Starting 2011 With a Big SHABANG! (through our kitchen wall)

HAPPY 2011!!!
L&G started the year with a big bang.....through our wall between our kitchen & living room on New Year's Day!!

This is just PHASE 1 of only-god-knows-how-many-phases-we'll-take-to-do-our-kitchen-remodel project.
We decided that this year we're gonna actually devote some time/effort/$$ for our house that's been a little neglected....
But also we just got tired of the middle wall that divided our living room & kitchen, which made our kitchen feel too closed off since the living room & kitchen is where both of us hang out majority of the time.

So as the first step, we decided to tear some stuff out to start the project.... and also release all the stress built up from 2010!!

Here's what it looked like BEFORE looking from the living room.

Dylan specking the wall to see what's up.

We took some time to tarp everything off...which is always surprisingly time consuming and not very exciting...

But then we started to tear out the first side of the drywall!!

And since I forgot to take photos, let's fast forward past making bunch of dusty mess, making grunting & hammering noises, taking down the upper cabinets and then tearing out the other side of the wall ....
TA-DA...we went through the wall!

Along the way I had to take this photo of this awesome texture, which was previously our 70's mauve colored tiled back splash wall....

Then we noticed that there's a mysterious half beam on the left side....yes, we just opened a whole can of worms.... This is gonna be an interesting challenge....

But here's what it looks like AFTER!

I know!...NOT that impressive looking at all!
Just to warn you, there's gonna be a whole lot of BEFORE/AFTER photos of stuff like this where the 'after' photos are just gonna look worse than before since it's probably just gonna be things getting torn up more and more....but hopefully that will change where the 'after' photos will get better as we get to do more exciting things.
But at least now you can see the whole kitchen from the living room!
The best part is that there's tons of light coming from the living room now, which is totally great!
I'm totally stoked about it even with just this raw-open wall. :D

Now we need to go figure out what to do with that weird half-beam....yikes...

Thrifty Find...Vintage Tapistry Rug

Our latest thrift find....a cool handmade rug of unknown origin...
We found this in a thrift store outside of LA for only $6!

The real color was supposed to be dark indigo...but sun faded to this purple, which I LOVE even more!!
It makes me happy to see all these lovely colors & patterns every time I get home or leave the house.

Wish I knew more about it....Does anyone have any insight about what type of rug this is?


Garden update

We're kicking some major gardening butt thanks to all the amazing summer weather we've been having.

Above: our very own bright orange cherry tomatoes! Heirlooms and many more cherries to come very soon.

Chinese Eggplant almost ready to pick

Green Peppers beginning to show their face.

Cucumbers are going crazy! We had our very first batch of cucumber cookies when I picked the first ripe cuc' today. Yummy!

Special thanks to the sun for finally taking the time for a long-term stay in Seattle...keep it coming, but try to keep it under 90 degrees...pleeeeeaase...

Ladies and Gentlemen Home: For the love of all things vintage, clever, designed, and/or delicious

Home Improvements!!

Check out our duplex blog, thirty-thirtytwo for some before and afters in our living room and kitchen and flickr for some more shots and details of the current affair of things in our new home. It's shaping up nicely, but still so much work to do.

Ladies and Gentlemen Home: For the love of all things vintage, clever, designed, and/or delicious