painting the kitchen

If money was no object, there are several things I'd like to change about our kitchen. Unfortunately, it is, so we're forced to prioritize and be patient as we slowly make changes to match our personal preferences. The kitchen is totally functional and we enjoy the time we spend in it together. That being said, there are some changes we'd like to make. My main beef with the kitchen is how dark it feels. It gets great natural light, but that a lot of that is washed out by the dark wood. Painting the kitchen was the second "project" we started, after we painted our tv room and added a small built-in entertainment center. It has been a long process, but we've finally completed the painting.

BEFORE:

The best "before" picture I could find is this picture from December 2011 when Anthony's parents and brother were visiting over New Year's.

In August of 2012 we began phase one of the kitchen update (painting) by painting the wood paneling, trim and windows white.

Next up I painted the walls Behr Mineral while TJ was traveling in June 2013. It's a nice "greige" (mix of gray and beige) that further brightened up the room. The original color was more of a peachy tan.

FINALLY, this past weekend I painted our last window. We taped it back when we painted the rest of the trim, but kept putting it off because we struggled to remove the blinds. They are attached with what appears to be an indestructible force. We painted around it and you can only tell if you lean way over the sink and look up. It's not perfect, but it looks so much better! Because we left tape up on the windows for over a year and a half(!) it took a lot of goo gone, elbow grease and a razor to get it clean.

 Clean windows for the first time since 2012.

AFTER:

I am only posting pictures of the half of the kitchen we've changed. There are still a lot of things we'd like to do, but in the meantime it feels so much brighter.

a long post about where we hang our coats

Since the new year we've tackled a few home projects that have been on my to-do list for quite some time.

This is our entryway:

Unfortunately, these things are covered in coats or towels most of the year. It really drives me crazy. I hate that the first thing people see when they come to our house is a pile of  messy coats. And yet I consistently put my coat on the pile with the others so I really had no right to complain. I just stewed on the inside. Then one day I saw this cool idea on pinterest and thought it just might work for us! So nearly two years later we did it!

I don't have a great before shot of our hallway, in fact this photo of the kids with Will's friends is the best one I could find:

The wall between the door to our garage and the half bath and stairs is pretty empty. Basically a thoroughfare. Occasionally I would place laundry baskets or other random items in the corner, but that was about it. We decided we could give it a try and enlisted the help of my dad (and his truck, saws and nail gun). 

A few Saturday's later we had this:
 

 aerial view

filling in the gaps and then sanding them down

 Painting (no picture of this step)

hanging hooks

VOILA!

It's still a work in progress, which is why it has taken me so long to post about it. I want to put some sort of decor on the ledge above the hooks, but haven't figured out quite what yet, so it is still empty. Also, seeing how bright the white looks, I am now even more impatient to paint the rest of the dark trim white.

UPDATE (decor):

And the best for last:

 The view from the front door.

Even though the rest of the house is probably a mess, it is so nice having a cleaner, less cluttered entryway. Thanks to my dad and Anthony for bringing my dream to life!

entertainment center redo

When we upgraded to our house our square footage tripled. However, we still are spending most of the day in the same amount of space, the approximately 500 square feet that occupy our family room and kitchen. As such, it has been important to me to make these areas as comfortable, functional and aesthetically pleasing as possible. This is a bit of a challenge because this sort of thing does not come naturally to me.

First order of business was painting the family room, which we accomplished at the first of the year when Doug & Tina were visiting from Boston. I love the color and the room is so much brighter and feels much more relaxing. Thanks again for your help, Doug and Tina!

Second order of business was making use of this space:

According to our Realtor, this used to be a bar, but the previous owners refinished it and used it to house their huge box television.

Because of the logistics of the room (fire place, windows, doors to basement, entryway and kitchen, window to kitchen) this area is really the only place to put a tv. Though our old entertainment center fit, it wasn't the most functional. We were wasting a ton of space! It was driving me crazy that we were using the fireplace to "store" things, when there was all this available space. Not to mention the fact that it was a bit of a eyesore.

Ghetto fabulous

So we enlisted the help of our talented friend Ross, and put together some plans to make a simple built in entertainment center with storage.

Building

Ready to paint.

Making progress

I did most of the painting because when we got to this part Anthony was entering a busy period at work. This is where I found out that TJ is particular about painting methods and that true love means accepting criticism when you are wrong and letting things go when someone points out your flaws (still working on that, obviously).

The finished product.

It's amazing how much more pulled together the whole room seems now that this project is complete. Of course, it helps to have a place to put things instead of in piles of miscellaneous junk on the fireplace.

Thanks again to Ross for all your help and to Lauren for sharing your husband!