Our Kitchen..

We don't want the best of everything, instead we want to make the best out of everything that we have. Welcome to our kitchen makeover!

I'm going to try to make this post with more photos than words, after all a picture says a thousand words right? Hmm.. let's see!

Our first look at the kitchen when we moved in. Our refrigerator was too tall to fit in the allocated spot so we placed it across from the oven.

The oven only worked for a few months, I'm not blaming the oven though.. we cook 99% of our meals at home and it was a little old. So we bought a new oven, that of course wouldn't fit in the allocated spot. So, my husband built a new cabinet for our like-new double convection oven out of pallets!

I loved the look of the pallet cabinet without paint, and we thought about staining it however we felt that the kitchen would look better and be easier to keep clean with a fresh coat of paint!

The space where the original oven went was meant to house a dishwasher, when the "like-new" dishwasher was installed we realized it didn't work so now that space is for storing bulk baking/ cooking goods!

Adding the shelf for our small appliances.

We took off all of the hardware and soaked it in Coca-Cola to loosen up the gunk. This bowl bubbled for over six hours!

Once we removed the hardware from the coca-cola we soaked them in hot soapy water and scrubbed each one with a toothbrush with a diy soft-scrub mixture.

I ended up having to scrub each one twice to get the hardware back to it's original beauty, can you tell the difference between the clean one and the dirty ones? The (semi) clean one is the bright copper looking one! Wow what a difference a little elbow grease made! We didn't want to buy new hardware because we loved the character of these..

First coat of paint.

Alright, by this point we made less time for photos and we were just ready to get our kitchen back together! So here the second coat has been finished, the doors got two coats of paint and I screwed the hardware back on so Mr. Winter could attach the doors back in place!

If you are in my kitchen you will always see dishes in the sink or drying on the counter, as I said earlier we cook 99% of our meals at home. My husband says "Dirty dishes are better than empty bellies any day!" I agree!
We decided to take off the cabinet doors below the sink so that if the fabric got dirty we could just wash it, we also think it looks nice and matches the fabric in front of the bulk storage area!

The final project really is amazing! The hardware looks new, the entire kitchen sparkles and inspires us to enjoy spending our time in the kitchen! Yes, we would like new counter tops, and a new stainless steel sink one day.. but for now we love the makeover just the way it is! Thanks for reading!

Enough

What is enough?

Are you smart enough, fast enough, do you care enough... fill in the blank.

My point here is about perception. Each person wants something different out of life, if we all wanted the same things life would be pretty boring. However.. when you are constantly comparing yourself to others you will NEVER have enough.

The first step in realizing how much you actually have is to be grateful for all that you have; whether it is your intelligence or the clothes on your back. If you are reading this then you have more wealth and a better education than half of the people on this planet... let that sink in.

When you stop comparing yourself with others you will wake up to your true potential.

What is true potential?

Potential is another one of those words that is different based on each persons perception. Of course my potential is going to be different than yours. I want different things out of life.
 
What would happen if you suddenly realized that you have enough, you are enough, and that your dreams are worth reaching out for? You would find out that you have enough potential to live the life you want. You will also start to love it! That my friends.. is enough!!

Get ready, Get set, SPRING!!!

Here at the Winterstead we are getting very excited about...

SPRING!!

There were several months of research that went into our first garden last summer and if you are a complete beginner I wanted to give you a jumping off point for planning your garden. I asked several of my blogging friends to provide me with some of their most useful gardening advice so I could put together a list of ideas, inspirations, and lessons learned with you all!

The links below should give you a head start, and get you ready to dig in. Make sure to post pictures of your garden (whether you are a beginner or an expert) to the Winterstead Facebook Page!

How to plant a seed by: Attainable Sustainable

Raised Bed Tips by: Seeds Now

If you are in the market for great seeds check out seedsnow.com
for their 99 cent non-GMO sample packs.

Seed Starting with newspaper pots by: Learning and Yearning

Vegetable Gardening101 by: Learning and Yearning

How to plant potatoes by: LittleHomesteaders

DIY Garlic Insecticide by: Happy Healthnut

 Learning the hard way!

A Day at the Auction

It's no secret that we love being frugal! I have to stop and ask myself as I'm writing this "then why was last night your first time at an auction?"

Some of our best friends in the entire world asked us to join them at a local auction last night so we decided to go. We had a blast!!

There is a certain vibe about an auction that I've never experienced before. People walking around scribbling down notes and being secretive about which item has their eye. Tense emotions when someone tries to outbid them and dirty looks from spouses when they have emptied their wallets for an item they wouldn't normally purchase.. just because they were at an auction! I loved it!

I also loved how no one else seemed to want the items I secretly desired to posses. Like these bottles:

I love small vintage bottles. You can read more about that here: ApotheKayla how to care for vintage bottles.

To be honest the tiny glass mixing bowl is probably my favorite out of the bottles we won, my second favorite would have to be the round bottom flask (sitting next to the tiny bowl). 

Most of the bottles we came home with are over sixty years old, some of them are worth more than we paid for everything at the end of the auction. I can't explain my fascination with tiny vintage bottles however, after watching some people quickly bid on a touch tone phone (a plain one, nothing special about it) I don't feel so bad for collecting these bottles!!

There were so many things that I overlooked before the auction, for instance this set of Russian nesting dolls:

We love decorating with "worldly" items, and we have been looking for a complete set of these dolls. Most that we have found only have two or three of the dolls, we had yet to find one with the tiny doll. To my surprise I outbid everyone on these dolls and I still paid less than I would have for the dolls we found before (with only two or three in the set). Did you notice that the littlest doll is carrying a basket of eggs? Love it!

We will definitely be attending more auctions in the future! We left with most of our budgeted auction money still in our pockets and so many amazing treasures!

Have you ever been to an auction, what about an estate auction? Find anything good? Let me know in the comments section below and as always.. Thanks for reading! -The Winters