Finally...My kitchen remodel reveal (well, sort of)

So. This is long overdue. I promised pictures of our kitchen reveal a LOOONG time ago. But if I’m honest, I’ve been putting it off—embarrassed that it’s still not done. I wanted perfectly curated photos that belong in a magazine. But after “working” on it for over a year, our kitchen is still not finished. It’s been functional for quite awhile, but there are a lot of last finishing touches that need to be done. Despite it not being fully finished, I’ve decided to post these pictures with the hope of sharing a final reveal in the next few years (I say years because we aren’t planning on replacing our appliances anytime soon—they work, so we will be content with function over aesthetics). Reality doesn’t always line up with expectations, and that’s okay.

We bought our house September of 2016 after living the apartment life for 3 years and saving for a down payment. We bought our house with GRAND dreams for renovating. I had NO idea how much hard work went into redoing a house. Before moving in, we sanded the floors because of a massive stain in the dining room (which was conveniently covered up by their dining table), hired a flooring guy to replace the stained woods and finish the remaining house 😂(do yourself a favor and don’t try to redo your hardwood floors—leave it to the professionals!), sanded all of the trim, painted all of the trim white, painted the closets, installed lights in the living room and kitchen (WHAT a huge difference!!), tore down the wall between the kitchen and dining room and put in a header (unexpectedly) to said wall that was torn down. It was a lot. We were spending every night after work working on the house. By the time we moved in (which was a miracle that it was moveable), we were exhausted and tired of working on the house.

BEFORE: the kitchen is through that door

BEFORE: dining room and kitchen to the right

BEFORE

BEFORE

A week or so after moving into the house, our cabinet guy (who was FABULOUS—I’ll tell you about him later) let us know that our cabinets were going to be ready to be installed soon. We then worked quickly to tear out the several layers of vinyl flooring, disconnect appliances, and tear out all of the cabinets. We had no idea what we were doing, but my husband was incredible at figuring out how to do it the most efficient way. Once we got it all torn out, we found out the cabinet guys were having some issues and that the cabinets were going to take longer than expected. Womp womp. We were living with our refrigerator and microwave in our living room our dining table against the wall with a crockpot, blender, and griddle on top for all of our cooking. It was not fun. Not having a sink was one of the most difficult things and I never want to do it again. We used paper plates and silverware, but I had to go to the bathroom to get water for my coffee everyday. And we had to wash dishes in a tub in the bathtub. Let’s be honest, I just wiped a lot of things with paper towels. 😳🙈

The wall is coming down!!

What a huge difference that made in how open it feels!

Eventually, the cabinet guys were able to bring over our cabinets and we had a wonderful carpenter install them. We used a local company to make our cabinets—Woodstock Cabinet Co. and HOLY MOLY they make beautiful cabinets. If you live in the Tulsa area, I highly recommend using them. They make quality custom cabinets and one of the co-owners is great about designing them to meet your needs. I really appreciated all of the thought and work he put into designing them AND making it fit into our budget.

Next were the countertops, and with the countertops, our farmhouse sink!! We got ours off of Wayfair for like 60% off—winning… It was difficult deciding what we should use for countertops. I wanted something low maintenance, so butcher block and marble were out. Let’s be real, I’m not gonna oil the countertops regularly (just check out my wooden cutting boards for proof) and I’m prone to spills. But I’m not the biggest fan of formica and thought potential buyers wouldn’t be happy with them either. So we decided to go with quartz, which can be really pricey, but we found a store that offered a pretty good deal on installation. I absolutely LOVE how they turned out! So sleek and clean.

The cabinets, countertops, sink, and backerboard are in!

Notice all those blue sticky note tabs? Those are all the spots I wanted the painters to fix (the first redo).

Next came the painters. That was a complete fiasco. Long story short, I had them come 3 different times and the last time left my cabinets with paint pulled off of them from the tape they used. Thankfully they gave me a partial refund, so I feel like they somewhat righted their wrong…but lesson learned, go with recommended people and spend the little bit extra for someone who really knows what they are doing. It was a 5 month process for all of this (yes, 5 months 🙄), and all the while, we couldn’t put on the door pulls. Did you know cabinet pulls are CARAZY expensive? They can be like $5 a piece…and when you have 27 doors that need handles, that gets super pricey. I got ours off of Amazon in bulk and although they aren’t solid metal pieces, I think they look great and they’re sturdy. It’s amazing how a small detail like that can make such a huge difference!

Somewhere in there, we had friends help us lay down the tile. And by “help us”, I really mean that they did all the tiling while we watched. Haha. But we did put in the grout, so we definitely played a role. Isaac made trim for our doors and installed a new window and put trim around it as well. I then learned how to mud and tape the top corners of our walls where we pulled off the crown molding and then painted the ceiling. We had a “boob” light fixture in the middle, and I was so grateful when we finally removed that thing. 😂

Last, we put in a white subway tile backsplash that we got from Home Depot. I am very proud to say that I put up every single one of those tiles. At like 36 weeks pregnant no less!! I’m thinking I may have to start a tiling business in my free time… 🤓

Welcome to our messy living room. Hahahaha 🙈

This area of cabinets is completely new…before, it was just a corner of walls

So what else needs to be done? We need to finish putting up random small pieces of baseboard, fix some minor details in the window, wrap the exposed beam in wood and stain it, make and install floating shelves, and install a transition strip between our kitchen and dining room. And a long list of other things for the rest of the house. But you know what? I’ve accepted it. No, I don’t have a pinterest-worthy home. But when people come into my home, they really don’t care what it looks like. They care about how I make them feel when they are there. I want people to feel welcome, loved, listened to, and important—I don’t have to have a perfect home to do that. So for now, I’ll wait on those details and instead invest my time and energy into loving and taking care of Cam and those around me!

Savory butternut squash pasta

You know what I’ve been digging lately? Pasta. Growing up, we never really ate pasta. And then in my eating disorder days, pasta had too many carbs for my brain to feel safe with, so I rarely ever ate it. If I did, it had to have a ton of veggies in it so that I felt full with as few pasta noodles at possible (I originally put “pasta” here, haha). So really it was veggies with some noodles. I now realize how sad that is, because pasta is delish. As I found more freedom with food, we still never ate pasta because it wasn’t something I was accustomed to eating. But THEN! THEN we went to Italy and I had the most delicious pasta dishes ever. 😍I didn’t think I liked Italian food, but boy was I wrong! Real Italian food is the best thing ever. We could learn a thing or two from those genius Italians. :-)

So now, as I’m meal planning each week, we pretty much have some sort of pasta dish every week. It’s easy, versatile, and delicious. We’ve been experimenting with different types of sauces and meats, shapes of pasta, and pasta ingredients. Sometimes we have whole wheat pasta, other times white pasta from Italy, and others, Banza pasta. Banza pasta is made from chickpeas, so it’s naturally gluten free. I’ve tried a few gluten free pastas in my days, and they are NOT all created equal. 😳Although Banza’s pasta has a different texture than regular flour pasta, Isaac and I really like it! It’s nice and hearty and holds up well, unlike other mushy GF pastas. I also like that it adds variety to my food intake. We don’t eat a ton of beans, so this easily adds another food group into our weekly intake. And because it’s made with chickpeas, I don’t have to plan a meat in order for it to have protein. Because if you follow me, you know I’m all about having protein, carbs, fat, and fiber at my meals (yay for satisfaction and satiety). It also makes throwing together a quick meal easy when I don’t have a plan for dinner and don’t want to go get additional ingredients.

Banza thinks that most new years resolutions (which I don’t personally do) are too serious, too stressful, and too hard to stick to. And I completely agree. They also think that in order to enhance your health and life, you don’t have to make life worse. I’m gonna argue that if your new “health” behavior is making life more stressful and less enjoyable, then it probably isn’t actually healthy. As a result, their current campaign is #ResolveToEatMorePasta and that is a resolution I can get behind 🤓.

You can technically make this recipe with any pasta you prefer. And serve it with a meat of choice, if you like. We ate this one night with pre-cooked chicken sausage for more flavor and texture. Prep your veggies and bacon (the bacon is key for giving it a savory, smokey flavor 😍) and roast them until fork tender. Meanwhile, soak your cashews in water and boil your pasta. Once the veggies are done, puree them with the softened cashews, nutritional yeast (or cream cheese, if you prefer!), and enough chicken broth to create a smooth sauce. Mix with your cooked and drained pasta, and viola! You’ve got a delicious lunch or dinner that is packed full of nutrition and flavor. I’d love to hear what you think of it when you try it!

Also, this sauce is delicious, so you could totally just add more chicken broth to it to eat as a soup, or you could put it on other carbs like rice or spread on toast. :-)

Quick Life Update--I Had My Baby...

Welllll….this is awkward…I haven’t updated you all in awhile regarding my pregnancy. In case you haven’t heard, I had my baby! A month ago 🙈. I meant to give you all an update my last few weeks of pregnancy, but that never happened. And then I went into labor and had my sweet boy and got distracted staring at him all day. So I’m just popping in for a quick life update.

Pregnancy: My last few weeks of pregnancy weren’t fun. I was incredibly uncomfortable (anyone else have pubic symphysis pain? It’s terrible), tired, slightly nauseous, and simply ready to have my son. The week before my due date I thought he was coming because I was having regular contractions every 5 minutes lasting about a minute. Turns out they were braxton hicks. Womp womp. Waiting for Cam to arrive was absolutely excruciating emotionally. I finally decided I wasn’t going to wait around the house to go into labor and started planning things with friends to keep me busy until he decided to come. In fact, I was supposed to watch a friend’s kids the day I went into labor (um, sorry friend for bailing on you! I was a little busy).

Body image those last few weeks: Someone asked me about body image those last few weeks of pregnancy, and to be honest, I LOVED my belly! I know it seems weird, but I just thought it was the cutest thing ever. Yes, I felt big and he was growing daily, but I thought my bump was just so precious. I can totally identify with the fear about getting bigger and bigger, but I knew that at some point my baby would come and I would not continue to grow forever. It’s hard to trust your body knows what it’s doing, but it does—and this applies to everyone, pregnant or not.

Nursery: My mom helped me organize the nursery several weeks before Cam came and I absolutely love it! We ended up buying a cute gold floor lamp to guy behind the rocker, but that was once Cam came and I don’t have a picture of it (how lazy am I?! I could just go take another picture 😂). It’s definitely my favorite room in the house…which is a good thing since I’m spending so much time in there nursing.

Labor: I had Camden at 1:52 pm Wednesday, October 31st (Halloween). I woke up that morning at 4:30 with contractions, but figured they were the braxton hicks I had been experiencing the last week or so. They continued to get stronger, but were inconsistent so I reached out to my doula letting her know that I thought I might really be in labor. I took a bath (and watched part of the Greatest Showman—it was my plan for distraction!) and afterwards texted my doula letting her know they were getting stronger and that I thought she should head my way because I thought they were going to be more than I could handle in an hour or so. I had an OB appointment that day, so I went in earlier (around 9:45 am) with my husband and when they checked me I was at a 4 and 80% effaced. Isaac and I headed home to meet my doula and labor at home. My doula was INCREDIBLE at helping reduce the pain and coaching me in letting my body labor and work Camden down. We headed to the hospital around 12:50 (time FLEW by) and when we got there I was at an 8 and contractions were coming about every 2.5 minutes apart. Once we got there, it was ALL a blur and honestly, fairly traumatic. Things just escalated quickly and Cam wasn’t in a good position, so it was all a little stressful and chaotic to say the least. But Cam came out perfectly healthy at 1:52 (yes, about 30 minutes later!!) and he was able to stay in the room with us the entire time.

Breastfeeding: Thankfully, I’ve had no major issues with breastfeeding and Cam is growing like a CHAMP! At his 4 week appointment, he had gained 2.5 pounds, so I think my milk must be straight cream 😉. And boy oh boy am I hungry all the time! Like I have never experienced an appetite like this. We’ll finish a meal and all I can think is: “I’m not full yet.” It’s like I never stop thinking about food! Thankfully, our church brought us a lot of meals and my mom stocked our freezer with a bunch of meals and snacks. Homegirl can put away a LOT of food right now. :-)

So yep, Camden is now four weeks old and Isaac and I are LOVING being his parents. He is just the sweetest baby. I was so hesitant about being a mom, and now I realize he is the best gift. It’s not always easy, and this healing body of mine can be a little frustrating at times, but it is definitely worth it.

How are YOU guys? Fill me in on what’s going on in your life! Anything you want me to talk about?—motherhood, intuitive eating, eating disorder recovery?