Kitchen Painting Project

So I decided last Thursday that this past weekend would be a good time to paint the kitchen. I had a coupon for Home Depot and a Home Depot giftcard from credit card rewards that had just arrived in the mail.

So here's the before shot of the kitchen. It's not always this messy, I promise. The one slat on the blinds on the left window is always broken though. This is after I started Friday night so I was using the cordless drill to remove switchplates and outlet covers and had other miscellaneous painting supplies strewn around the kitchen. The room looks a little dark, but the paint was a soft yellow color.



Friday night I stopped by Home Depot and picked up a couple of Glidden samples to match with the paint chips that I liked the best. I picked up "Whispering Wheat" and "Water Chestnut." If you use these paint samples, don't use the brushes that come with them, they are pretty awful. Imagine using a nail polish brush to paint your walls. It ain't pretty and just makes a big, drippy mess.



I got a little crazy trying the paint samples on the walls. I wanted to see how it looked in different places. I've heard that it's a good idea to paint a piece of posterboard and then carry that around the room to see how the paint looks in different lights and locations. I didn't have posterboard and I knew the paint over white posterboard would look different than paint over yellow walls.


This photos shows the lighter paint on the left and the darker one on the right.




This one is reversed, "Whispering Wheat" on the left, "Water Chestnut" on the right.



I quickly decided the lighter color was too light and I was digging the darker color. So I stuck it in some more random places. I hope to paint the cabinets white at some point, but I wanted to see how the paint looked against the orangey oaky wood until then.



And one more spot for good measure.



So I figured the Whispering Wheat was the winner and Saturday morning headed to Home Depot to pick up the paint. I found another major goodie at Home Depot for the kitchen. I'll reveal that upgrade along with the final painted room tomorrow. My legs are still sore from going up and down the ladder for 6 hours Saturday. I did discover a great tool for painting that helped alot. More about that later too. So stay tuned for more reveals.

Share Your Wedding Dress

Kelly's Korner is having a Show Us Your Life-Wedding Dresses party so I'm joining the fun. She has the most awesome posts on Fridays to share different parts of your life, it's worth checking out if you've never been to her blog.

Our wedding day was June 4, 2004. It's crazy that it's already been over 5 years.

Mine was a Mary's Bridal dress. I found it at a store, but ending up ordering it online from one of those really big online bridal shops. I can't remember the name of it now. I think it cost around $450. I loved all the detailing on it. I tried on several different ones at different stores, but this one just felt right. The veil, tiara, and jewelry I bought all from e-bay.



First the shot with the hubby.




This is a bad scan, but one of the few pictures the clearly shows my whole dress with the train.






You can see the details on the front here.

Similar beading and detailing on the back. It's still sitting in the garment bag, 5 years later. I should have it cleaned or something.

Thanks for looking!

You Have to See This Magazine

I picked up this magazine the other day at Sam's. It's $5.99, but magazines at Sam's are 25% off or something like that. So it was less than $5. And so full of home decor goodness. It is an awesome collection of beautiful rooms and wonderful ideas on ways to perk up your home. This glossy mag is stuffed full of before and afters and amazing room makeovers. This is one of the best magazines I've bought in quite awhile. I've been pouring over the pages of loveliness every since and I wanted to share a few of my faves.

Here's the yummy cover with the first hint of all the eye candy inside. Look at the beautiful stenciling they did on the wall. And I looove that rug.

This is one of the very first rooms featured. Look at the wonderful board and batten(I think that's what it's called, I call it pretty white trim stuff) they added to the wall. The color scheme is so soothing and beautiful.

I love how they gave tips on how to display photos and collectibles without creating a cluttered and overwhelming collection. And that clock they stuck on the fireplace is so creative.

The commentary behind this shot was all about layering different textures and shades of the same color to create a gorgeous space without the patterns and colors clashing. I may have to prop some throw pillows on my dining room chairs. (They never get used anyways)

These two bedroom photos showcase some easy bedroom makeovers that are mostly achieved with new paint color, a better furniture arrangement, and some fun and colorful accessories.

The final room makeover I wanted to share was this awesome bathroom transformation. Look at the scary green room of horror before compared to the spa like gorgeous after. It's hard to tell in this scanned photo, but they used some amazing tile on that floor.

So if you happened to see this magazine it's well worth picking up and drooling over the rooms featured. For $5.99 it's a great escape to view all these wonderful spaces and get some great ideas of things you can do in your own home whether it's a major reno. of just some simple and inexpensive changes such as a new furniture arrangement or throw pillows.

Happy Friday!

Framing Vintage Postcards

It's DIY Thursday at A Soft Place to Land and I'm joining in on the fun. This is one of my favorite weekly linky parties. Sooo many great ideas.

I bought some beautiful vintage postcards at a flea market last year. They are from the early 1900s and show several scenes in St.Louis. The first is the old courthouse which is where the Dred Scott Trial took place.The second is the elegant Union Station. It was once one of the busiest train stations in the country. Now it has a mall and restaurants inside. The last one shows the old City Hall building. I think I paid around $4 for all 3 cards. I bought the frame at Garden Ridge almost a year ago too. I think it was around $10 on sale.

I finally got around to putting the cards in the frame. The size of the postcards was almost exactly the same size as the mat openings so I had to be sure to position them just right so they were even in the opening. First I used my sticky tape dispenser(the purple thing) to put some sticky tape on the back of the mat. I lined up the mat with the backing paper that came with the frame and stuck those together.

Then I carefully lined up the postcards with the openings on the front. Since they were slightly smaller I was able to put them on top instead of behind the mat openings. I applied some sticky tape to the back of the postcards and stuck them to the backing paper.

Then all that was left was sticking them in the frame and ta da! Instant vintage art. Now I just have to figure out where to hang it.

Lighten Up

I'm still pining away for white cabinets of my own. Someday it will happen. Until then I keep looking around and collecting more photos of white kitchens I love. Here some of my latest finds.

Country Living

Country Living

Country Living


Country Living

Country Living

House Beautiful

Argggh, more Blogger frustration. Why is it so difficult to delete or resize a photo? One point for Blogger though for being able to upload multiple photos at once. One strike for not being able to add captions. I need a Blogger-Wordpress hybrid I think. Anyone know of such a thing? Anyway, I'll just gaze at these lovely kitchens and let all blogging stress melt away. Ahhhh, much better.

Thrifty Finds

While I spent a big chunk of the weekend setting up my blog on blogger(which was a pain and all my photo captions are messed up, I lost all the pages I had on Wordpress, etc.) I did find some time for a quick shopping trip. I'm trying not to buy much since we are going to Chicago soon for some IKEA goodies, but I found a few things in my shopping excursion that didn't break the bank.

My two favorite finds were at Hobby Lobby. I hadn't been there in ages and they had a clearance section of home decor items for 90% off.

I snagged this fun little key in a frame for only $2. It's funny because I just posted a photo I loved from the Pottery Barn website of vintage keys hanging on the wall and then I found this one.

I also found this neat candleholder that was also only $2

And finally I made a trip to Goodwill as well. I don't normally find much at our Goodwill and most of the household goods are too pricey for a thrift store, but I snagged this cute tiered basket. It still had the tag on it from Target.



Now I have to yell at Blogger for sticking all the photos I upload at the top of the post and not where my cursor is and for not allowing me to edit the photos once I upload them. That's too points for Wordpress and two strikes for Blogger. If only the free version of Wordpress allowed more customization and editing of templates and widgets, I would never have left. But I'm getting the hang of it although I miss the clean, professional look of Wordpress. I do have my very first followers though, thanks ladies! Wordpress didn't have this feature so that's one point for Blogger.

Blog Makeover and New Address!

While I looooved the ability to add pages and other features on Wordpress, almost all the blogs I read regularly are on blogger. There are other features on Blogger that I like better such as the ease of adding gadgets and widgets. So I made the switch over to Blogger.

I'm still working on getting everything moved around and looking how I want, so ignore the mess and broken links for now. I really, really wish Blogger allowed you to add pages so I have to cheat a little to use posts as pages and had to work to get the tabs on the top. (Most of which don't go anywhere yet!) So please change your bookmarks and hopefully blogger will be a better fit for me in blogland.