Shhhh – can you hear that?  It is Pinterest, calling my name. 

I can’t believe just a short time ago I wrote Pinterest off as an annoying site you had to log in to see recipes…  I had no idea just how helpful it could be.  I thank my friend, Diane, for helping me to understand how to use the site.  I feel like the updates we have made to the house this year have gone so well in no small part to what we find on this site.

I knew we needed to paint the kitchen.  And after painting the living room a sunny yellow, the bathroom a cheerful chartreuse, and the dining room an alluring blue, the warm red kitchen didn’t quite fit.  (Although, I did love the red.)  Those three rooms were coming together with a sort of tropical feel and I did some searches with that as my key word.  One of the things that kept coming up was colored furniture.  Ooooo – I’ve always REALLY LIKED color!  Not only was I intrigued, but John liked the samples online, as well.

I hadn’t initially planned to swap out the table and chairs, but they are really, really beat on.  The chairs have giant dents in the backs where they have hit up against the table for 12+ yers, and the cushions are disgusting.  John regularly tightens the screws holding them together and yet they wobble all the time.  The table isn’t the kind of wood that can be refinished.  And the footprint in the kitchen is rather large, too. 

Craigslist helped us find four chairs quickly.  Sturdy wooden ones.  Then we found a small table and chair set that would round it out.  SIDE NOTE – The kitchen can only seat six and we have only been eating breakfast and lunch in there since Katriel was born.  And since Katriel got out of the high chair, I typically stand to eat breakfast and lunch… OR – (insert sad face here) – this past year we noticed there are a lot of weekdays where the 7 of us don’t even eat breakfast and lunch all together anymore.  That is what happens when the big kids grow up and have activities outside of the home.  (Insert joy here – homeschooling gave me more meals with my kids than away-school would have ever offered.) – END SIDE NOTE

So we bought the furniture.
We bought a paint sprayer.
We watched the tutorials online.
We read lots of Pinterest pins.

And I left for Prince Edward Island for the week.  John took the week of work.  He and the other four kids had a STAYCATION that included working on the furniture.

The process took days.  And had a lot of steps. 

Joanna has Chip; I have John.  ♥

I easily had 30 paint swatches from Walmart (my new favorite paint – totally not kidding) and with the help of my Captain of Color (Stewart) we selected cool cucumber.

Now – to truly embrace a trendy, tropical-style kitchen, we’d have to paint the cabinets.  And that isn’t going to happen.  We love the cabinets.  We’re not about to mess with the real wood.  We hope to add crown moulding and a backsplash.  Soon.  But not too soon. 

Ecclesiastes 3:13

Also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

It started to become obvious that our planned three-family-meet-up-in-Wyoming-road-trip wasn’t going to go off as planned as Family A moved over seas, and Family B scheduled a different trip for about the same time.
Then the roof started to leak.
So – travel monies went to the roof.

It got loud…

and ugly

We’ve been busy this week!
With Stewart doing all college work next year and keeping a more independent schedule, it was time to get Stewart and Nigel each into their own rooms. 

For the last year or so, Johanna and Katriel have been sharing one of the smaller rooms, and the boys have been sharing a larger, front room.  We’ve been using the other small room as a kind of computer/work room.

We moved each of the boys into one of the smaller rooms and moved Johanna and Katriel into the boys’ old room.

It is so much easier to type that than actually do it. 

It also involved much painting.

I know some folks take before and after photos.  For me there is never a true before (why clean up a room for a photo if you are dismantling it?) and never a true after (is it ever really done?).

For the girls’ new room Hanny picked a purple.

And Katriel picked a yellow.

At one point Tab lay under the bed and read to me, but I can’t find that photo. 

From here I painted Nigel’s room a dark orange on two walls and a dark navy on the other two.  I can’t find those photos either.

I may or may not have mentioned before how my friend Diane introduced me to Pinterest.
I’m having the best fun on there.
With in a week of her “pinning” these shelves to her board, we had them in our bedroom.

When we first moved into the house almost 10 years ago, one of the first rooms we gave our attention to was the upstairs bathroom.  I never took a photo of it in its prime, but as I prepared to dismantle it, I grabbed a few.  

In 2012, I updated it to this.  The mint paint looks kind of nice in the photos.  In real life, it was rather jarring.

Over break I took a little time to give it an update.  It went from jarring to super-mellooowwww.  Tabitha suggested the beachy theme after I’d started painting.  I think it comes off nicely. 

The curtain is glow-in-the-dark fabric.  It doesn’t glow much.  But it’s a cute print.

Yes.  Really.