A sneak peak

Here is a sneak peak of the cupboards. They look really yellowish in this picture. I am debating about painting the wall also. My husband has tomorrow off, so hopefully we can get the moulding on top and touch up.
I wasn't positive about the glaze at first. I don't ever like a lot of glaze. I don't like it to look messy. It is growing on me though. I also need to decide what curtains to make. I was going to do Roman shades and had bought a kit with all the stuff to make them. Then it got recalled. I'm trying to decide if I want just short ones that hang down, but our table is by the window you can see in this picture and my kids don't have the cleanest hands. I need something that will cover the window since they face west and it gets warm as I'm making dinner in the summer.

Ok, so I showed the bathroom wall awhile ago. I need a color to go with it. It usually looks gray, but around 5pm it looks kind of blueish. I really like apple green, but I'm not sure how that will look during the blueish time of day. We'll have to see... I'm open to suggestions!

Painted Cabinets

Welcome to my kitchen. My messy, messy kitchen. Don't fret, the dishes in the sink are clean. I can't stand the smell of dirty dishes.

I have been thinking about painting my cabinets. Here they are, in their true 80s glory. A year ago our dishwasher broke. It was a lovely almond color. As you can see on your left, there is an lovely almond stove top. The ovens and fridge are on the wall I'm standing against to take this picture. Also, a beautiful, 80s almond color. I hated them. When the dishwasher broke I got a black one. Recently our double ovens broke. My friend had double ovens in black. She had totally remodeled her kitchen and was getting rid of fairly new double ovens. I snatched them up, along with a black gas stove top.

When I went to go pick up the ovens I got to see her brand new kitchen and fell in love. She had beautiful cream cabinets with a slight glaze on them. It was the push I needed to go buy paint and all the supplies to paint my cabinets.

This is the color, although I hope it's slightly darker on here then it will be in real life. It's Kwal's Sunkist Ridge.

It's all been sitting in my garage for a month. I'm a little undecided on the color (I know, a little late now). But I'm wondering if it will look ok with the counter tops. I prefer dark counter tops with light cabinets, but that's not in the budget now. These are light with a creamish and black flecks.

The thing that is holding me back the most is the cleaning of the cabinets. I've heard I need to use TSP and that sounds like a huge job. The kitchen isn't that big, as you can see, and I plan to use a paint sprayer for a smooth finish. I just need to get started and do it. I really want it done, the actually doing it part is the problem. Now for a little motivation...

The REAL Stencil

So I had to switch stencils. I was cheap and bought a cheap stencil at Hobby Lobby. BIG MISTAKE. The registration marks were so small it was hard to line up, the stencil itself didn't move well around the corners or top of the wall. It was a mess. I broke down and bought one from Royal Design Studio. So much easier. The registratoin marks were huge and also part of the pattern. It was so easy to line up. It also came with a smaller stencil to do along the top of the wall. Here's the finished wall. I couldn't get the whole thing because it's a small room. I just did one wall. I still have to paint the molding and door. I also accidently got gray paint on the cupboard. I was going to paint that anyway, just not now. It will now be painted a little sooner than planned.

Now, to decide what to hang on the wall.

A project finished (almost)

Once again the time has slipped away from me since my last post. Part of that is because my 4 year old had a septic knee and was in Primary Children's Hospital for 5 days. Three surgeries, two weeks of picc line and one week of oral meds down we are toward the end. Only one week of meds to go and hopefully all this will be cleared up. Last time I posted I showed pictures of our newly painted dining room. I am now in the process of decorating it on a dime. I love to find cheap ways to decorate so that when I'm tired of it, I don't feel guilty finding new decorations. I saw this in the Ballard Design catalog. I loved them because they take up a lot of space on a blank wall, but as you can see they are not exactly decorating on a dime worthy. So I made some myself for about $5. We already had this wood laying around from when my husband fixed our sun room a few years ago. I had him cut it in 12x12 squares for me. Then I painted the edges black.

I found 12x12 scrapbook paper I liked and used spray adhesive to attach the paper to the wood.

And then attached alligator claw hanging things to the back. Of course, this idea wasn't mine. I saw it on several different blogs and one of my friends did it as well. Again, I love the space it takes up!

To the right in the picture you can see the curtains. Curtains are also not decorating on a dime worthy. These ones I found at Home Fabrics for $10 a panel. I went there looking to buy fabric to make my own and found these on clearence. Now I need curtains for my living room. I still kind of want to make them so I can get exactly what I want, but it's looking like making them is as expensive as buying them! Do you have a store that you love that sells home decor fabric? What online stores do you like?

My Current Project

Our house was built in 1979. We wanted an older house because we liked larger bedrooms and living room. Our old house (that was new when we moved in) had a tiny formal living room. It fit our piano and our couch in it and that's about it. It was kind of a waste of space because we couldn't really use it if people came over. I also really wanted a formal dining room. Well, because our house was older it also came with older decorating. It had recently been painted, but it felt cold to me. When we first moved in we took out the forest green carpet and put a wood floor in. I've been slowly painting the inside of the house and it was time for the dining room.

I've been loving molding for awhile now and really wanted to put some in. My husband cut it and put it up and I painted.

The top is Tobacco Road by Kwal. My husband installed crown molding on Saturday. Hopefully we'll get it caulked tomorrow and painted soon too, since we have people coming over on Wednesday. And as I'm thinking that I'm realizing it's probably not going to happen. We'll try! I'll post the finished product later!