City Island Southern Girl: Redecorating - a Sneak Preview and Food :)

Hello followers and visitors! I was just thinking about closing this blog down, but then I come today and find two more followers. Thank you! :) I am trying to decide what to do with it, however. For the most part it has been about TRYING to eat so much raw to get healthy, but I tell you - it's getting cold in New York and I am struggling to keep as raw. I will probably still have lots of smoothies, but I am craving hot stuff like soups, chili, stews and even some warm bread. Another thing is that I am so tried of battling gnats. They came in with the bulk raw stuff that we buy and we have been infested with them. The other thing that is affecting my raw efforts is money. I received my school loan about a month an a half ago, and I wanted to redecorate. This apartment was so depressing looking. We have lived here for six years and nothing was changed except the painting of the kitchen last year. Everything just looked so - I don't know... drabby. Now they money for buying so much raw is depleting... not that raw is THAT expensive, but it is when each time I have to bring a cab home. That adds up. Bus fare is now going up to 2.50 so that's $5.00 per trip for my husband and I and $20.00 for the cab, for a total of $30.00 just to go buy the bulk raw foods. If we don't buy in bulk the high fare adds up making so many trips. Advice: Don't move to New York - it's expensive any way you look at it! I was thinking of maybe sharing some healthy-like recipes instead of just what I eat and my journey. My husband and I are pretty good cooks. I love that he loves to cook. It saves me so much hassle in going to school, but I like to cook occasionally too. I don't know. I don't really want to close it down. I have fun doing this - especially when I get to go out and take photos of things to share and so forth. Today I have a sneak peek at my redecorating.

Earlier this week we put down a new kitchen floor, and I LOVE it! The old one was UGLY. It was dark gray and was dreary as they come. Its decorative layer (if you can call it that) was peeling off and leaving white spots, to make it look as if we painted with no drop cloth.

Here are the before photos.

Ignore the beat up chairs. I painted them last year, but didn't use a protective clear coating on them, and this is what happened.

Ignore my husband's feet too. :)

Here's the after...

I was pleased at how close we got to the threshold. We are NOT professional redecorators or tile layers, but we had fun LOL.

I scratched it while putting things back. :(

I don't know what's wrong with my camera. It's not picking up true colors. The tiles are actually a much warmer honey color that what they appear here. I want to do the bedroom floor next when more money comes. We have to do everything bit by bit on the tight budget we are on here.

Oh we ate pizza since we couldn't get in the kitchen to cook or make anything raw.

Here is another shelf my husband put up for me in the kitchen. This makes a bit more room in the cabinets.

I am painting my bedroom suit too. I have just done a few drawers, but here's the color. Again, this is not a true color...

This is more the true color that my bedroom suit will be... a little bit lighter.

This is the paint job we did on the walls yesterday... My bedroom is not decorated, but is actually a disaster. We still have MUCH work to do, which I will share with you. :)

Again... this is more like the true color, but I wanted to show you my wall. :) It's the top peachy orange color... it's actually called Eastern Amber.

This is how I decided the colors. I bought this little pillow, and found this bedspread to match. (I bought matching curtains too, which you will see later). And so I just decided to paint these peachy and green colors and tie everything in. I am excited to see the final product - especially when we get the new floor, hopefully at the beginning of next year. Oh, and we bought a new light fixture too! I can't wait until it's installed and ready to show you. - Oh, and I think we are doing the bathroom too. It seems I bought too much paint, so I am going to take advantageous... and I'm hoping to put some tiles behind my kitchen sink and oven... so stay tuned!

We couldn't get to the kitchen yesterday either, so we ate from the deli in the supermarket. We had baked chicken, pasta salad, potato salad and spinach (one meal with mushrooms and avadado - this was from our refrigerator).