In The Kitchen: New Blue

For quite a while now, my kitchen has basically looked like this on one side:

 and like this on the other:

It’s the second picture that always bothered me. The upper cabinets were too tall (we have low ceilings) but since they came in the lot of them that we found on ebay way back when, hubby used them. He hated to *not* use them even if they weren’t quite right. So, he made this little corner. What bothered me was that I had this whole area of countertop that I could barely use for more than a few do dads and for piling up organizing papers.

Imagine my delight when while we were away, hubby got a new – free! – microwave that got the ball rolling on a whole new kitchen project. I don’t think he knew what he was in for, and neither did I. The day we got home from vacation, he ripped down those too tall cabinets to put shorter ones in their place (that we already had in another spot that wasn’t working – more on that another day).

Of course we had painted since the installation of the cabinets which meant we needed to repaint. I figured if we had to paint, we might as well pick a new color. So, I chose Behr Cumberland Fog. You should know this about me and choosing paint. I am not one of those people that brings home sample after sample until I get a color just right. I walk into a store, pick up a handful of paint cards and choose one. The only color I’ve ever hated was one someone else made by mixing colors and chose for me. I am not the queen of choosing paint colors – I just know what I like and don’t waste time, I guess. You could show me 26 light blue paint colors and I’d love all of them so why bother wasting time making sure it’s perfect? I know I’ll like it just fine.

Hubby got to painting – which also meant that he painted all the trim white again – yay! So fresh and shiny clean looking now. Having him paint the trim sure beats me having to scrub it. Then he put up the new cabinets, built some open shelving between them and we finally had a functional space in my kitchen where I can store stuff and use the countertop for more than clutter. I also took this opportunity to make a new not clashing curtain for that little section of cabinet. A friend gave me a shower curtain she’d never taken out of the package. I didn’t need a shower curtain so I used it to make this instead.

Here’s the rest of the kitchen with the new blue paint color:

That shelf in the middle of the kitchen isn’t staying. Hubby is still working on one area, so that has been floating around and I’m trying to decide if I can live with walking around a kitchen island all the time before I bite the bullet and buy the island that I love at Ikea. Enough explaining. There it is. New blue in the kitchen and some new functional counter space!

Yes, the chalkboard in the background says First Day of School 2011. Aren’t they cute?