finances | home | kitchen | kitchen renovation | Uncategorized

Final Kitchen Breakdown

By on May 18, 2011

Kitchen Costs Final Break Down

Demo: FREE!
Dumpster rental: $215 BGI Waste Services
Cabinets: $3411.58 Ikea
Extra stuff: $103.63 (Drawers that were out of stock when we purchased the cabinets, plus dish drawer organizers and spice drawer organizers) Ikea
Cabinet installation: FREE!
Cabinet pulls: $161.59 Ikea
Cabinet dividers: $38.83 Ikea
Countertops: $1,280.40 (Including installation – awesome deal!!!)
Faucet for sink: $147.66 Lowes
Fridge: $1622.98 ($1593.10 plus $29.88 for delivery) – We splurged. 🙂 Brandsmart
Oven: $754.32 Sears
Microwave: $234.20 Over-the-range venting microwaves are expensive! Brandsmart
Stovetop: FREE! (We kept our old one)
Materials for new wall: $100.06 Home Depot
Labor for new wall: FREE!
New door for pantry: $83.51 Home Depot
Pantry shelving: $161.98 Ikea
Installation for pantry shelving: FREE!
Paint for pantry: $37.64 (Including supplies and chalkboard paint for the door.)
Plumbing: $550
Appliance electric work: $140
Flooring: $638.27 Floor and Décor Outlet
Flooring installation: FREE!
Misc charges: $153.96 (random things like nails, paint rollers, caulk, hacksaw, etc.)
Backsplash: $375 Design-4-less.com (plus grout and other supplies from Lowes)
Backsplash installation: FREE!
Labor to vent dryer & install heat/air vent in laundry room: $450 (didn’t realize THAT would be so expensive!)
Lighting: $101.60 Ikea
Ceiling patchwork: FREE!
Ceiling paint: FREE! (A gift from our real estate agent)
Labor to paint the ceiling: $249
Lighting electric work: $559
Total: $11,570.20

Done!

Now we can start saving some serious cash for traveling and future-baby-D! 🙂

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fun | Uncategorized

New Hair!

By on May 5, 2011

This past Saturday, I did something very uncharacteristic.

I changed my hair.

I’ve pretty much had the same hair since I was in middle school: long, parted on the right side, strait, natural color.
Typical “Holly hair”:

Except –
One time I put in blonde highlights (When I went to the Bahamas in college).

One time I dyed it red at home. (Thank GOD that was a temp color and washed out after 30 washes. It looked terrible!)

One time I dyed it red at the hair dresser. (And that actually looked pretty good.) 🙂
Red hair:

One time I chopped it all of for locks-of-love. (That’s when I realized I look terrible with short hair.)
Short hair + chubby face = not pretty:

But other than that – the same hair! I’ve layered it differently – but pretty much it’s been same old-same old. But on Saturday, I decided to get bangs. It was a spur of the moment decision. I didn’t tell anyone – not even Josh! And you know what – it was WAY more traumatic than cutting off all my hair for locks-of-love. At least when they do that – they cut off the hair behind your back. So you don’t actually SEE the scissors chop it all off. But with bangs…it’s right in FRONT of your face. CHOP! A lock of 10-inch hair…GONE! Right in front of my eyes.

Scary! My heart literally fluttered when she cut it off. “WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?!”

And at first it looked terrible! It looked like I had a mop on my head! I was trying not to freak out in the hairdressers chair.

But then she finished styling it…and I was better. I still didn’t LOVE the bangs…but they looked OK.

Josh loves them. He was so cute when I got home. I’m glad I decided to surprise him. 🙂 And all my friends and coworkers have said nice things about the bangs…

But…I still wasn’t sure about them…

Until today.

FIVE days later I finally got used to them. Today they finally stopped tickling my forehead…and making me think I had a huge bug on my head. Today I can finally look in the mirror and not get freaked out by the stranger with bangs. Today I finally think I styled them right so I don’t look like I had a libmon mop on my head.

So now…I think I like them. 🙂

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