Paint and craigslist...I heart you!

There's one thing I love about this house and it happens to be the very same thing I also hate about this house...the cabinets!  Cabinets, cabinets, everywhere!  Of course, lots of cabinets mean lots of storage.  Who can argue with storage, right?!  I envision that the conversation between the people that built this house and their cabinet maker went something like this..."We want the best cabinets money can buy (that's so they will last 500 years and the future owners won't be able to afford to rip them out and start over because new cabinets to replace their quality would cost them a small fortune...um, sorry, I'm not bitter...resume conversation) as we were saying..."We want high quality cabinets, and we want them every.single.place you can put them." Kitchen cabinets, two pantry cabinets, living room built-in, bathroom cabinets...well...you get the idea, ha!  LOTS of oak!  So...while painting the kitchen cabinets will hopefully take place soon...I've asked my handy banker husband for this for Mother's Day and my birthday (both in May)...we've managed to paint a few cabinets here and there. 

This project was our built-in entertainment center.  (By the time we got around to painting this cabinet, I had already begun to change colors, furniture, etc.) There were a couple of issues that we had to deal with on this one.  First and foremost...unattach that baby from the wall and center it!  I would LOVE to know the thought process behind building this cabinet all the way to the left of the wall...things that make you go..."hummm!"  Being the type-A, OCD girl that I am...centering it up was first on my list!  Because we were moving it down on the wall, it also meant having to move the electrical outlets that were built in. 





  

That left us with the backing with the cut out holes in all the wrong places, so we decided (and I'm SO glad we did) to put new backing up and use the wide beadboard!  I love it!  It's just the cottage feel I was going for!  I think it turned out great!  White cabinets make me happy! :)




Gettng ready to move the electrical outlets down.

 




My husband...the comedian!

 




After sanding, painting and changing the backing.  We  My husband also changed the hinges to hidden ones.

  




After

 

The next big thing for this room is to finish changing out all the trim (I love wide trim!) and also the monster in the room...the fireplace!  arrg!  Then, one day...hardwoods.

Oh, and about craigslist...I'm so on a roll right now selling all my stuff!  I've sold everything green, red, yellow and orange that I owned.  I loved all of those colors for a really long time and I'm just so ready for a change.  I had furniture and accessories that were limiting my ability to make any "cottage" changes so I sold them!  In fact, see that coffee table...GONE!  Too bad, I used my profit...which was supposed to be for another coffee table, already on a precious blue cabinet that I found at HomeGoods last week, haha! 

The Handy Banker Has Been Busy!

My husband is a banker.  He sits behind a desk all day, "pushing a pencil" as they say!  Get that man home on the weekend, get him out of his tie and into a baseball hat, give him a tool...and BAM...he turns into..da, da, duh...."The Handy Banker!"  It's cuter than any transformation Superman has ever made!  The only thing Superman has on my hubby is the speed with which he's off to save the day!  We all know Superman is always available, always ready....my husband will more than likely wait until a football game is over to rush to my decorating rescue! :)

The Handy Banker was really busy this weekend...after the games of course!  (Can't blame him on this one though...can't miss those Auburn Tigers!  War Eagle!)  I've shown you our "ocean" bathroom and I promise we'll get to that bathroom...one day.  In the meantime, we have been working on our boy's bathroom.  We've already changed the "make-up mirror" light fixture, changed out the faucets and painted the cabinets.  This weekend's project for the bathroom was all about the tile.  HB got the tile partially down and the goal is to finish sometime this week.  I picked out the grout...I hope it's the right color.  Picking grout is so stressful!  The color never comes out exactly like the little color block on the bag!  I wish I had a before picture of this bathroom.  It started out peach with floral border.  HB installed the beadboard himself!  I told you he was handy!

A Room with a View

I can not believe that I'm about to go HERE...so soon!  If there is any room in our house that I wouldn't want you to see...it's this one!  Confession is good for the soul as they say, so let's just get real...shall we?  Okay...here it goes.  Our master bathroom has a beach scene painted on the wall, and it's been there for the entire two years we've lived here...ouch!  Yes, while we are...um...taking care of business...we do it with a view of the ocean.  That's better than any condo, right? How many condos have you ever stayed in where the bathroom had an ocean view?  Well, needless to say...this entire room (including the vanity) is on the honey-do list!  Maybe a little public embarrassment will move it closer to the top! :)

Pillows and Paint

Well, you've got to start somewhere...right?  Why not with pillows and paint?  These pillows and this paint color (the vase) are the inspirations for my living room's new, cooler, softer color palette.  I realize that I have picked the worst time of the year to try and transition my living room from warm to cool, because trying to find "cool" accessories as fall is approaching feels a bit like looking for a bathing suit during the cooler months to take on a honeymoon in the islands.  (If I sound like I've had first hand experience with this...I do...flashback 11 years, ha.)  Anyways, after digging behind all of the cute orange, red and brown pillows...I found these beauties!  It was love at first sight!  They were exactly the colors and texture combinations I had in mind.  Now I know that it will feel totally "against the grain" here for some of you to mix these patterns and textures...but go ahead and get outside of that comfort zone!  It'll be fine and you'll thank yourself later for stepping out!  I got them home and loved them even more! (Insert funny guy husband here...he said..."Well, I like them all except for that 'Homecoming Corsage' one", ha!)  Good thing is, my husband and I have an agreement...he handles the outside of the house...I handle the inside!  So the corsage pillow stays :)

As far as the paint color goes, I don't even know the name of the color because I randomly got a 3.00 sample of this from the home improvement store one day trying to match it to some curtains I had. (Yes, HAD..and not HAVE...stick around and you'll see I'm a crazy buyer/returner!)  I'll just call the color "perfect" because I love the way it compliments the pillows.  This was once a green vase and I've had to just make myself not paint every.single.accessory in the room this color!  Is there a rule about how many accessories can be the same color...if so...don't tell me, please!