments out, we are just going to have to live with our oak. But that's OK as I don't for-see painting in my immediate future, perhaps that is a job for October.

Atop these beauties is our gorgeous quartz! So fab to look at, I just love them. Here is a sample.

As I write this post, the wonderful Jeff is busy installing our Kraus Under-mount Stainless Steel Sink- gorgeous, you could bath 2 kids in there at once, plumbing in the dishwasher (which I might add has been full of dishes for the past 24 hours and awaiting its first run), and I am hoping will install our Kraus Single Lever Faucet!

Renovating a house is like Christmas everyday! I can't wait to reveal the completed project.