the state of the kitchen

First of all, someone smack me because I forgot to take “before” pictures until I was already knee deep in our yearly cabinet dump. And we’d already finished painting the walls by then. I’m too lazy to dig up a picture, but not that long ago they were green. And the cabinets were this lovely taupe color. Is this taupe? I don’t even know. I picked out both of those paint colors, and I liked them for about a year. And then one Sunday last month we found ourselves with a free afternoon and before I knew it the kitchen was cluttered with rollers, paint cans, and blue tape. And since we were doing the walls I figured we might as well do the cabinets too. 

After many days of a little paint here, a little paint there, this is what we ended up with. It’s a little… blue. The cabinets were unfinished in spots, but I couldn’t bring myself to invest any more time in them. It stayed like this for a week and then I had to break down and admit to Caleb that I didn’t love it. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. “Can we just leave it for another week and assess the situation then?” he begged me, on his way out the door that morning. I agreed.

That lasted all of ten minutes. And then I was back in the kitchen attacking all that blue. And texting him something like “When you see the kitchen later… just remember how much you love me.” To which he replied “Life with you is never boring.”

It took no less than five coats of white paint to cover the blue, but it was worth it because now I love it. I realize this looks very much like wishy-washiness, but I prefer to call it fearless decorating. I tried something and it didn’t work so I changed it.

This guy is amazing. He takes my ideas and makes them reality. And not once did he complain about our kitchen looking like the paint department of Home Depot for the better part of a month.

We added rough wood shelves to the blank space above the cabinets, and grey paint to the foyer doors. We also removed one of the drawers under the sink in preparation for a paper towel holder, still in progress.

So we didn’t quite finish, but we got close enough. And we really really like it this time so maybe we’ll leave it be for a year or so.

(Just kidding, Caleb!)