Favorite Things for the New Year

We just finished a kitchen renovation…right before Christmas.  Yikes, was it an adventure!  It’s actually my new favorite thing.  But I’ll share a couple of other favorites first, and then you can see the big reveal!

First off, I am in love with this adorable wax warmer from Scentsy.  (Truth be told, I love any vehicle carrying a Christmas tree!)  It goes perfectly in my new little kitchen nook.  It’s by far my favorite wax warmer I have ever seen!  Holly Berry Cinnamon and Homestead Holiday are great choices for a cozy, seasonal scent.  You can buy Scentsy from my friend, Samantha, here.  

favorite Scentsy warmer

There’s a switch on the cord to turn it off and on; when it’s on, the headlights light up!

I’m also in love with these ecloths.  I first heard of these when I stumbled onto Kathryn’s YouTube channel, Do It on a Dime.  One of my goals for the New Year is to keep things cleaner here at home–to stay on top of cleaning so I’m not facing the housekeeping equivalent of Mount Everest every time I clean.  So when I saw Kathryn cleaning her home with these cloths THAT ONLY USE WATER I was instantly intrigued and hopped over to Amazon to snag a set for myself.  I’m so incredibly happy with them!!    They clean with just water and they also remove 99% of bacteria!! (The list you see is the card that came with the box of ecloths.  I laminated it and keep it in my cleaning caddy with the cloths.)  This quickly became a favorite for me.

Check out all of Kathryn’s organizing, cleaning, and dollar store videos–she’s got some great tips.  Love her channel.  And head over to Amazon to grab your own set of ecloths; I’ve already purchased two more sets for gifts.  I mean, who wouldn’t want these?  

favorite cleaning cloths

I’m actually learning to enjoy cleaning with these babies!

Okay, so here’s my BIG favorite: my brand new kitchen.  When we added on to our home, we did not have enough money in the budget to tackle the very tiny kitchen.  So we’ve been waiting patiently impatiently to get it done.  I’m in love with the result!  I have a few things to tweak (and these pics are also a couple of weeks old, so there are a few new wall art elements that are missing) but you get the idea.

Keep in mind that these pics were taken before we were completely done.  I actually took these really quick the other day to send to a friend.  I thought about taking some new pics today, but we’re…uh…still recovering from New Year’s cookery in this kitchen.  So she’s not camera-ready at present!  But she’s still my favorite!  (Wait, the kitchen is a she?  Does that mean I need to name her?)

I’ll put in some before pics for reference…(old phone had a wide angle lens……new phone does not, so the after pics look a little different)

not my favorite kitchen

Here’s the view from my living room entry way. At this point we were in the middle of emptying the kitchen.

Look at this amazing transformation:

favorite kitchen

Aaaaaaand the new view. SO much more space and I love how open it is!  Don’t mind the stack of wood on the counter….dur!

How about this view from the triple window?

not my favorite kitchen

Why is all my wood the same color???

So much more soothing to look at this new view.  Well, except for the mess in the living room.  We were still adjusting!

favorite kitchen

I can seat 7 at my counter!!

And the view from the bottom of my back stairs, totally blocked with that wall.

not my favorite dining room

But now…..aaaaaaahhhhhh….oh, and look….there’s Henry!

favorite dining area

I do need to show you one more picture though.  I don’t have a before shot of just the space in front of the picture window.  But if you look at the last before pic, you can see that we just had a small sofa in front of that window.  This was a weird space.  Before we added on, that area was actually the dining room and my current dining room was actually our living room.  So, that window area became this strange, not really usable space where people just came and sat (and it was also quite the catch all!).  But now look at it….

favorite window seat

I’ve had more than one person ask if we put in a different window or changed it in any way. Nope! Same window, but now it looks AMAZING!

I’m so in love with this kitchen.  We have several more home projects in the works, but I don’t think anything will make as much of an impact as this very favorite room, my kitchen.

You’ll be hearing more from us each month on our favorite thing/things.  We’re excited to share our finds with you and hope you’ll do the same.  Hope your Christmas was wonderfully magical and that your New Year is starting out with abundance.

Happy New Year!!!

 

(no sponsored content in this post, just my own recommendations)