Kitchen Re-do

Saturday was a BEAUTIFUL fall day and I spent the whole thing cleaning.  Now, now...don't feel sorry for me.  Although it's not my FAVORITE thing to do, I do LOVE the feeling of a clean house and almost never get to enjoy it ALONE!  Chris took the boys away for the whole day (six hours!) and I was able to just get to it.  Ahhhh, that last hour felt great when I got to put my feet up and just savor the cleanliness.  I actually considered going out and getting started on the garage, but I gave myself a little break instead. 

 

Once the living area was all cleaned up, it looked so nice I decided to take a few pictures.  I don't know if I ever updated the blog to include all the projects I took on in the spring/early summer but the living room/dining area was a big one.  I fell in love with a fabric from Hobby Lobby and went from there...

 

 The associate cutting the fabric to fit my old cornice boards advised me to make new ones because the other ones were so thin and this particular fabric, with its large print, wouldn't look good on them.  I made them out of foam core board, cut to order at Lowe's, and I think all in all they cost me about $20 for both - that's before I put the fabric on them, of course. 

I made the one over the doorwall (there's that Michigan word again!) about 18" wide and the one over the window just 12" wide.  I didn't want the one over the window to be higher than the cupboards to the right.  I deliberated on the curtains FOREVER but eventually just went with a chocolate brown.  There was already enough color in there between the paint and the cornice boards.

 To make the rooms seem cohesive, I brought that blue in on one wall in the living room and also the curtains in that room.  You can see in this picture that the blue goes all the way up the wall to the ceiling in this room, but stops short at the height of the cupboard as you go into the kitchen.

I painted the area behind the desk in the kitchen, but didn't want to go up to the ceiling.  Our ceilings are high and I thought it might be too much trouble, but now I'm reconsidering.  What do you think?

I still have to paint the backsplash because it's red, which was our old color.  I had visions of doing that in the week Chris took the boys to MI this summer, but between my big wedding and all the other stuff I did (like paint BOTH the bathrooms!) I just didn't get to it.  Maybe next summer?

I had leftover fabric from the cornice boards so made backings for the two bottom shelves of each bookcase.  I really like how those turned out!