Home Improvement Project #1

We have been in our house now for two years and haven't painted a thing. Not one little thing. We didn't paint as we were moving in because our move was so quick that there just wasn't time. Then we didn't know what color we wanted to paint and so we decided to wait until we had our new living room furniture and drapes. Well, by the time that was accomplished we had been in the house for almost a year and we still hadn't settled on an exact color. Besides, I was just too busy with school to even worry about it. When school let out last summer the excuse was that it was way too hot to paint anyhow. So, I decided to tackle the project in all of my free time since I wasn't going to be working this year. You know what happened to that. Foiled again, mightily this time. Like any other perfectly rational person, I headed to the paint store last week after my negative pregnancy test. And bought paint for the kitchen before informing Brian that he was going to spend the weekend painting. This is what my kitchen looked like on Saturday morning before we got started.

Before

Don't get me wrong, I love my kitchen, it was just really boring with all white walls and I wanted it to feel warmer and cozier. My dad came over to help supervise and to enjoy the show. Actually, there wasn't much to see. All we accomplished Saturday was to remove stuff from the walls, clutter from counters, and tape everything. Some of the enthusiasm was wearing off by Sunday morning, but we brought my dad over to supervise again. By 5:00 we had all but the refrigerator wall and stove nook painted. I took my dad home then stopped at the grocery store and when I got home Brian had finished the wall that the refrigerator is on. After dinner I got to work on the stove nook. After that I tackled touch ups and clean up and it was just after midnight when I hit the shower. Now you can see our final result!

After

Isn't that much better? I love it! It's a little hard to make out, but the stove nook is painted a deep brick red color. What you also can't see is that we painted the hallway on the left that leads to the closet, laundry room and garage. Now that we know we like the tan color it is going on almost every wall in the house, except for an accent wall and the upstairs bedrooms. My next project will be painting the two bathrooms and our next project will be painting our bedroom and the master bathroom. Oh, and to call the painter man to come paint the living room and dining room and upstairs hallway, as I'm not about to tackle 20 foot ceilings and I'm not about to let Brian do it either! Maybe I'll have the painter man do the family room as well . . .