Kitchen Renovation: An Improvised Cutting Board Holder

Looking for this?  The blog has moved to Tikkido.com!  Find the full post over there and join us for all the fun new content.

Kitchen Renovation: Refinish That Old Table!

Looking for the table refinishing tutorial?  We moved it (and the entire blog) over to Tikkido.com!  Come join us.

Kitchen Renovation: How to Re-Cover a Kitchen Chair

Looking for the tutorial on re-covering a chair?  We moved it!  It's now on the Tikkido.com blog (and there's lots of wonderful new stuff over there, too).

DIY Project: How to make a Wrapping Paper Table Runner

Looking for the tutorial on making a wrapping paper table runner?  It (and the whole blog) have moved over to Tikkido.com--join us!

Website Issues

Hey everyone--just a quick note to let you know that we're experiencing some server issues on tradewindtiaras.com, so I'm not getting emails and the main website isn't loading.  But we're working on it, and should have the issue resolved today.  I'm so sorry for any inconvenience this causes!  In the meantime, please feel free to leave me a message on our Facebook page.

And for a little eye candy for you, here's the latest from the kitchen renovation project!

Aqua kitchen cabinets

We're only replacing the base cabinets along the wall at this time, just to help spread out the hit to the budget. We're targeting May (when my hero of a father will be back in town!) for the uppers and the island cabinets.  So we'll have a bit of a hodge-podge kitchen for a few months, and as long as it was going to look mismatched, I decided to have some fun.  I should have done this years ago!  Goodbye ugly honey oak cabinets, hello aqua!  At least the contrast looks purposeful now.

My eight year old daughter is a huge fan.  We'll see what my husband thinks when he gets home from his business trip tomorrow.  ;-)

DIY Project: How to make a Cookie Display Backdrop

Looking for the cookie display backdrop tutorial?  It's been moved (along with the rest of the blog) over to Tikkido.com.  Come join us!

DIY Project: How to Make Mixie Sticks Hot Cocoa Flavor Mix-Ins

Looking for the Mixie Sticks hot cocoa add-ins tutorial?  It, and the rest of the blog, has moved to its new home at Tikkido.com.

Kitchen Renovation: How to Make a Secret Toekick Drawer

Looking for the tutorial on making a secret toekick drawer?  We've moved the blog over to Tikkido.com!  Find the full tutorial and all the pictures over there.

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

I had all these grand plans of sharing lots of tutorials from the gingerbread decorating party, having all sorts of relaxing time to write blog posts, over the Christmas/New Year holidays.  We weren't hosting extended family this year, my husband had the week off work and could take care of the girls--yes, this was going to be a productive yet stress free week!

And then my oven broke.  A few days before Christmas.

Now, I've never been in love with my kitchen, but I did see the potential in it.

But we'd just bought a new washer and dryer in November, and weren't planning on re-doing the kitchen for at least another year!

We were going to get another 30" range and slide it in, but if I had to buy a new oven, it was darn well going to have a gas range.  We have gas to the house, but it was never piped to the kitchen.  That means plumbers and permits and inspections.  My husband got a bit of sticker shock when I presented the oven I wanted to get.  "Is there something else we could find?  Something on Craigslist, maybe?" he asked.

Why yes, dear.  Yes there was.  In fact, it seemed like the deal of the century.  But it would involve more elbow grease and re-imagining our kitchen a bit.

I bought a gorgeous set of Thermador double ovens, a 36" Thermador gas cooktop, and matching 36" Thermador hood, all for $700.  In perfect condition, just a few years old.  They're SOOO PRETTY!

In the end, we'll end up spending more than just the new slide-in range would have cost.  But we'll end up with an entirely new kitchen, with gorgeous appliances and sparkling new granite countertops.  We're doing most of the work ourselves, and this is pretty much what our kitchen looks like now:

That's my completely awesome dad being an incredible help while he was in town.  He built that double oven cabinet for us, since Cabinets to Go doesn't have double oven cabinets.  Can you believe we hosted our annual New Year's Eve pizza party in this chaos?  Lots of paper plates and plastic cups and good friends who forgive our messes.  It's good to have the outdoor kitchen and gorgeous weather in the forecast!

The cabinets come in at the end of the week...

...and as long as everything is ripped out, of course I'm going to repaint!  I still love the orange I painted when we moved in, but after four years, I'm ready for a change.  

This is about the grand sum of our cooking facilities at the moment:

So I've been pretty preoccupied recently, but it really is my resolution to be a better blogger this year!  I swear, I really do have fun tutorials and posts lined up...at least conceptually.  ;-)