Whenever Mike and I drive to our hometown, we bust out some version of Madonna’s “This Used To Be My Playground”. Sometimes it’s “this used to be my Riiiiita’s” (my first job scooping Italian Ice) or “This used to be my Targeeet”. Have no clue what I’m talking about? Well there’s an official Madonna YouTube channel!

Why am I rambling about Madonna songs? Well this weekend we took a trip to my parents’ house (who live about an hour away now). They are remodeling their kitchen and I wanted to take before pictures. Remember how I always say that I want old house to remodel because of the awesome before/after pictures? Well, of course I jumped on the opportunity to cover this on the blog! Plus this isn’t just any remodel, this is the remodel of my childhood kitchen. The one that has remained untouched since we moved in when I was 2 years old. Yes, it has been the same, minus several appliance upgrades and new flooring, for 25 straight years.

Yes old dark grainy cabinets, florescent lighting, faux brick backsplash, faux wood laminate countertops, a lack of storage space and cabinets that no longer stay closed. The 70s had a lot of style. When we moved in there was actually brown and orange peel and stick laminate flooring, which my parents upgraded to Pergo maybe 10 years ago? We also used to have a robin’s egg blue stove, brown dishwasher and a brown refrigerator. Those were the days.

Let me tell you a little about my parents first. My dad was green before green was ever cool. However, he isn’t eco chic like many people today and chooses function over form. He once famously rewired a halogen lamp to fit a more energy efficient light bulb…which then protuded out of the light and was the became the ugliest lamp ever…but we dare not throw it out. They’re just very practical people, which is something to admire in a time of waste and consumerism. Though I inherited the urge to complain to Mike about wasting and things sitting in landfills, my mom often reads my blog and wonders how the apple fell so far from the tree. Hi mom! 🙂

My mom had been telling me that they were looking at cabinets and having a contractor come to let them know if they could remove the soffits, which I thought was a great idea. I recommended that they get rid of the hood and get a microwave with a vent built in, to save counterspace. We also talked about some pull out drawers for pots and pans, since their storage space now is nearly impossible to navigate. My dad works with a lot of contractors so I knew they had professional opinions weighing in, but I was completely floored when my mom sent me the plans for their new kitchen.

Yes, they moved the fridge. Why didn’t I think of that? My mom had mentioned to the contractor that when she cooks (which she does often), she casts a shadow on the stovetop. So the guy moved it, making it look more open overall.

The dishwasher is also moved since it was always in the way of the stove and the corner cabinet. Another genius move.

The new stove area, complete with overhead microwave. That door on the left is my old room 🙂 On the right is the laundry room, which they are also getting some cabinetry for. My camera battery died after literally 5 pictures, so I didn’t get a chance to get everything.

As if all of the appliance moves and tile backsplash weren’t enough for me, I was also sent the electrical plan.

It’s hard to see, but it’s full of recessed lighting and under cabinet lights!

Last night my mom asked me to look at the cabinet website and help her pick one out, so I told her to go with a white linen (not a complete bright white) in a simple bevel.

Look familar? Yes it’s similar to ours, but my mom always admires our white cabinets and in a small kitchen with little natural light, I think white is the way to go. They still have to choose hardware and a tile for the back splash, but they still have some time for those extras. My mom mentioned doing a Silestone counter top, which I think is a great choice.

They’re hoping to have it done by Thanksgiving and I can’t wait to see (and share) the finished product. As I said earlier, my mom loves to cook and she really deserves an awesome kitchen. 25 years and 3 kids is long enough to wait, I think 🙂

It’s true, I’m in love with Crate&Barrel.  I’m pretty sure this is the one store we go to where I’m more excited than Rebecca is — ok, with the exception of the Apple store, but that’s an entirrrreeelly different thing.  When we registered for our wedding, Rebecca told me to calm down adding things from Crate&Barrel.  Right.

Every now and then I find myself on their site adding things to a fake wedding registry so we get 15% off and browsing for a solid hour or two.  Sure enough, I had one of those visits this week.

I’ve never been a fan of these, to be honest.  I always thought they were a bit too classic, but I think I’m turning the corner.  We have an area in our formal living room (oh hey, we have one of those with barely any furniture in it besides our old couch) where something like this would fit in quite snug.   The color, Toulouse Harbor, is perfect, too.  A bit on the blue side, the chaise would have a nice contrast against our grayish walls.

I can just see now, Macky and Diggy sleeping all over that thing.

But for a thousand beans?  For something Macky is going to enjoy more than we will?  We’ll have to pass on actually buying this thing.

Remember that powder room we started?  Yeah, it’s still not finished.  But this wall hook caught my eye with it’s clean-lines.  Now, it might be a tad too modern for what we’re going for, but I figured it was note worthy for the ol’ blog.

And this guy.  Well, this guy just made me laugh.  Straight out of Pixar or what?  And is that a suction cup on the bottom?  Genius! (mini Steve Jobs tribute)

Family take note:  this is what I’d like for Christmas and or birthday.  I knew this blog would come in handy one day!  I’ve been eye-ing a quality food processor for quite some time now, but can never pull the trigger on buying one.  Imagine all the fancy salsas I can make.  Maybe I’ll get into making my own hummus!

Rebecca is looking forward to putting our our fall decorations this weekend. We have a doormat, but this one is way cooler. I love the diagonal stripes.

These vine gourds are the taller, skinnier cousin of the vine pumpkins we purchased last year (and just so happen to be included in the stock picture!) I love the C&B is offering a different shape this year to add some more visual interest to them when displayed as a group.

These are salt and pepper shakers that look like inkwells… very cool! Have you heard that Steve Jobs loved calligraphy and said that it influenced Apple’s simple style? Now you have 🙂 Can you also tell that I a) love Apple and b) can’t wait for Thanksgiving?

So is there anything from Crate&Barrel that you guys are digging?  Fancy gadgets?  Cookbooks? Anyone else loving the quotes from Steve Jobs floating around? Our current favorite:

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do”

“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”

Food for thought… better than Thanksgiving.

I told you on Thursday that our beloved family room TV had died right then and there, as I typed my post. By Friday, it was still dead, but I stared at it anyway.

(warning: this post has a lot of awful iPhone photos in it)

I had a long week last week and I really did not want to spend Friday night TV shopping. I thought maybe I could just lay down and relax by the dead TV, but I lasted about 20 minutes before we headed out.

First stop- Best Buy.

Here we got a nice introduction to the TVs of 2011. They are a) thin b) sleek and c) way cheaper than they were in 2005.  I should have started this post by saying that we are not normal blogger people. We are sometimes irrational and decide to buy a TV on a whim. Hey, we’re human and we like electronics. One person’s Missoni is another person’s Samsung 🙂 We also like TV and accept the fact that it is the focal point of our family room. That being said, it had to be pretty. The few times I’ve seen TVs in the past few years I’ve loved these Samsung ones with the glass frame.

Other than that, we were not impressed with anything at Best Buy, so we headed to stop #2.

Second stop- hhgregg. (ps- just learned that the name of this store is one word and all lowercase, weird)

Woohoo! You had me at hello! hhgregg also had the most beautiful TV I have ever seen, it was basically frameless and the image extended all the way to the ends of the TV. Here it is on top, compared to a TV with more of a frame.

But it was expensive, so we traveled to the open box section which had a bunch of great deals. We could get a 46″ pretty glass framed TV for $900. We’ve bought numerous open box items before, so this didn’t bother us in the least. However, we decided to look around a little more.

Third stop- P.C. Richards.

I believe this is a regional store, but I wasn’t impressed. hhgregg had better deals and I have no pictures to share because I was busy sitting in a massage chair the whole time.

It was now about 8:15 and we debated whether we should go back to hhgregg or try a nearby Sears. We knew we were cutting our time close, but we still felt like we needed to shop around so we went to Sears.

Fourth stop- Sears.

We entered Sears and it was 5 million degrees in the store. Mike and I have had multiple bad experiences at this particular location (awful customer service when trying to buy garage door openers and appliances), so we were ready to just browse quickly and leave. It appeared like they didn’t have much, until we spotted that glorious frameless TV that we fell in love with in the distance. We were simply admiring it, since it didn’t have a price on it, when a salesperson came up to us and told us it was on sale. He also told us he could give us an additional 5%. He then told us he could give us 2 pairs of 3-D glasses, valued at $50 each. As appealing as this was, we knew we had little use for 3-D glasses, so Mike asked if we could have more off the price instead. The guy was all like sure! I’ll give you another 5% off!

So needless to say, we bought a beautiful, frameless, glass surrounded, Samsung TV that was $600 more at the affordably priced hhgregg. We got it for a little more than the cost of a less pretty, open box 46 incher. Sweet deal 🙂

The stats… it’s a 46″ LED. And we’re in love.

We haven’t yet attached it to our mount and haven’t properly plugged everything in yet. We had plans for the rest of the weekend, hence the Friday night shopping/setting up urgency 🙂

It is absolutely insane how thin this thing is. Our old plasma took both of us to move. This thing? Mike can grab it with like, one hand.

The strange thing is that it’s a larger TV (our previous one was 42″), but it looks smaller because of the lack of speakers and other extra bulk along the front. When we put it on the entertainment center we were like, ooh, we could have gone bigger! (I told you we are sometimes irrational) But then we realized that an increase in size equals an increase in price (we’re not THAT irrational).

It is insane how HD this TV is. Our other TV was too but I guess the technology has improved so much in 6 years that it doesn’t even compare. I think I can see people’s pores on this thing. It was a little creepy at first, but we’re getting used to it. Even this computer looks like it’s non-HD now…

Oh and that picture is proof that I always write these posts minutes before they’re actually posted. Yes that’s Amanda Knox, no post scheduling here! Though it would be nice to plan ahead like that, it would mean that I couldn’t spend my spare time watching my new pretty TV 🙂