As a homeowner, I have always kept a ‘to do’ list of projects that require attention. About the time you feel like you’ve got everything in order, something will pop up that needs to be repaired or replaced.  I know you know this if you’re a homeowner.

On that list, for the past few years, refinishing our wood floors has been right at the top.  The wood floors are in every room of the house except the bedrooms. Fortunately, our house is small.

A week before Thanksgiving we noticed that the floors in the kitchen, going out to the side yard, were buckling slightly.  Long story short, we discovered our ice maker had developed a pin hole in the line running to the ice maker. Who knows how long it had been spewing this tiny spray of water?!

With “the holidays” around the corner we got our bids and told Cooper Floors we’d be ready to start the renovation by mid-January.  I’m thrilled with the result, and thanks to our sweet friend’s, Gretchen and Stu, we were able to stay with them the 4 days during the work of sanding, staining and sealing, making the experience pretty painless {thank you, Gretchen and Stu}.

The kitchen floors had to be replaced but our floor guy made sure it was interwoven with the existing floors so the new wood, compared to the old wood, isn’t noticeable.  All of the floors were sanded down to bare wood and stained and sealed in the end, giving us essentially new floors everywhere.

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared pictures of our house so I thought I’d share the kitchen, where just a couple of months ago, there was chaos and construction, at least where the floors are concerned.

{I hope to get pictures of each room to share with you this year.  It requires some planning to dress each room for a photo op.  This may take more time than one might imagine}

As you can see, our kitchen is fairly compact but it works well for us.  We remodeled it 10 years ago…I still can’t believe it’s been that long.

Essentially a galley kitchen, it’s easy to maneuver when cooking.  It is a one-man kitchen, extra bodies tend to bump into one another.

My nod to spring (below).  I collect bird’s nests once the owners vacate the premises (when I can find them).  The quail eggs are real but store bought.  The Halcyon Days enamel egg is the first Easter egg I bought when I began collecting these boxes…that year Mr. B and I had gone up in a hot air balloon…this egg will be a reminder of that fabulous adventure.

The nest in my antique French scale is not real, but the little wren keeping watch over the eggs was hand carved by my dear friend’s dad {Linda (Bainbridge Island) and Gretchen (Irvine)}  Linda and Gretchen are sisters and they have adopted me as a sister, which is special since I’m an only child. 🙂

Confession:  Since our kitchen is short on counter top space I’m hoping that somewhere down the line I can get the new Nespresso Vertuoline, which would streamline our coffee counter.  We’re big fans of coffee…so we have a drip coffee maker and a Breville espresso maker.  The Nespresso Vertuoline does both all in the compact confines of a beautiful machine.  I only wish this was a paid advertisement for Nespresso!

I must say, the best thing in my kitchen is the Viking Stove. I honestly didn’t realize there was any difference between one stove or another until we bought this hard- working lovely.

The black piece at the end of the kitchen is our pantry.  The woman who helped with the design of our kitchen recommended creating a pantry that looked like a piece of furniture.

Here’s a close up of the floors, our large dog has broken them in getting up to chase something outside…we need to buy her some booties.

Do you have any major projects on your list for this year?   I hope to take pictures of some of the other rooms in our home and share them with you this year.