If you missed my news from yesterday….I’m officially back from a six month break on the blog. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was going to continue it. But I do like sharing on here and life and work has picked up and I have so MUCH sharing to do with all of you!
Our new pad is circa 1991 and definitely filled with all things from the flannel and baggy jeans days. White carpet, oak cabinetry EVERYWHERE, recessed light boxes, a HUGE party shower (can’t wait to show you guys that one) and little decorating “niches” for your fav plastic plants. Oh so fab right?! Uh, no. Here’s what I am working with in the kitchen.
The sink is currently shoved into the corner with those two corner windows above it. Dislike. I also HATE a micro over cooktop situation. So that’s going fo sho! The fridge is also stuck in a corner and is right next to the doorway to the dining room. That could become an issue with entertaining. So again, that’s going.
What drives me even crazier about this room is the layout of the bottom cabinets! See those weird angles to the left and right? I know it makes the space a wee bit wider, but I hate it. The large tray ceiling inside a tray ceiling is pretty horrible too. I do LOVE the breakfast area that you can see just to the right there. There is also a 3 sided fireplace that can be seen from these rooms and the family room. It’s a bit funky, but we like it.
Then there is the appliance/pantry wall and the doorway to the left that leads to the dining room.
So here’s my vision for the room….
I’m going for a modern meets classic, beach house vibe. I’ve always wanted an official “beach” house and now that we actually have a view of the ocean and you can SMELL the salt in the air from our home…well I’d say that’s beach house to me! So, needless to say this sea loving family is going to have a home chock full of ocean stuffs. I don’t apologize for my love of the ocean AT ALL! Lol!
The cabinets are going to be simple Ben Moore Super White Shaker with polished oversized nickel pulls and knobs. The hubs washes dishes every night after dinner (yes, I know I’m lucky!), so his one request was an industrial sprayer faucet. Done! I think they look cool. We’re going to center up the sink, take out the two corner windows and add a larger single window over it. We’re also centering up the range on that wall, pulling the fridge out of the corner and placing it onto the appliance/pantry wall and just overall cleaning up the whole design.
This time around I decided to do a BEAUTIFUL hammered nickel sink from Native Trails that I’ve had my eye on for some time. It’s going to be a showstopper I think! After a lot of waffling I decided to pony up and get seapearl quartzite for the countertops. I love marble and it’s what we currently have in our existing home, but I’ll be honest, it’s not the easiest to live with. I’m a perfectionist, so etching and staining have been hard to live with. I love it for bathrooms however, so we’ll still be doing marble in those rooms. But for the kitchen it had to be more durable and I think quartzite gives me the look of marble with more durability.
A few of the other details:
-weathered, gray wood flooring throughout the downstairs area.
-a glass front bar area with X design on upper cabinet doors.
-a fun tall wine storage cubby area (since God knows we love our wine!)
-shiny, white mini herringbone tile for the backsplash
-changing up the in tray ceiling a bit. Cleaning it up and adding tongue and groove in that area. We’ll also hang some sort of lighting in that space. Not quite sure what yet.
-and finally on the breakfast room side of the lower cabinets we will be changing that up and adding a counter height bar to eat at. We had that in our last house and it came in really handy when entertaining.
So that’s the scoop for one the biggest room redos of our new home! We’ve already finished demo and now framing, plumbing and electrical are all underway at the moment. I love seeing the transformation. Oh, and if you’re curious about my inspiration and plans for the new abode you can check out my Pinterest page! And to see updates to the space you can follow Project La Colima on Insta at #vanrozeboomsmove.
Have a great weekend all!
Well, I think it’s safe to say that I basically fell off the edge of the Earth for six months. Life got a bit crazy the end of September/beginning of October and there was a lot going on in our family life that I wasn’t able to talk about…until now. Some good, some bad. But let’s just talk about the good, shall we?
As of February, my husband and his business partner have sold their business to a very well-known, amazing fitness centered company in the San Luis Obispo area. So what does that mean for the Van Rozebooms? Well, we’re moving to Central California! This is a HUGE change for all of us….new school for kiddo, moving my business, hours away from all our friends and the life we currently know. It’s going to be a shake up for sure. We’re excited to get out of the Los Angeles area however. I’ve been here all my life and never went away to school or any of that. So this…So Cal that is…is ALL I know! My husband is from the Central Valley originally, so we’ll be closer to his parents, family and friends which will be nice.
We’ve already bought a house in the city of Pismo Beach which is very close to where the hubs will be working in San Luis Obispo. It was important for both of us to still live near the ocean and Pismo fit the bill for us. We also found an amazing house, with really great bones and a beautiful ocean view! You cannot buy that kind of place for under a million (heck a couple million!) where we currently live, so we sort of jumped at the opportunity. The house was originally built in 1991 and hasn’t been updated since. So we are gutting it….new kitchen, new baths, flooring, skim coating walls…all that fun stuff! Eventually I’d love to also do all new windows and a revamp of the outside, but in due time. Here are some of the major rooms and the exterior before we started construction….
Whew! So Ellie started school the second week of August and it’s been freaking, stinkin’, crazy ever since. This weekend…THANK GOD…we have not a thing going on. I see beach time in my future.
So today, I ran across an interesting article a friend posted on Facebook, titled “Why It Doesn’t Matter How You Feel About Your Friends” by Shauna Niequist. Highly recommend reading it. I’ve struggled throughout my life with friendships for some reason. I’m very outgoing most of the time, but once I’m home I tend to withdraw and become all introverted. Since I also work from home and spend a lot of time in front of a computer, this introverted-ness can become an issue maintaining friendships. Recently I’ve started to recognize this issue within myself and am now looking to make some changes.
Last weekend, I walked 38.3 miles in the Avon Breast Cancer Walk in Santa Barbara. I was part of a team of eleven girls which mainly consisted of members of my workout group Happy Hour Fit Club and we raised close to $25,000 for the charity. It was one of the coolest, most rewarding experiences I’ve ever been through. The thing about the walk is that if you’re pretty fit you can do it. The part that’s hard (at least it was for me) is the monotony of walking so far…for sooo long! However, with all the hours we spent walking, it gave everyone in our group plenty of time to talk and get to know one another better. Saturday evening after we walked 26.2 miles, we congregated in one of our hotel rooms for pizza, cocktails, and card games. It was during that evening that I realized how important friendships really are in my life, especially female ones. My husband and I spend a lot of time together and we really are best friends. But this has been to the detriment of my friendships with other people.
So after reading the article today, I really have a change of heart going on. I need to reach out more. Have people over for dinner more often. Meet up with a friend for a walk or coffee. Granted it’s not easy scheduling things with kids activities, work, and whatnot. But there are many days where there are blank spots…time that I could be seeing a friend or chatting on the phone. It’s been one year since I started working out with HHFC and I will say that I have been blessed to meet some incredible women who have now become friends. So cultivating these friendships have become a priority for me.
Go read the article and tell me what you think. Do you struggle with friendships too?
Sidenote…I don’t usually get very personal on the blog. But I guess I felt the need to share today. Ok and now for some fun pics of our Avon Walk weekend!
{our team! 6am the first day.}
{the trail of walkers coming up the hill}
{couldn’t beat the views along the way}
The second day we were scheduled to walk 13.1 miles. Poor Mindy (seen to the right in the pic) got the WORST blisters on Day 1 so she and another gal from our group sat out the second day. At mile 10 Sunday, Mindy and Corrie surprised our group! They showed up with a tray of champage, fresh fruit and snacks. Such awesome girls! That champagne tasted like pure heaven too. It was HOT!
{so sweet}
We were all SOOO excited to be crossing the finish line that last day. We were sore in weird places, some of us had feet full of blisters, and we were all getting scorched in the hot sun. Two of the girls were uber-excited to be finishing, so they crossed over the finish line doing a wheel barrow. Hilarious!
Wishing you all a great weekend and hey…reach out to a friend! Have some people over for appetizers and drinks in the backyard. Go hang out at the beach with some other families and spend time together. Something.
Friends are after all, are a blessing.
I am without a doubt a summer girl, but the humidity and heat in late August tends to make me long for cooler weather. Our mail has been jammed packed lately with fall magazines and catalogs and I am DYING to update my wardrobe with a few essentials. Here are the looks that I’ve been coveting lately…
Do you see a theme here? Preppy, tomboy, nerdy, classic. Yeah that’s going to be my look this fall/winter fo sho! So here are some picks to get the look if you so desire.
Nars Lipstick-Shanghai Express
NOW COME ON COOLER TEMPS!
It seems that Ellie is invited to a never-ending amount of birthday parties these days. We typically only have her attend the parties of the friends she is closest with however. It just makes things easiest on us…. and keeps gift costs down! This past year I’ve really tried to come up with some unique gifts for her to give her friends. I mean, I KNOW they all want the latest Barbie or newest Lego set. But from what I’ve witnessed at birthday parties, there is no shortage of toys that a kid will get! So recently when Ellie received an invitation to attend the birthday party of one of her BFFs, I came up with a fun semi-educational gift that will keep the girls active and practicing their spelling skills all through summer. We put together a fun pen pal kit!
Here’s what we put in the kit:
1. A nice wide lined pad of paper and white envelopes
Both girls are entering second grade, so spacing and letter sizing are still things they need to practice on.
2. Pack of colorful pens for writing and drawing
3. Washi tape
…for decorating the letters
4. Stickers
More decorating stuff!
5. Stamps
…of course
6. Lifesaver Gummies
A girl needs a yummy treat to snack on
7. Blank plastic box
To hold all her letter writing supplies or to hold her pen pal letters.
We also printed out a letter to send to her pal, explaining what the kit was for…
It was kind of fun putting it together and Ellie was so excited about having a pen pal for the summer.
Hope I gave you a fun idea to use the next time you have to get a gift for a child’s birthday!
