Painting Is Easy. Choosing a Color Is Not.

The day we walked into this house, I knew I wanted to paint the kitchen. It took me months to finally decide on a color. Some days I wanted to stick my head in the sand and hope and wish someone else would do it for me. No such luck. My husband is a smart man. He would NEVER pick a color and paint without my approval. He would hear about that (and not in a good way) for the rest of his life. #happywifehappylife 😉

I had to think of the house as a whole. I like for the rooms to blend or compliment each other. I wanted a bold color but also one that would blend. Talk about a challenge…for me. I’m not good with that kind of stuff. Give me a recipe book and I can cook for days. Give my an empty room and tell me to decorate it…insert head in sand! Or better yet, I may just run away!

Here’s what I knew…I knew what I liked. I knew what kind of bar stools and kitchen table we were getting. I also knew that I’m always drawn to the beach and all of those beautiful shells! Now, how to bring it all together and have it look nice.

Like I wrote in my last post about painting the kitchen, I googled & pinned for days. After much ‘research’, I finally decided on a blue, a nice navy blue. Great! The hard part is done, right? WRONG! Try going to the paint store and picking out a nice navy blue. Ugh…

I narrowed it down to ‘Inked’ and ‘Very Navy’ but ‘Very Navy’ scared me. It was really dark!

These swatches stayed taped to the wall for a few days but I’m sure if you ask my husband he would say a few weeks. One morning over coffee, I took the plunge and chose ‘Inked’. That’s it. It’s only paint. If I don’t like it, I’ll just repaint it a neutral tan color and be done with it. Gotta keep moving forward…

In the process of choosing the color, I did start painting over some of the painted on brick. And of course, every session of nighttime painting begins with a glass (or two) of my favorite red wine!

Before…

And the after….

Woohoooo!! Brick be gone! Now, let’s get going with that blue!

#icrackmyselfup

Stay tuned…

Change the look of your kitchen with just a little paint!

It’s no exaggeration to say that I spend ALOT of time in my kitchen. I’m a stay at home mom with 3 kids, 4 if you count the husband, and they require to be fed on a routine basis….like every 10minutes, no lie!

When we were house hunting, finding the perfect house with the perfect kitchen was a bit on the impossible side. I almost nixed the idea of putting an offer on the house we are currently living in because I HATED the kitchen. I hated everything about it…

the old cabinets

the white appliances

the cream color formica counter tops

the light colored tile, the red paint, the gold sponge paint on top of the red paint and the painted on faux brick on top of the red paint.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the color red. I really do. But it was too much for the kitchen. It wasn’t my style and it made me not want to be in the kitchen.

I firmly believe that the most memorable family memories are made in the kitchen. Any conversation or story that I tell my kids from my childhood, always has us in the kitchen. So I was determined to turn this kitchen around.

I pinned, I googled and I browsed Home Depot. I knew what I wanted but I couldn’t get the husband (or the checkbook) to go for it, no matter how hard I tried. Deep down, I knew it was unrealistic to redo the entire kitchen so I opted to work with what I had. I still pinned and googled but this time I added a few key terms to help with my search…oak cabinets, white formica, white appliances. I wanted the internet to show me what color paint would work best with what I had because I knew I could get the husband on board with that and he would love it too! I could change the look without draining the bank account. I was determined to LOVE my kitchen again and a little paint could bring me that love…right??

Stayed tuned for Part II…

Prayerful Text

I admit it. I’m a text-aholic. And I’ll also admit that I prefer to text over talking on the phone. It’s quick, easy, can be done while all the kids are screaming, can be one word or even one letter. It’s the perfect way to communicate. Today, I did something I have never done before with my texting. I typed a prayer to my husband.

With both of our busy day-to-day schedules, his in the business world and mine in preschool land, we rely heavily on text and email to stay in touch through out the day. It works for us.

Today is probably one of the more stressful days we have had in a while. In the beginning of November, we put our house on the market and 4 days later we took it off because we were officially “in contract.” Never in a million years did we ever think that would happen! Talk about putting the rush on finding a new house now!

Low and behold, we found one. One that we could raise our family in and one that we could grow old in. It’s perfect and in a wonderful neighborhood with awesome schools. Yesterday, we signed the papers and the realtor was delivering them to the sellers that afternoon. We didn’t hear a thing until this morning and it was something about the sellers receiving another offer. WHAT?! And just like that we froze. We still know nothing and it’s almost 3pm. We are still frozen and Elsa & Anna are nowhere to be found to help break the spell. (Lame, I know…but remember I live in preschool land). This not-knowing is about ready to give the husband a heart attack. So… before I went to pick up the girls from school, I sent this text:

It was the only thing I could do to help him, to help us. I’m curious to know if it brought him any comfort but I’ll wait until tonight to find out so I can see it in his face. Surprisingly enough, this time I didn’t have to go searching for comfort in the kitchen (good thing because the oven is on the fritz!). I actually found comfort through prayer.

Beautiful the mess I am…

Love & Prayers,

Katie