My (Not So Pretty) Kitchen

The part of remodeling anything that I really don't look forward to.....is the big mess you have to go through and live in before you see a light at the end of the tunnel!

Jason and I started pulling down wallpaper Friday night. We managed to get one layer down (the top part without the backing) and get to bed by 1:30 a.m.! The next morning, Jason had to make a run to the store for sponges and other things we kept thinking of! This always happens....there's always something we didn't think of or a problem arises that requires a trip to town. I've learned to expect this. So...we didn't get started until going on noon. I worked my way around the room removing wallpaper with a sponge, spray bottle of hot water and fabric softner, scraper, and a rag to catch my runs down the wall. Jason came along behind me spackling and repairing the drywall. This seemed like the longest part! (Jason got a picture of me...which I don't like....cameras always add unwanted pounds and I'm in my lovely overalls too, but in all fairness to the photos I take of everyone else and add to my blog, I'm going to go ahead and put it on here!)



The plastic was covering everything, so we couldn't get to anything pretty much the whole weekend! We finally did cut a slit in the front of the plastic of the refrigerator so we could get in there! Joy helped Jason put up the plastic. She actually helped on various parts, but she drifted back and forth between watching her movies and helping us with something we were working on in the kitchen. (Colt managed to dodge this project....he was working again!) :)





After the wallpaper was down, Jason painted the ceiling. I had nothing to do with that but supervising! I don't like painting over head like that, so he took care of that and I'm so thankful!



The next step was priming the walls which we tackled by Jason cutting in with the detail work and me rolling. When Jason opened up the actual paint can color of bittersweet to begin painting, it looked like mud to me!



I was wondering what in the world I was thinking! It was shocking to see my white walls go to such a dramatic bold darker color! You can see by this photo the contrast of the white to the bittersweet!



By Saturday evening, with Jason cutting in and me rolling, we had the side of the kitchen with the bay windows and by the back door primed and painted. We stopped there and managed to get in bed by 12:30 a.m.!

Sunday was Pastor's Appreciation Day at our church so we had a dinner there afterwards and wasn't able to get home right away, but we didn't have church in the evening, so when we did get home around 3:30, we were able to begin again. This time, I finished taping off around the cabinets while Jason cut in and primed again. Then I rolled the paint on behind him and we actually had it finished up and treated ourselves to dinner out at a local Mexican restaurant while it finished drying!

We were able to get all the plastic down and clean up when we got back in and pretty much get things back in order and get in bed before midnight. I still had some minor clean-up work to do on Monday, but we were very pleased to accomplish this in a weekend. I think Jason was surprised too! I think we've learned how to work together the more we do so and things just seem to move along better! It's definitely more fun working as a team!

So the bittersweet paint is on the walls and I'll show you a picture of that when I mop my floors and take some photos! :) I have to say that I have fallen in love with the color! It's so very warm and it's really a hard color to describe as it's not really a green shade but has brown tones also. I think prim accessories are going to really look nice and stand out with it! I'm really excited now and I love to walk in there (although it echoes because there's still nothing on the walls!)

Joy is missing our "old kitchen" but I think she'll be fine when we add in some of the old accessories! Colt likes the color, but says he'll have to "get used to it" and Jason loves it!

Now we're still trying to make decisions on other coordinating factors such as the countertops and more, but for now, I'm so glad to have especially the wallpaper stripping behind us and the painting all done! We did have to put up with our not so pretty kitchen for a weekend, but I just kept envisioning my pretty prim kitchen that we could enjoy one day after all the hard work!