Kitchen fun!

The kitchen is in the center of our home.  It's where we cook, eat, and craft.  It's where homework is done and brownies are baked.  Life happens in the kitchen and so, I thought I would share how our kitchen has slowly (VERY SLOWLY) been made into a space that makes me happy.  This space started out as my least favorite spot in the house and has turned into one of my favorite spots.  I still have BIG plans for the kitchen, but they involve demo and a construction crew.  That's not going to happen anytime soon.

I just spent the last hour searching for pictures of our kitchen when we first moved in.  I was just reminded of how it was not my favorite pick when we first looked at it and it took a lot of convincing from my husband that this was the house for us.  I wrote a lot about our house in this post last year. It was a good house, in a good neighborhood, with a great school . . .it just needed some TLC.

When I finally found pictures, I remembered why we didn't take a whole bunch.  It was really, really bleh.  The walls were covered with some cream wallpaper with ivy leaves all over it and then topped with a coordinating border.  The trim was painted green to match and the linoleum was crawling up the sides of the wall and had a large spliting line down the middle.  It was also brown and yellow.  The kitchen cabinets were in great shape, just not the ideal color.  And there were lots of cabinets, which was a great selling point because I like kitchen stuff. I found some pictures from when we first moved in and 6 weeks after moving in when I hosted my MOPS table for a playdate.

 A few weeks after that playdate, I sort of snapped one day during Ethan's nap.  I could not take the green leafy print any longer.  Out came the spray bottle and a scraper and down came the wallpaper.  That's how Jon found me when he came home from work. 

I knew from the moment we started looking at houses that I wanted grey walls.  I thought I had the perfect color until I started painting it.  We woke up the next morning to purple walls!  Not exactly the color I was looking for.  So, after some serious grey analyzing, we found the perfect color.  The color ended up being Mountain Pass, by Valspar. 

We learned a very valuable lesson on grey.  Grey is hard.  It can be too purple, too white, too blue, or too black.  This is definitely a color you should test out before you paint and in all light settings. Lesson learned.

So for several years, the walls were grey and that's it.  We also had a baby and got a new oven during that time.  I eventually started to paint the cabinets while the boys napped.  The goal was to get it done before we tore out the flooring.  But, I was slow.  I mean I was blogging, running our MOPS program, two boys under 4, homeschooling preschool for Ethan . . . there was a lot of stuff happening. 

Anyways, we finally did the floor two years ago and put in the wainscoting and molding along the ceiling.  What a difference that made.  Then, this past Christmas, I finished the last of the cabinets.  I painted them with Annie Sloan Graphite Chalk Paint and dark wax.  It gave them nice matte finish and they have held up really nicely.  

 This wall is one of my favorites.  All of the paintings on this wall were done by Jon's aunt.  She is amazingly talented.  They are all on newsprint and tie in perfectly with the grey.  Also, if you are wondering about all the index cards with words on it, I promise that's not some new decorating trend.  Those are Weston's sight words so that he can practice while he's emptying the dishwasher or running through the halls.  It has really helped this year!

So, that's our kitchen. We just did a few cosmetic changes on the little space to give it a whole new fresh feeling without gutting it.  Eventually, we will look into new counter tops, a farm sink, and maybe taking the wall out behind the toaster to open things up (the dining room is over there).  We have lots of ideas, but other things are in line first. 

Let me know if you have any questions about details that I may have left out. . . I would love to answer your questions! 

Thanks for stopping by!