It's a Blue Kitchen!

Hey! Remember me? I blog. Sometimes. Not often. Okay, close to never. It's been a super-busy Spring at our house. We've had a lot going on, including diving into our painting projects. We've been in the new house for eight months now, and this kitchen was about to drive me crazy! D was taking a couple of days off work, and as a concession to me, he said that he'd help with painting a room while he was at home. He did not anticipate that I would choose the kitchen. Probably he'll qualify his chivalrous declarations in the future. The big problems with this room were the lighting, the wall color, and the beat-up cabinets. So, pretty much everything. (Someday we'll replace the dated appliances, but that wasn't in the budget.) We took down the awnings, and we tried to take down the wallpaper border. It wouldn't budge. We ended up just painting over it. Ugh. This fluorescent beast has greeted me every morning for the better part of a year. I was not sad to see him go. When we went to Lowe's to pick out new lighting, D took a picture of this thing to ask those friendly folks about how we should get it down. The lighting guy was really tickled to see it. He said that these lights were pretty common in Bella Vista in the 70's. Hmmm. Our house was built in '96. . . (Side note - we usually go to Home Depot - they've been very helpful in the past, but their lighting selection didn't hold a candle to Lowe's. Candle. Get it? Sorry. I couldn't help it.) My knight in shining armor, who's just risked life and limb to wrestle this thing to the ground. Painting the cabinets was a huge project. I had no idea how time-consuming it would be. I'll give you a summary: take off doors; repair; sand; prime; paint; paint; paint; paint; rehang doors. Okay, that doesn't sound like that much work, but it took forever. And the finished product: We left the doors off one of the double-cabinets. I wanted some openness there, and I like having all our pretty white dishes out. I love a plate wall. Especially when all the dishes are white. I found these at T.J.Maxx for $8 and $5. Can't beat it! When P saw the dishes on the wall for the first time, she laughed her big laugh and said, "You can't put plates on the wall!" Au contraire. Two of the pitchers were made by my Granny; the other one was a T.J.Maxx find. And now that the fluorescent light is gone, the dishes actually look white and not dingy! Hooray! Sorry for the lighting in this one - it's too bright outside to get a good indoor shot. That, or I don't know how to use my camera. I wanted a good picture of this window treatment. It's made out of a tablecloth from Williams Sonoma - the only splurge in the room. I bought it months ago, and it was the inspiration for all the colors in here. Turns out, it's super-easy to make a tablecloth into a poofy window treatment - all I did was box pleat it until it was the right width, then threaded it onto the rail. Then I just gathered it up across the bottom and pinned it with safety pins until it looked right. Since it was already hemmed around the edges, I didn't have to sew anything other than making a pocket for the rod. Our next project is the kids' playroom. I want to do a big chalkboard and book storage/display ledges. . . I'll let you know how it turns out. Hopefully it won't take me five months to post again.