Last week Mike turned 3o, and since he took me to Vegas to celebrate my 30th last year, I wanted to do something big for his, so I threw him a Dirty 30 Fiesta!

It started with the invites.  I wanted it to look like an adult, modern fiesta, like a Dia de los Muertos celebration, and show Mike’s personality.  I found the Day of the Dead skull vector here.

I had found this lodge, which is owned by a neighboring parks district, while I was searching for a wedding venue in 2013.  It was new construction and was only completed 2 months before our wedding, so I wasn’t able to use it then, but I always had it in the back of my mind for a large party in the future.  It turned out to be the perfect backdrop for the fiesta!

It was easy to transform with these Mexican papel picado banners, which are actually plastic and really durable.  Mike also had no desire to get back up on the 12’ ladder to remove these at the end of the night and after who knows how many drinks, so we rigged them up by the dowels on each beam and tied string at each end.  Mike was able to pull the string and pull the banner down safely from the ground!

The tables and chairs were part of the lodge rental, and I was able to buy table clothes for half the price of renting them.  For the table settings I made table runners using serape blankets, and a combination of chips and salsa bowls, sombreros, and Mexican food cans with paper cactus.

There was a large quilt framed on the wall, so I covered in kraft paper and made a giant               3 – 0 with photos of Mike throughout his 30 years (they were seriously giant, each was 4.5 feet tall!). 

This had to have been my favorite project, as it took weeks to get all the photos together, edited, printed, and cut, and that meant weeks of looking at Mike’s mug and remembering all the crazy moments and aww-ing over his baby photos!

I think a lot of people enjoyed looking at all the photos and seeing him throughout the years.  The only problem was I took the photos above right before the party started and the brown paper was too heavy for the numbers so as I walked by it all came down in a big whoosh of paper.  I quickly slapped the numbers back up straight on the glass, but the quilt was then the background.  Not too bad, but not exactly my vision!

Above the fireplace (which was gas – and created some cool ambiance and heat during the party) I used this cute taco party balloon setup by Studio DIY as inspiration. 

I was able to get the cactus balloons online, then had them filled at my local Party City.  The letter balloons were bought online as well and aren’t helium, so my sister and I blew them up, taped them to string, then Mike used washi tape to hang above the fire place. 

In the lobby I kept the decorations to a minimum and reused my sister’s chalkboard from her wedding (she bought it from Ikea and shortened the legs), some 3 – 0 balloons (I have a thing for giant balloons) and some paper fan decorations.  

We set the food and drinks table along the kitchen, which had this amazing barn door.

Mike got a keg of Negro Modelo and we rented a margarita and daiquiri machine, which judging by the amount drank – was a huge hit!  I also believe this was a first for the Danks, we ran out of beer! 

I had a local Cleveland taquero, Barrio, cater the party.  It was half the budget, but so worth it.  It was by far the most talked about thing at the party. 

Another fun activity was the temporary tattoo station.

I bought temporary tattoo paper online, used Photoshop and the Silhouette software to print and cut out a bunch of tattoos, including the skull from the invite and finger moustaches.  They were a huge hit with the kids.

And the adults loved them too!

Overall, we had a great turnout of our friends and families and everything went really well!  The birthday boy had great time and it was a nice mix of an adult party, with enough things to keep the kids happy as well!

The only thing I’d change is to remember to bring out the camera before the 3rd or 4th margarita!  Luckily my memories are a little less blurry then most of the photos I got!

Happy Birthday to my favorite person – please stay a goofball forever!

Some of the most asked questions I’ve received recently are for the dimensions of our kitchen peninsula and the distance between the refrigerator and peninsula.  While I love reading and responding to emails, I wanted to make it easier for everyone to quickly access this information. 

It sounds like a lot of you have similarly sized spaces, and are looking for dimensions to see if a peninsula can work for you.  I’m going to give as much detail as I can, and also be completely honest about our space in the hopes that this helps!

To start, our completed kitchen is 11’ x 12’ 9”, this is measured from wall-to-wall and wall-to-edge-of-countertop-overhang.  

(I rotated it so that we’re looking at the same angle as above)

This was the way that I designed it in the Ikea software because I wanted to have the set dimensions, even though there isn’t a wall between the kitchen and dining room as shown at the bottom of the plan above.

Here are the dimensions of the refrigerator and peninsula:

There is a 34.5” space between the fridge and the edge of the peninsula counter. The counter has a 1” overhang, so the fridge is actually 35.5” from the cabinet edge.

The refrigerator cabinet is 24” and the refrigerator sticks out 4”.  We bought a counter depth refrigerator model to gain as much space as we could.  The handles stick out another 2” if this dimension is important to anyone. 

I mentioned during the planning that we briefly discussed switching the oven and refrigerator so the oven and flanking cabinets would sit in front of the peninsula.  We decided against this obviously, but technically it would have worked, but I didn’t like the idea of blocking the entire opening with an open hot oven. 

I convinced Mike to pose for a photo in front of the refrigerator to give a reference to the amount of space there is when the door is open.

Besides moving the shoes behind the cabinets and wiping off the counters I didn’t stage this –case in point the towel hanging on the handle in the back.  I do that more often than not to keep it dry.

As you can see there’s more than enough room to stand comfortably in front with the doors completely open, as well as room to pass by.  One advantage to this set up is placing all the groceries on the peninsula counter (it makes the most sense anyways because it has the most room) and easily spinning around to put everything in the fridge.

I think this works because of the french door model refrigerator, as well as being counter depth.  I can’t comment on whether a regular size top or bottom freezer would be this spacious.  I’m pretty sure a side-by-side would be pretty much the same as what we have though.  We went from a small top freezer before renovating so our new fridge has been a huge improvement, but we’re also only 2 people, who generally have more take-out than fresh food (except for the Blue Apron meals every week) so we don’t notice a lack of fridge space having a counter depth model.

While I’m talking about our fridge, we’ve owned the Frigidaire Gallery (22.6-cu ft Counter-Depth French Door Refrigerator with Single Ice Maker) for 2 years now and while we generally love it, we’re actually in the middle of waiting for a new ice maker since our broke a few weeks ago.  We bought the extended 3-year warranty from Lowe’s and really glad we did since we’ve had to call on a few minor issues.  I’m not sure we would buy the same model again, but I will only buy models with the Smudge-Proof™ stainless steel option.  I honestly never worry about fingerprints and only give the fridge a wipe down if I’m deep cleaning for a party or guests coming to stay.  We have the same finish on the oven and microwave and it is amazing!

I’ve had a couple questions relating to the peninsula overhang and wanted to share those dimensions as well.

While I kind of guessed on the base cabinet depth, I do know for a fact the counter overhang is 10”.  This is the largest we could do without adding extra supports (we have solid surface counters, so for something like most granite you’re limited to only 8”).  The counter is supported underneath with plywood, but we knew we wanted to fit as many stools as possible without supports like corbels in the way.  We also were limited by the dining room window bump out (seen in this older post).  While 3 adults sitting at the island is a little snug, it’s worth it to have the extra seating.

I hope I’ve helped anyone that’s been curious about specific dimensions, or for anyone in the middle of kitchen planning hoping to get the most efficient design out of their space.  If you have any other questions, please let me know and I’ll do my best to give you specific details!