Kitchen and Dining Room Project #1 - Painting the Walls

A few days ago I started the whole Kitchen Project. My plan was to do one room at a time. I should know by now that my plans never go as planned. So instead of only doing ONE room, I also tackled the dining room as well. I was thinking: "Hey, the dining room walls are going to be the same color as the kitchen walls so you might as well paint those at the same time!" It sounded good and it also sounded very doable, seeing as it is an open floor plan between the two, plus it just makes sense. That's what Practical People do, right? We always find the most economical way to do things. See, I'm justified. :D

But then it takes longer than planned, plus now I have TWO unfinished rooms instead of just one. I'm sure I'll appreciate this in time, right?

Anyway, here's the before pic of the kitchen.

Okay, now is a good time to explain my big plans with this room and you can see how much change will happen in the months to come. See that ugly floor? That's got to go. I'm undecided on if I want that in stone or in waterproof/scratch resistant laminate that looks and feels just like hardwood. I have a bit more time to think on that. We want to get all of the main floor walls painted first so we don't have to worry about paint drips or plastic covers. When we lay floor, it will be the whole floor. Yes, I think we're crazy. We may decide to inject some saneness into ourselves before we actually do that. 

The microwave is going too. We bought a unit that goes above the stove, which will give us more counter top space. The cabinets will be going through a big change. I'll be painting them and adding knobs and handles to the doors and drawers. The light fixtures are going to be changed, eventually the counters will be changed, and the appliances will also be upgraded too in time. I also want a kitchen island that will not actually be in the middle of the kitchen but on the side to sort of separate the kitchen from the dining room. I don't want it permanent because then we can move it around to accommodate guests and such. We love having people over, so the small spaces have to be easily rearranged and converted for more people, but that will all come later and in many steps. Baby steps! 

Here's our coffee station in the kitchen. I wasn't kidding when I said we love coffee. Have you had some coffee yet today? If not, go get some. 

And since my Kitchen Project now included the dining room, here is the before picture of the dining room:

See that carpet? Who puts carpet in the dining room?? We can't figure out why anyone would do this. A lot of houses in our area actually have carpeted dining rooms. Don't they know people will eat FOOD and drink all sorts of DRINKS in this room?? Crazy. And the carpet definitely shows that a lot of eating and drinking has gone on in this room. The carpet is going away. Far, far away. As soon as possible.

Here's the paint I'm starting with. Isn't it gorgeous?

This color is called Golden Wheat, and it has this wonderful rich earthiness to it. We love nature and anything earthy, so this color really suits us. My first goal was to paint the kitchen and dining room walls. 

Everything has been moved and cleared free of stuff. My dining room table was heaped with all of it. We couldn't use the table that day or the next day until supper.

The new color is now on the walls! 

My poor table.

When it came time to go around the trim and switches, I taped it up. Some people start off by adding those first but I'm a rebel. Below is another picture of the dining room in progress.

And here it looks after the second day of working on the walls. The dining room looks gorgeous now!

My son says the color fits the house so much better than the green did and my daughter says "Oooo! I LOVE it!" Score!

The dining room is FAR from finished though. A lot of decor I plan on putting in it is missing, one of which is my china cabinet which will really set the color of the walls off nicely. My china cabinet is a very pretty reddish wood color. And then don't forget the new flooring soon to come! This area will have wood flooring. I'm waiting on the decor until after the flooring is put in.

The dining room looks really nice, but the kitchen does NOT, so I am not going to show you pictures of that. The cabinets' color clashes horribly with the new wall color and the walls aren't even done yet so I'm not going to show it. Maybe I'll get brave and show it with the new cabinet color in the next post. At least then you can scroll down and see that it does turn out nice in the end. It is going to be such a drastic change, though, that it would make you cringe if I abruptly ended the post with the ugly ducking stage right now. 

Trust me, I'm rescuing you from a heart attack. Like a hero. You will thank me for this. Really.

And now it's time for me to get back to my day job. With a cup of coffee, of course.


***EDITOR'S NOTE:  If you saw this post previously and notice the colors are different in the pictures it's because I adjusted the colors and edited the pictures so they look closer to the real deal. Instead of using the phone to edit the pictures I used Photoshop to adjust the colors. Mental Note: use Photoshop, Brainiac.