#HurnEuroVacay Itinerary

Jeff and I just returned from our dream trip to Europe - 14 days in France, UK, and Italy. Here is a quick list of our itinerary and links to the daily posts.

Day 1 – Paris

Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Sacre Couer

Day 2 – Paris

Versailles

Day 3 – Paris

Notre Dame, Louvre

Day 4 – London

Train to London, Buckingham Palace, Les Miserables

Day 5 – London

Kensington Palace, Westminster Abbey, Notting Hill

Day 6 – London and plane to Rome

Camden Market, flight to Rome

Day 7 – Rome

Colosseum and Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon

Day 8 – Rome/Vatican City

Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica

Day 9 – Vernazza

Train/taxi to Vernazza, relaxed in our little city

Day 10 – Cinque Terre

Visited the five towns

Day 11 – Florence

Explored city, Rick Steve’s walking tour

Day 12 – Florence

Visited market, took a rest day

Day 13 – Venice

Train to Venice, got super lost

Day 14 – Barcelona

Flight to Barcelona, explored Les Ramblas

We are going to Europe!

For the past 7 months, I have been diligently planning the Hurns’ DREAM VACATION! This fall, we will be traveling to Europe, and I cannot believe that our departure date is so soon! I have done all of the planning and booking myself, and I did a ton of research through travel blogs. So, I decided that I would share my Europe trip planning tips and steps.

1. Narrow down your options.

Planning a trip to “Europe” is super daunting because Europe is a huge place with so many wonderful cities! Our first step was to make a list of all of the places/cities that we were interested in. This list included: Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Madrid, Barcelona, Prague, Switzerland, Vienna, Ireland, Tuscany, London, and Athens. Visiting all of these places would be impossible in one short trip.

I read some travel blogs, articles, and travel sites to see some sample European itineraries. I marked the places on a map to see what paths made sense geographically. I researched train and plane schedules and prices to see which cities were easy to travel to.

Paris was a no-brainer. I have already been there. I knew that I wanted to go back, and I wanted to take Jeff to see my favorite city. Italy was a must, but I just didn’t know what specific cities we would go to. Ireland was far away from our other destinations, as was Greece and Spain.

After a ton of thought and research, I narrowed it down to Paris, London, Italy (Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, Venice).

2. Pick your dates and book a flight!

Due to our work schedules, we knew that a typical summer vacation was not possible. (Jeff’s super busy time at work is June & July.) So, we first started looking at traveling in August. Due to some luck and Pinterest, I discovered Norwegian airlines. Norwegian airlines only flies out of a couple of airports in the U.S., but their prices are great! I once found a one-way flight to Paris for $169! [I’m still mad at myself for not booking that flight immediately.] After some procrastination, the prices for August flights rose too high, so we started looking at September. September actually seems like the best month because (hopefully) the weather will be nice, but it is not peak tourist travel season.  Plus, if you travel around Labor Day, you get an extra free day off work!

We made list after list of available flights overseas and return flights back to the U.S. We compared dates, prices, possible itineraries, and travel times. Finally, we decided to fly into Paris, and fly home from Barcelona. [The flights from Barcelona to U.S. were so much cheaper, that it made sense to make an extra stop in Europe to save money on the return flight home.]

We booked our overseas flights directly from the Norwegian Airlines site, and our trip was now official!

3. Make an itinerary.

Because geography, I knew that we would visit Paris and London, and then move over to Italy. However, I had no idea which order to visit the Italy stops, nor did I know how long to spend in each city.

We had narrowed our Italy stops down to Rome, Florence, Venice, and Cinque Terre. I created a calendar in Excel with the dates of our trips, and played around with different itineraries. I knew that I wanted to stay in Paris for at least 3 full days, but I thought that 2 days was sufficient for London. So, I went ahead and marked those on the calendar.

I made separate itineraries for different possibilities, comparing travel time, costs, and accessibility. For instance, flights from London to Rome were more frequent and way cheaper than flights from London to Venice. There is a direct fast train from Florence to Venice. So, I settled on this order: Rome, Cinque Terre, Florence, Venice.

4. Book hotels.

From booking our regular New Year’s Eve trips, I had some of favorite sites for hotels/apartments/houses. I checked Airbnb, VRBO, Wimdu and of course the regular Expedia, Hotels.com, Kayak, etc.

Paris: Apartment booked through VRBO in the Latin Quarter

London: London was by far the hardest stop to find a place to stay. London is exponentially more expensive than any of our other stops. I ended up booking a budget hotel with Tune Hotels. I am comparing our room to a cruise ship room – just a bed and a bathroom, no window. We only have two days in London, so I am sure that we will be busy running around the city. As long as it is clean, we should be good to go.

Rome: Apartment booked through VRBO

Cinque Terre: We will be staying in the town of Vernazza in a bed and breakfast booked through Airbnb.

Florence: Apartment booked through Airbnb close to the main squares

Venice: Bed and breakfast booked through Airbnb

Barcelona: We will only be in Barcelona for one afternoon, and our flight home leaves at 8AM the next morning. We decided to stay in an airport hotel, so that we can be sure to make it to the airport on time.

5. Start booking trains and flights.

One of my favorite things about Europe is the ease of travel. I absolutely love trains! We booked our train from Paris to London through Eurostar. I used the Trentalia website to book most of our trains through Italy. I have read great things about the Italo train line and wish that we could have used them more. Italo only stops in certain cities, and only in certain order. We are using Italo for our Florence-Venice train. We will be flying RyanAir from London-Rome and Venice-Barcelona.

6. Now for the fun stuff!

Now it is time to start looking at fun things to do! Read blogs. Read TripAdvisor. Look at Pinterest. Make sure that you look at hours/dates because some museums are closed one day of the week. For instance, the Louvre is closed every Tuesday. Wouldn’t it be a huge bummer if you showed up on your last day in Paris, and the museum was closed?? If museums/attractions allowed online ticket ordering, I booked things ahead of time. No sense in wasting my time abroad waiting in line after line. Some places pretty much require reservations months ahead of time – the Accademia Gallery in Florence (home of Michelangelo’s David). I tried to book our tickets to the Eiffel Tower the day that they became available, and they had already sold out. Guess we will be waiting in line for that one.

We are so excited for our trip. I hope to continue blogging throughout our trip to keep everyone updated on our travels!

Magnetic Chalkboard

I had a big, empty wall in my kitchen, and my kitchen needed some character.  So, what better to add in the kitchen than a giant magnetic chalkboard.

First, I taped off where I wanted the chalkboard to be.  I used a small foam roller (for smooth finish) to apply Rustoleum Magnetic Primer.  This primer is pretty expensive ($20 for a quart), but I only used about half of the can for my board.  I did have to use about 7-8 coats to get the magnetic strength that I wanted. [Also, this primer is not latex - so it is NOT easy to wash off.]

This is what the primer looked like after 2 coats.

This is what it looked like after about 6 coats, and magnets were finally sticking.

After what seemed like a million coats of the magnetic primer, the magnets were finally sticking.  I then applied three coats of Rustoleum Chalkboard Paint.  I used the same kind of foam roller for the chalkboard paint too. [Chalkboard paint is latex and is very easy to clean.]

After letting the chalkboard paint dry for 3 days, I prepared the chalkboard surface by rubbing the side of a piece of chalk all over the board and then erasing. [If you do not prepare the surface, your first drawing will stay on the board forever (supposedly).]

Then, we added a border to the chalkboard using wall/window moulding.  We used a miter box and saw to cut the moulding at 45 degrees.  We nailed the moulding into the wall with finishing nails and caulked all of the corners.

Voila!

 

Kitchen Upgrades

We are finally done with all of the upgrades to our kitchen, or at least the upgrades that we can afford right now.

1. We changed out the hardware on all of the kitchen cabinets.  The kitchen cabinets had dark brass handles and hinges.  They were very loud and antique looking with almost a floral pattern on them. They had to go.  We replaced the hinges with white hinges, so that they blended in with the white cabinets.  We replaced the door handles with a simple brushed nickel handle and added brushed nickel cup pulls to the drawers.

2. I added a magnetic chalkboard on the previously big, empty wall.  You can read a detailed post about the chalkboard here.

What else would you put on a giant chalkboard except the Alabama football schedule?

3. I made some cafe curtains for the window in the kitchen.  Can I sew? NOPE.  Can I use stitch-whitchery? Yeppers.

Notice the framed art?  "I love you more than college football Saturdays." Our house is very football themed right now.

4. I upgraded some barstools that were given to us by recovering the seats with the same fabric as the curtains.

5. We built that island.  You can read the detailed post about our island here.

We Built an Island

Ever since we moved into our house in May, I have wanted to add an island to our kitchen.  Our kitchen had a very open floorplan, and we wanted to add some cabinet/drawer space and some seating. So we built an island.

We started with some unfinished stock cabinets that we bought at Lowe's. One single cabinet and one double cabinet.

The sides of the cabinets were not finished - they were made of a cork-like material.  So we used beadboard paneling to finish off the sides.

We covered the three sides with the beadboard and caulked around the seams (more on caulking later).

We also decided that we wanted to add a bookshelf on the outside end to give the island some character and a customized look.  We actually had some 1x10s laying around the shed, so we constructed some shelves.  We placed a scrap piece of  2x4 vertically under the bottom shelf to keep it up off the floor.

Next, we placed baseboard moulding around the bottom of the three sides and corner moulding down the four corners.  We also added a piece of decorative moulding to cover the seam between the cabinet and the bookshelf boards. Then, we caulked everything - and I mean everything (make sure to use paintable caulk).  We caulked around all of the baseboard moulding, corner moulding pieces, and all of the bookshelf boards.

Then, it was time to prime and paint.  I used two coats of Kilz primer.  The beadboard was already primed, so I really just primed the front of the cabinets/drawers, the bookshelf, and the moulding.  I used two coats of Valspar paint, waiting the recommended amount of time between each coat.  The recommended full cure time was 7 days, so we waited 7 days before putting the doors and drawers back on.

close up of the different mouldings

decorative moulding between cabinet and shelves

For the countertop, we used a 3/4 inch thick piece of oak.  We measured it to hang over 1 inch on 3 of the sides and 12 inches overhang for the bar side.  We used a bowl to mark the curved corners of the top, and used a jigsaw to cut it.  I used two coats of stain and two coats of polyurethane.  The cabinets came with braces with screw holes to attach the countertop with.  We used wood screws to attach the top, making sure that the screws did not go all the way through.  

We also added some decorative support braces under the countertop.

Last, we added some door handles and drawer cup pulls, and finally we were finished!!

This was a very long project that we worked on for over a month.  There was an unfinished island with no countertop in the middle of our kitchen for a very long time.  But I am very happy with the result!

My Home's in Alabama

We recently had to buy a jigsaw for another project that we are working on (post to come).  This jigsaw has opened up so many possibilities for me - things that I have been wanting to make, but haven't had a chance.

Well, our sweet friends Matt and Kimberlee are moving to Canada next week.  I wanted to make them something for their new Canadian house that would remind them of home.  So this is what I made for them:

I used this website to print out the shape of the state.  The site lets you choose how big you want to print the state (it also has countries and world maps and stuff too - it is a great resource). http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps.htm

I traced the shape of Alabama onto a thin piece of plywood from Home Depot, and then Jeff (and Taylor too, I think) cut out the state with the jigsaw.  I sanded the wood lightly, just to get a smooth finish.  I painted the whole thing white.  Then, I created a chevron stencil from some cardstock, by first measuring out some squares, and then drawing diagonal lines to make the zig-zag.  I then taped the chevron stripes that I wanted to remain white and painted over the whole thing with a "crimson" color that I attempted to mix.  To give it a little bit of a more rustic and muted look, I used a dry brush with just a tiny bit of white paint to make the subtle white brushstrokes.  I bought the heart shape from Hobby Lobby, painted it grey, and hot glued it to where Tuscaloosa is on the map.

Kimberlee says that she will hot glue some ribbon to the back and make a cute bow so that she can hang it on the wall.  She will be way better at making the bow/hanger than me anyway.  (You can check out her blog, awesome sewing skills, and Canadian adventures here: http://tobefranklin.blogspot.com/)

Have fun in Canada, Franklin's!  We will miss you!

If anyone is interested in purchasing a state door hanger, a country door hanger (perfect for international adoptions, missions, etc.), Christmas door hanger, or any other holidays - email me or let me know!  I will be glad to make one for you or for you to give as gifts!

China Cabinet Makeover

I have been looking for a piece of furniture for our dining room for a while now because our handmade table was just so lonely in there.  So when I saw this (potential) beauty on a resale website for $40, I immediately left the house to go pick it up.

I loved all of the detail and edges in the doors and moulding at the top - I knew that it would look great with some of my favorite antiquing glaze.

Step 1: Prepare the piece - take the doors off, remove the hardware, and tape around the glass.

Step 2: Sand everything to help the primer stick.

Step 3: PRIME.  I did some research on what to use because the cabinet was not solid wood, and this was my first time painting laminate furniture.  I had heard great things about Kilz primer, so I decided to use it and some foam rollers and brushes.

This was also my first time using Kilz, and now that my project is over, I can say that I am completely satisfied with this product and will probably continue to use it for future projects. However, I feel like someone should tell you this, since no one told me: Kilz does not smooth out easily and does not create a pretty finish.  This is what my cabinet looked like after one coat of Kilz:

I was really worried that I had done something wrong, but now I am pretty sure that this is just the way that Kilz works.  Maybe it would have looked better if I had done a second coat of primer, but I chose not to.  If I had been painting a dresser or something that I knew would receive a lot of wear and tear, then I probably would have used a second coat.  But let's be honest, china cabinets are mainly for looks and don't get opened and closed a lot - so I only used one coat.

Step 4: PAINT.  After letting the primer dry for 24 hours, I applied the first coat of paint.

If I had this to do over again, I don't think that I would have painted the inside of the cabinet.  It was really hard to paint the shelves without getting the paint on the glass, and I am not sure that all of that effort improved the look of the cabinet at all.  oh well.

Step 5: After 24 hours, I applied another coat of paint to the outside of the cabinet - I figured one coat was good enough for the inside.

Step 6: GLAZE! After another 24 hours, it was time for my favorite part: antique glazing!  This is my favorite product:

This glaze last forever!  I have had this one bottle for over a year and used it on at least 4 different projects.  The instructions say to wipe the glaze on with a damp cloth in a circular motion - this NEVER works for me.  So here are my instructions:  

(1) Use a dry brush to apply a thin coat of the glaze.  Make sure to get the glaze in all of the crevices and details.

(2) Use a damp cloth to wipe off the glaze.  I usually only leave the glaze on there or about 5 minutes before I wipe it off.  It is supposed to be workable for up to 15 minutes.  The longer you let the glaze sit, the more it sticks.  The wetter your cloth is, the more it wipes off.  This step is usually trial and error.  If you wipe too much off and there isn't enough glaze, you can always brush more on.
                                          
Here is the side by side of the ornament on the top before and after wiping off the glaze:

The glaze dries pretty fast, so after I finished all of the pieces and doors, it was time to reassemble.  I decided to line the back of the china cabinet with fabric, and I chose some light blue chevron material.

Here is the finished china cabinet: