I'm going to paint my kitchen.

To celebrate the upcoming 10 year anniversary of our co-owning our home with the bank, I've decided to embrace what I have and paint. I would love to do an overhaul on the kitchen, but economically, we will be embracing a can or two of paint. Maybe I'll swing for the fences and do a little bead board with a chair rail. (Okay, yes it would be wainscoting, but seriously, we're talking pressed wood bead board. Let's call a spade a spade, shall we?)

I'm a fan of borders. I know, not everyone is. I don't go full on wallpaper, but I do think a decorative touch is good here and there. The border that I purchased is this: Do y'all know that the purchase date on the receipt was 5/25/07? I've had this border for over two years. The economy is getting no better.

My kitchen countertop is goldenrod yellow. My cabinets are dark. Dark cabinets are kind of coming back in, so I'll just clean them up and give them a good shine. I plan on changing the hardware, but adding up the cost of hardware or the time to take it all off, paint it and put it back on . . . Cleaning the cabinets will work just fine for now. I have no backsplash, but that shouldn't be a problem to install.

The microwave cart is an atrocity. Truly, I wished that I had the wrap around countertop that I have pictured in my mind, but it ain't gonna happen so again-- I'll embrace what we have. I'm going to go through the cart (which is a lovely open oak cart, but has collected an obscene number of cookbooks that I don't use.) I'll donate the unused cookbooks and use some of that space to hold my Kitchenaid and perhaps a crock pot. Living life off the edge, as my sister would say.

The flooring is original to the house, which is 1976 goldenrod yellow linoleum tiles. Or at least that's what they look like under 23 years of the previous owners love of Mop N' Glo. (Mom said that apparently, the lady used Mop N' Glo without cleaning the floor first.) I wanted to strip the years of massive wax off of the floor when we moved in, but because it took me 4 hours to strip our tiny bathroom floor, Hubs made me promise that I wouldn't do it. After 10 years, I still have that danged floor, so I'll strip 33 years off of it and give it a nice shine.

Hubs wants as little involvement as humanly possible, so I'm going to swing this one on my own. He'll come home one day to a kitchen a completely different color. Surprise!

So that brings me to this. I'm thinking of a muted terra cotta. Our livingroom is papaya and I'd like to do something kind of cohesive with the color choices, but I don't want to paint in the same color. That also leaves me with a decision about the woodwork. Since our home has dark doors everywhere and dark woodwork, we've painted as we've gone along instead of replacing, as it is the more economical choice.

Oh, the things to do. First, I must summer clean our home. Today brings to me the cleaning of the bedroom. We've finally finished the installation of the bookcase we purchased at IKEA. Hubs was a little irritated at me for suggesting that it get done last night, but I wanted to get it all finished today. I have our wicker chest sitting in the middle of the hall-- where he left it to make room for the bookcase-- and it is driving me crazy. I'll also be purging some things from K-'s room, reorganizing the linen closet, freeing my livingroom from toys-- again, washing the windows and maybe treating myself to a trip to the paint department at one of the local stores. Oh, so much to do so little time.

Smiles in my day:
- Deciding to tackle the kitchen.
- Getting the bookcase set in place.
- Feeling the need to set the house free of some of the accumulating items. Argh with all the stuff! I swear that it is breeding.
- My friend, Kim, agreeing to bail me out and take K- to her last reading class at the university. Kim is a prof there and since Aunt Arlene's memorial service was scheduled for the exact same time as K-'s class and is an hour away, she would have missed it. That would make her sad and it would make mommy sad to miss the experience and the sweet lovin' load of money that we paid for the class. She'll keep K- on at her house to play with N- and A- til we get back. Thanks, Kim!