A Room with a View

When you are looking for a house, you have your list of "must haves" and "willing to sacrifice." I was willing to negotiate on the number of bedrooms if the basement was finished. Because our dogs love to run...away, a fenced yard was at the top of our list. Vaulted ceilings would be nice. One of the biggest musts was an open living room and kitchen area. Or, at least an area that could be made more open. I'm not afraid to do a little work, if needed. That's what I have Jeff for, anyway.

First, we took down the hanging cabinets.


Eventually, we will add some hanging pendants here. Next, we addressed the ugly florescent light fixture above the kitchen island.



We wanted a hanging pot rack w/ lighting, so it wouldn't be so dark above the island. We found exactly what we were looking for at Lowes. Also, it made up for some of the cabinet space we lost by taking down the hanging cabinets.


Our next major project is painting. We started with the fireplace, which had mostly red bricks. Painting a fireplace is one of my least favorite jobs. The rolling. The jabbing the brush into the lines and bricks....my arm is still sore.

Our first attempt was at whitewashing. We used a 50/50 mix of white paint and water. After painting a few bricks, we would wipe it off. It came out gray and not exactly what I was looking for.

So, off to Home Depot for some off-white paint. I think it looks much better!

If you look closely on either side of the fireplace, you can barely see the blue we will be painting the living room, kitchen and breakfast nook. There is no natural dividing line, so we are painting it all one color. After two days of rolling and jabbing at the fireplace, Jeff asked, "So when do we start painting the rest of the room?"

I'm picking up the paint tonight :-)