Starting With The Home Depot Center Located On Avalon Boulevard

Starting with the Home Depot Center located on Avalon Boulevard. This stunning arena is how the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team and the Chivas USA crew performs. Being an extra reward, baseball legend David Beckham authorized an agreement while using Whole world within 2007. If you travel to Carson through MLS period, you may even take a look at Mr. Beckham enjoy. An additional exciting sports-related fascination located in Carson will be Go Kart Entire world, that has been selected as since the greatest go kart destination inside Southern California region. This huge intricate provides monitors pertaining to young kids as well as adults in addition to fender vehicle paths with an considerable arc. Singer Kanye West has been seen at Go Kart many times thus check.

Carson is additionally the place that the Southern These kinds of Pavilion Nearby mall is found. Your local mall can be anchored by retailers like Sears, Ikea, JC Penney, as well as as a final point,Goal. Some other retailers in this specific mall range from the Kids Location and large 5. You'll also locate a operation for starters of the most well known chicken wings dining establishments: Throw E. Mozerella. Dinner possibilities at the Southerly These kinds of Pavilion include Panera Bread, Tony Roma's, Chili's along with SanSai Japan Grill. Additionally, there are choices for antiquing inside Carson; make sure you check the Storage Roads Old-fashioned Shopping mall situated on Southerly Figueroa to casually browse over a couple of hundred distinct antique retailers in one location.

Traveling simply six a long way straight western side associated with Carson is going to take one to The particular Redondo Beach Ipod dock. Below you'll be able to invest per day searching or even performing fun pursuits like kayaking, exercise boarding, diving or even searching. Remain for your nighttime because pier occurs alive in the evening and is also excellent place to enjoy meal and nightclubs. Make sure you look at a appointments for that ipod dock any time planning your vacation because it serves festivals and also totally free shows all year round.

Long Beach is located merely 15 minutes southeast associated with Carson and possesses numerous entertaining sights for your loved ones. While in Long Beach be sure you browse the Tank in the Hawaiian Northeast, the particular Queen Mary, Seal Beach, Parker's Lighthouse and the Museum regarding Latin American Disciplines. Only on the other hand involving Long Beach you will find Knott's Berry Farm, a theme park that includes 160 miles sufficient reason for 38 rides and a waterpark. If traveling with young children that adore Snoopy, you'll want to check out the Nuts styled area of the park.

Obviously absolutely no stop by at Carson could possibly be deemed comprehensive with out a brief 20 minute getaway around the north Los Angeles place to view Beverley Hills as well as Hollywood. Some of the should go to spots and routines the following are the Getty public, the actual popular road involving Rodeo Travel, Celebrity Homes bus excursions, motion picture manufacturing studio room travels, LaBrea Tar Sets, Venice Beach, the well-known Hollywood Sign, the Chinese Movie theater and of course the Walk of Fame. This can be the region exactly where you will discover General Studios them park that offers a great deal of entertaining for adults and children likewise.

Pin of the Week: Curb Appeal

Hi Everyone! I'm finally back with a Pin of the Week, oh how missed doing these and of course I miss blogging regularly. Hopefully we'll have a new laptop soon, which will make things so much easier, a blogger with out a computer is like a cupcake without sugar. Those ingredients work so well together. Luckily our apartment has a business center I can use to get my blog reading fix at. This weeks pin of the week is all about Curb Appeal. I love changing painting your home, landscaping, installing new lighting and small tweaks really help the over look of your home. When we fist bought our home, we couldn't wait to get started on curb appeal, click here to see how our home looked when we first moved it. Doing all the things I mentioned above really helped our little home standout. 

Now that we are going though a new transition of re-building / bringing stuff up to code inside & outside our home since our house fire in July, we've put of thinking caps and plan to change things up. I have to reminded myself that change can be a good thing, otherwise I can get super sad. So well be changing things up inside and out. so after a recent trip with the family to Barnes & Nobles I decided to buy the newest copy of HGTV Magazine its was full of curb appeal, so it had me a t first glance. I have to say I really enjoyed the magazine! Which shocks me because I haven't watched that channel in years, partly because we dumped cable a while back & I got tired of endless reruns & they didn't show enough of Sarah's House. 

Pin of the Week: Curb Appeal

Here's some of my favorite Curb Appeal related 'Pins' via my Pinterest 

I love this house I spotted in HGTV Magazine, the homeowner gave the whole outside of the home a face-lift and created pretty curb appeal. I love color of the shutters and how they frame the windows. I also love the lap siding, and the front porch looks nice and cozy. Although I'm not normally a huge fan of dark brown houses, I love how well this color works with the location of the house. You can see more of the transformation here. 

(via here)

I thinking of adding some flower boxes to the windows in the front of our house. I love how much color the bring to the overall look. And they are so pretty to look at. 

(via here)

I love the pop of green on this front door. We plan to make better use of our small front porch when we move back in. Maybe painting the concrete adding larger planters on both side of our front door. Hasani really wants to add a porch swing, hopefully we'll find the right one. 

(via here)

Next week, I have lots of progress share about our house. Its so good to see progress being done there, it means we are closer to moving back in and creating new memories. 

Whats your # 1 tip on creating Curb Appeal?

Big Boy Room Mood Board

I'm still hesitant to call Avery's new room a big boy room, since my baby is well a baby. But we figure when we move back in our home, the timeline still undecided (maybe December?) Avery will be a year and a half. So Hasani and I had to have the crib vs. the toddler bed vs. a twin bed discussion and what made most sense. In the end it really doesn't make sense to buy another crib or toddler bed, that he would soon out grow. Tabari was in a twin bed before the age of 3. 
So we have decided we'll buy a twin bed frame and use side rails on one side of the bed. The other side of the bed will be up against the wall. 

Even though we have no move back home timeline, I still thought it would be a good idea to put together some ideas for his new room. I'm really drawn to the colors of avacado pear, orange, pale blue and grey. I just love how those colors look in his room which gets lots of natural sunlight. I've also used the same colors for my baby shower invites & party (here), his first birthday invites & party (here) and his nursery (here) Yup those colors gets lots of love in our home when it comes to Avery. So it makes perfect sense to use them again, I'm already loving that the colors have grown with him thus far. For Avery's new room design, my goal is to add a play spot in his room, reading / coloring area and above all create a well organized happy room that he'll love & want to play in. I fully anticipate him playing all over the house, but creating his own spherical spot in his room makes me happy. Here's the mood board I put together for his room. 

1. A few days ago, I mentioned I was working on a gallery wall above his crib before the fire. I plan to create a new gallery wall is his room. So far I have the cute Alphabet print, which was a gift from Etsy seller Yulia of Giraffes and Stuff. She was sweet enough to send a print our way for Avery's nursery after she heard what happened, thank you again! I'm also digging this cute print from the Land of Nod. I think his gallery wall will be a mixture of artwork and my own little creations for him (framed gift wrap etc) I'm also loving this print, via Etsy sell Handz. I used to love my viewfinder when I was little, I'm sure my mom still has mine somewhere.

2. I want to add some bookcases to his room, for books, toys and baskets. Just the thought of making arranging a cute kids bookcases makes me smile. I'm on the fence, not sure if we'll get a pair of short bookcases of a pair of tall ones. Ideally I'd find a pair of bookcases with bottom cabinets on Craigslist that just need a little love. Cute bookends that can be played with will be a must for his bookcase, I anticipate lots of books and toys all over his floor. The Skip Hop Zoo Bookends, had me at hello and the colors are perfect for his room! I plan on using a few baskets for his stuffed animals and misc toys, I like these colorful ones from the Land of Nod. For his twin bed, I really like the modern clean lines of West Elm's bed frames, this one is my favorite. 

3. I love all things Melissa & Doug they have the cutest retro wood toys and huge plush animals, I'm leaning towards getting the Dalmatian or Giraffe for his room, big soft animals are must in his room (Don't be fooled by my picture, in real life the Dalmatian is huge) I love kids tables and chairs in bedrooms, they perfect spot to draw, play and 'read' books at. My mom has this little yellow pre-school chair and Avery loves to sit at when he's at her house. Adding chairs and a table will be perfect addition to his room. I really like these modern feeling dark walnut kids chairs I found on Target.com (they are almost twins of the pricey Land of Nod version) I loved the price $29.99 on clearance for two, so I bought them. I can't wait until they arrive!! I adore this Land of Nod table it fits so well in small spaces, and I love how the legs are off-set :)

4. Lastly one my favorites things to shop for fabric! I had Annia drapes in Avery's nursery from Ikea, but I they no longer sell that color Avocado Pear, boo! I'm considering sewing new drapes in the same color I used in his nursery or mixing it up sewing patterned drapes. I love both of the fabrics found on Tonic Living, just need to order swatches and see if they'll work. His bedding is still up in the air, but i'm in love with these sheets from the Land of Nod, love'em! Here's a closer look at the patterned fabric I'm considering for his drapes. If I don't use it as drapes, maybe I'll sew a throw out of it? Or sew a duvet? The possibilities are endless! This time around I plan on lining his drapes with blackout liner, this mom wants to sleep in just a little on weekends :)

It feels so good it get my ideas on paper, yeah know what I mean, lol. Nothing is set in stone except his chairs and the artwork we already have. I'm really looking forward to working on his room and my tweens room. What do you think of my ideas so far?

Are you working on any room update around your house? What's your favorite part bringing in cute accessories or fabric shopping? 

PS: Don't forget to enter the Home Depot Gift Card Giveaway!! 

Home Depot Gift Card Giveaway!!

** This Giveaway is Now Closed **

When it comes to buying things online or in the store, I love doing 'Google Searches' to find coupons to save money!!

One site that always comes though for me is CouponCabin. I'm excited to share that CouponCabin wants to giveaway a $ 25.00 Gift Card to Home Depot to one my my Chic Little House readers!! CouponCabin is here to help with all your DIY and fabulously crafty projects. 

I also right to share CouponCabin has a bunch and I mean a bunch of Home Depot coupons that equal huge savings! You can check out those great coupons here. 

I'm also excited about the CouponCabin new Mobile App. I love having fun apps on my smart phone and I'm sure this is one app you'll use all the time, learn more about the app here Oh, and just a heads up the App is FREE!! 

Giveaway Details

Prize: $ 25.00 Home depot Gift Card

How To Enter: Please leave a comment on my blog and share how you plan on using your Home Depot Loot from CouponCabin. Please remember to include your email information so I can contact the winner faster. 

Giveaway Starts: 8-27-12 
Giveaway Ends: 9-4-12 

Number of Winners: One (open to US and Canada Residents only)

Fine Print: CouponCabin.com works directly with Home Depot and more than 3,700 other retailers to offer incredible savings on quality goods. Our Home Depot online coupons save shoppers $141.30 on average. Users can grab a code quickly (less than 90 seconds on average), or sign up for CouponCabin Rewards to earn points toward gift cards.

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*Required Disclosure (may appear in small print at the bottom of the giveaway post)

In addition to any disclosure required by applicable law, Promotion Partner shall include a full release of CouponCabin by each entrant or participant, with language substantially

similar to the following: “I received no compensation for this post and the opinion stated here is that of my own. I was not influenced in any way. By entering this promotion, each participant agrees to release, indemnify and hold harmless the Sponsor and its parent companies, affiliates and subsidiaries and their respective representatives, officers, directors, shareholders, agents and employees from and against any injuries, losses, damages, claims, actions or liability of any kind resulting from or arising from participation in this promotion.”

Good Luck to Everyone!!


Update: The winner of the $25.00 gift card to Home Depot is Mark from Our Simple Lives, great timing since Mark & his husband just bought a lovely new home! 

A huge Thank you to everyone who entered! 

I Didn't Get to Blog About (Nursery)

Before the whole stupid fire at our home and we moved out temporary while our home gets re-built (read more about it here) I was working on several projects around our house, the kitchen and and making tweaks in the Nursery. 

Now that our Avery is a year old, well 14months to be exact { where the heck did the past year go! } I planned on making a few simple updates in his nursery. The first update I wanted to make was to add a more art prints in his room. I was growing tired of the three prints in a row above his crib, and thought creating a small gallery wall above his crib would be cute and add extra personalty to his nursery. I only snapped one picture of the gallery wall, that I working on with my phone. It was looking so sweet, here's a reminder of how this wall in his nursery once looked, thank goodness for my blog! I'm grateful I have lots of pictures I can reference of our home before the fire. 

I was loving how the gallery wall was coming together!! I really wanted all the prints to be colorful and tell a story of whimsy and love. I used a mixture of small and large frames, I love how well the various sizes worked together. I also hung a couple of shelves my girlfriend gave me, yep one was crooked, I was playing around with where to place them. 

I kept the two large frames that were already on the wall and replaced the giraffe and baby cut out, with a sweet wrapping paper sheet I saw at Cost Plus. I also used wrapping paper on the top right hand square frame. It's such cute paper!! Below is a better picture of the paper, I got this paper on a trip to Paper Source a few months back. I love how pretty wrapping paper can be transformed into art once its framed!! Its also a non-budget breaker :) On Avery's Gallery wall I was working on, I also added metal Letter 'A' I bought from the Anthro, I like how it added another layer of texture on the wall. I also included a print, I just bought from an Etsy seller Mira Donson, the print says 'You Are My Sunshine' I love the the whimsical wording and the color of the print. 

When we move back in our home, I plan on creating a new gallery wall for his nursery. I've been doing a crazy amount of thinking on Avery's nursery, and as of right now I think his nursery will be a nursery - toddler room. Not quite a big boy toddler room, but not a nursery with a crib, but it will still feel like a nursery geared toward our growing baby pre-toddler, lol. 

I'll share more of the details on the plan for his nursery - toddler room once I know the direction its going in! 

What do you think of the gallery wall, was I heading the right direction with the placement of the art prints?? 

Our New Normal

A HUGE thank you and HUGE hug to each and every person that left a comment on my blog, I've read every comment, emailed me and just sent good vibes to my family. Your words of kindness and love really helped and is helping me get though rough days. Another big hug to Summer & Brandi, who wrote the sweetest blog posts about my family, just because they cares about us. Thank you Summer & Brandi love you!! In the end, I feel blessed that my family is all good! That is the hugest blessing of all, that we are all a family together still. We are hanging in there and adjusting to our new normal, and I think once we progress begins on re-building our house I'll feel good and once we get though all the insurance mumbo jumbo I'll feel calm again. 

I wanted to say my many thank yous much earlier, but I just haven't had the words, which is odd for me, because if you've been reading my blog for a while you know I'm a wordy girl, lol. It feels good to type and write this post. Finally writing it all down is helping me, I've said before I love blogging and sharing and getting my thoughts & ideas out there. I guess I've needed time to compose my thoughts and it helped that we've settled into a temporary home, instead of bouncing around from hotel to hotel.

That day I was having lunch with one of my good girlfriends when I received a phone call from an unknown number, I normally never answer those. On the other end of the line was Hasani calling me out of breathe with panic in his voice, saying our fence was on fire. I wasn't freaked, I figured everything would be fine and it must be a little fire. Seconds later he called again, saying our garage was on fire, then the phone went dead. By this time I was almost to my car, when he called again saying the fire truck was there and it doesn't look to good. My body almost melted into the asphalt near my car, but I knew I couldn't have a breakdown in the parking lot, after-all Avery was with me and I needed to drive 30 mins back to our house, I knew our older son and my nephew who was over where fine, thank god, but I didn't know about Mojo. As I was driving I all I could think about were the words our house is on fire, and then I would think of Mojo and wonder if he was ok? What if he was in his crate and they forgot him inside our dining room, or what if he was in our backyard and couldn't escape the fire? Too many thoughts going on in my head. 

It was one of the longest drives of my life and I felt sick to my stomach, and dizzy. As I neared our street, I saw a massive fire hose in the middle of the street a street up from our home. I wasn't able to pull down our street, there were four of five fire trucks blocking our street. I went around the corner and parked at the very end of our street, I looked back and saw that Avery was asleep. I called Hasani and it went straight to voice mail. I got out of my car to see our neighbors staring at our house and the fire trucks. By the time I got their the fire was already out, and our home was still standing. But the whole thing was surreal, seeing the Fire Fighters hose down our home, it was crazy. I'm so thankful for the Fire Fighters for saving our home, as they told me it couldn't have been much worse, thinking of the much worse brings me to tears. I thank God every day for the blessings I have in my life. Though all of this, Hasani has been my Rock, the shoulder I've been able to cry on, lean on, complain to he's just an amazing person and father and I'm so luck to have (still) him in my life. 

As for what caused the fire, we have no clue, just that it started outside. They are investigating the origin of cause. Our Neighbors actually saw the fire and called 911 and Hasani heard the fire. I know that sounds strange, but he heard the crackling noise, which sounded like running water. When he realized it was a fire, he screamed for Tabari and my nephew to run out of the house. The fire quickly speared from our fence, to our garage then into our kitchen / dining room and into the living room. The whole house has smoke, and water damage. It spread super fast inside house because our AC Unit was running while the house was on fire. Fire smoke it the worst smell, it gets into every fiber and I do mean every fiber. 

A few days after our fire, our insurance company  had our home was tested for Lead and Asbestos { due to its age } Our home was positive for Asbestos in the linoleum which our faux wood floors were floating on and in the drywall (mud and tape). The Abatement company will be at our home this week, to remove the Asbestos. We are still in the early stages of putting our home back together, we've heard it may take three months which would be wonderful. Last week was a rough week for me, 97% of our personal belongings are gone either damaged by the fire or smoke and asbestos damaged. I know its just 'stuff.' but I love my stuff, I was telling my girlfriend its likes like 80% of our houses 'stuff' tells a story, our story. Then there's stuff we can never get back like pictures and my husbands wedding ring. He was doing dishes and took it off in the kitchen that morning, we still have found it. Plain and simple it just sucks. 

So I look into the future, that makes me smile. I look forward to filling our small home with lots of love again, and can't wait to hear the sound of laughter in our house. My family loves to laugh! I know it sounds strange, but I love my home even more now. Its filled with so many happy memories in the 3.5 years we've lived here. We had our Wedding Reception in the backyard, celebrated the Holidays here, and just last June brought home Avery and just recently celebrated his birthday in the backyard. Not to mention all the DIY Projects we've done, makes me love our little house even more. 

I hope to be back blogging 2-3 days a week, maybe starting this week? :) We have no Internet access at our home right now, boo! Hopefully we will find a new provider, its been tricky in our temporary apartment  they use fiber optics at home its DSL! So its hard to find one that can just move with us, back home :) Anyways, I'll get all that sorted it out soon. I'm able to use the Internet at the apartment office :)  Pretty soon, I hope to be blogging about the construction, picking out paint colors, fabric, looking at furniture and playing around with a few ideas and finally getting a pretty kitchen. We were so close, sigh.

Don't forget to follow me on Pinterest (thank goodness for smart phones, lol I can pin on mine!) I'm also on Instagram @mrsclh 

Here are a few of my recent Instagram pictures. Avery playing with his mail box! I found this little wood mail box on Amazon. He loves it :) It even came with wood mail: post cards, and stamps. 

Avery inspecting his homemade yogurt Popsicle. I'll share my little recipe I used soon. He loved his Popsicle, perfect healthy treat for summertime, heck anytime. In the background Hasani and Tabari are playing Nintendo. Notice the cords? They are playing old school Nintendo, for my childhood. My mom let us borrow it. I've had so much fun playing games I loved as a child with Tabari. Him and I love playing Mario Brothers 2 - I'm loving the retro graphics.

Thank you all again!! Your support really means the so much to me. Everything I hold dear to my heart it in the picture above, my boys, LOVE THEM

Update: I forgot to mention our little dog, is safe and sound! Tabari grabbed him when he ran out the door. Quick thinking on Tabari's part saved our beloved family member. He's adjusting really well to our new temporary spot! 

letsbeselfsufficient

letsbeselfsufficient

Chic Little House - House Fire

Greetings Chic Little House Followers, 

My name is Summer and I am a friend of Katrina's. I have some news to share about Katrina and her family. On Saturday, July 7, 2012 Katrina's home was involved in a fire that has left her home inhabitable. Katrina and I have been friends for quite some time, I know she has mentioned that before, and to hear the pain in her voice when she called to tell me, still saddens my heart. At this time, I am hoping followers of Katrina's blog would offer support and words of encouragement to the family. There are many tough days ahead, as a good portion of Katrina's home must be rebuilt and many items are total losses due to smoke damage. 

Katrina and her husband have worked so hard on making their house a home as you all know...

each step of the way, a little more love went into their home

Katrina and Hasani inspired us all with hard work and diligence to see a task completed

And while its hard to think about what they have lost, my heart rejoices in what remains..

 They are all still together... safe

I am most grateful for that!

If you would be so kind, please extend your thoughts and prayers to my dear friend and her family. Post a little bit of strength, a scripture for comfort or whatever your heart leads you to say. While homes can be rebuilt, replacing family is impossible. 

God truly spared a few angels to give us all more time to know and love them and to demonstrate our own kindness by helping them now that they need us. 

If you have any questions, or would like to help in other ways, please contact me at my blog theshadesofsummer.blogspot.com or Brandi from Don't Distrub This Groove at bet1975.blogspot.com

I appreciate you all, and pray God's blessing upon your families as well.

Best, 

Summer

Our 4th of July BBQ

I hope everyone had a fun-filled 4th of July Celebration! Wasn't it kin-of awkward that is was right in the middle of a working week? I prefer Holidays almost at weeks end, hello more time off, lol. But we made the most of it and crammed as much in as possible: Shopping, Parade Watching, Movies our yummy BBQ and of course Fireworks. As you know my man likes to grill, and we shared one of our favorite grilling adventures just the other day {BBQ Carnitas Nachos} I found a gingham paper table cloth while grocery shopping for $ 1.99 knowing it mode make the perfect table runner for a future outdoor dinner, I'm glad I bought it! It look so cute hanging out with our all white dinner ware. We kept our BBQ Menu Simple, but tasty. We served up Corn on the Cob with butter & Cotija Cheese, Bake Beans, Red Skin Potato Salad, BBQ ribs and Burgers. We also had fresh fruit, Watermelon and Plums. The Plums are actually from our tree in our backyard! This is the first year they where ripe, and we have a ton. We plan on giving a bunch away to friends and family and I'll be using some in baking recipes :) 

I also picked up a few citronella candles to place on our table, to help keep the bugs away.  

For the past couple of months my favorite cook book is Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, filled with amazing recipes. So far I've made Banana Split Cupcakes, Vanilla Confetti Cupcakes and Strawberry cupcakes. I planned to make cupcakes for 4th of July, but wasn't sure which ones I wanted to bake. I came across a One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcake recipe that looked tasty and easy, a winning combination.

Over the past few weeks, I've starting falling in love with cute cupcake wrappers, when I saw these gingham at Wal-Mart for $1.75 for 75, I couldn't resist. Plus, they matched the gingham table cloth I bought and used as a runner for our table. My new favorite background for taking food pictures is quickly becoming our new counters. 

One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients 

1 1/2 All Purpose Flour

3/4 Cup unsweetened Cocoa Powder

1 1/2 Cups of Sugar

1 1/2 Teaspoons of Baking Soda

3/4 Teaspoon of Baking Powder

3/4 Teaspoon of Salt

2 Large Eggs (room temperature)

3/4 Cup of Buttermilk (I had no Buttermilk on Hand, so I used this substitute)

3 Tablespoon of Vegetable Oil

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

3/4 Cup of Water

Bake It

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees, line your cupcake pans with liners. I double lined mine, I wanted to be sure the gingham pattern on the liners would be seen since I was baking chocolate. Shift together flour, cocoa powder, salt, sugar, baking soda, baking powder together in a large bowl. Next add in the eggs one at a time, warm water and buttermilk, oil and vanilla until smooth. I mixed after adding each ingredient one at a time. Pour batter into each liner, filling 2/3 full. Next bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes, insert toothpick to check when they are done. Cool on wire rack. 

Frosting

I found an amazing butter cream frosting recipe from Savory Sweet life. It was simple, just using 6 simple ingredients. Click here for the recipe. I attempted to frost the cupcakes old school Magnolia style {not as cute, but I'll get there, I think!} I topped each cupcake with a M&M and called it a day :)

Hasani said they were amazing, and he couldn't stop eating them an asked me not to make them again since he couldn't resist. To bad his birthday is this month, because I'm making these again, lol. 

How was your 4th of July? Did you BBQ and making any yummy treats for your family and friends?

Counter Happiness

Today makes it officially one week, since our counters were installed. A full seven days of counter happiness, and oh do they make us happy! Like seriously happy: like I did a happy dance, kissed my new counters, beamed with joy kind of happiness! Yup, they make this girl, that happy. After all we did a huge upgrade from our previous counters, which were white tile  extra ugly brown grout, and the we also had a matching backslash for extra credit. not to mention, we lived with this tile for over three years, and I hated spending time in this kitchen. Walking in there pretty much sucked the life out of me, I know I'm being overly dramatic but I gotta share my feelings, lol. Now before I can share our in progress kitchen pictures, here's what our kitchen looked like before, good bones but plenty of ugly. Oh and I should warn you now, this is one my long wordy posts, heck most of my posts our wordy, lol. 

A few weeks ago in mid May, I shared some solid surface samples we were considering for our kitchen counters. We like two colors both from Corian, but the prices were drastically different. One route we would spend $ 975 and the other our option our new counters would cost $ 1800.00 for only 25 square feet, our old rough measurements. We budgeted $1K for new counters not included misc. counters charges, faucet, sink and new garbage disposal. you can read more about those options here. At the beginning of June we stopped in our local Lowes to look at more samples, both of us weren't 100% sold on the idea of solid white counters even though it looks great in other homes, like YHL. We just thought it wouldn't be a good fit for our homes kitchen. 


We decided to take another look at the LG HI-Macs, after reading the great things you all said about them and Lowes installing the product in your home. That's how a new color from LG caught our eyes plus we like the warranty & ease of care. Here's some quick facts about LG Hi-Macs straight from their website.

• Normal Care: HI-MACS® is non-porous, so it can be wiped clean with a damp cloth or sponge and mild detergents or general purpose cleaners such as Mr. Clean.
• Spills and Stains: While most everyday spills can be removed with the cleaning techniques listed, some troublesome spills and stains such as food dye, tea, and fruit drinks may require more aggressive cleaning. These items can be removed with full strength bleach followed by a general cleanse
• Warranty: 15 Year Warranty on Solid Surface Materials 
• Repairing Scratches: For removing superficial scratches, rub in a circular motion with a wet # 7448 Scotch Brite buffing pad until the scratches are removed. Clean thoroughly with soap and water and let dry

The funny thing is we saw the color before and loved it, but the price point was way out of our budget and I refused to even consider it, after all the last time I did that I found out Corian Rain Cloud was $72 a square foot, and we had to keep it moving. We we stopped into Lowes, and talked with a Kitchen CSR, we mentioned how much we liked the LG Hi-Macs Cotton Dust color over going with the standard solid white, we also shared it wasn't in our budget. He smiled and called of the fabricators / installers to see if they have are aware of any sales coming in the future on the color we like. As luck would have it, they we starting a new sale that week, but not yet sure what colors listed on the special. He suggested we leave our name and number, and he would call us and let us know which colors were going on sale. 

A few days later, I received a phone call letting me know the color we loved Cotton Dust was special for an amazing price of $ 37.00 a square foot!!! Which means the price point dropped from Group C Pricing all the way down to Group A pricing!!! Which meant huge savings for us, oh and since we were buying over 25sq feet of counters we also qualified for a free stainless steel under mount sink!!  Yes, sir we saved a lot of money on counters we love and a new sink! Before I share our new counters and our counter price breakdown, here's a reminder of how our kitchen looked after we ripped out our old tile counters, back splash and kitchen sink. Our kitchen started looking better and not so dark.

Here's my kitchen now in Progress. We really love how the counters turned out!! I love how seamless and clean lined the LG Hi-Macs are and feel. They are heavy and solid, and substantial feels like solid stone, type of solid. Out fabricator was amazing he's been installer { solid surface, granite, quartz for over 20 years } and said this new color reminded him of Quartz or Limestone it reminds me of Quartz too! The color is a very soft grey, with flecks light and dark grey almost reminds me of crystal. I'm also in love with our new faucet, its from Peerless. It's a one handled pull down faucet. We went with chrome to add a bit of bling in the kitchen, and I'm so glad with did. It's super high, but not crazy high, just the perfect size. 

I love the curves :)

We loved the eased edge on our counters, likes like a pretty block, nice and thick. We actually have a 2 inch font on our counters instead of the regular 1 1/2 size, which gives it a more modern look. The picture below is one of the best examples of how our new counters look. 

We also love our new sink, nice and DEEP. Like super deep, I'm in love with it. I bought this simple metal strainer to place inside our sink so when I put dishes in side nothing scratches or breaks on the stainless steel. 

I love how seamless and clean lined our new counters feel!!! 

Now for our cost breakdown our counters. We ordered 26 square feet of counters, @ $37.00 a square totaling $ 962.00. Plus an additional fee of $ 150.00 for the sink cut out and sink being mounted on counter. Then we paid for them using our Lowes Credit Card, which saved us an additional $ 55.60 { next we paid off the full amount of our counter purchase, didn't wait finance fees :) } the final total of our counters { not including tax, since tax varies county by count and state by state I'm leaving it out } was $ 1, 056.40. We came in under budget on our counters, since we budgeted only $1K for counters only - that budget didn't include the sink cut-out, new faucet, sink and garbage disposal. Now lets add up the savings shall we :) 

The original price of our counters were $ 54 a square foot, thanks to the sale we saved 

$ 442.00!! Plus we saved an additional $ 170 bucks on a stainless steel sink, we most likely would have purchased from Overstock here. So that's a savings of $ 612 bucks that were able to go elsewhere in our kitchen redo :) Oh, and just to make me extra giddy about the savings, I noticed Corian sells almost the identical color we bought, called Silver Birch for $ 61 bucks a square foot! Ok, math problem one more time we would have spent $ 1586.00 on Corian, instead we saved $624.00 going with LG HI-Macs, and our installer prefers LG HiMacs, he had them in his own house for years. 

Now with the counters completed we still have much more to do. Next up removing the old drywall and installing new drywall that we can tile over with pretty white subway tile! Little by little its all coming together. I'm excited for the next steps ahead, because once my counters are painted white, I know the beauty of our new counters will stand out even more :) And my kitchen won't be so dark and I'll be able to take better pics :) and hopefully get better taking pics :) lol 


What do you think of our counters?