Kitchen Makeover Update - The Paint War

As most of you know, hubby and I have started a minor cosmetic makeover on our kitchen. Over the past couple of weekends, we have gotten some things accomplished, but not as much as I had hoped for by this point. We have managed to get the walls all painted and I've started on the makeover for my kitchen chairs and table. We had intended on having the cabinets painted by now, but alas, that has not happened! I had decided to paint the cabinets the same reddish terra cotta color as the bottom half of my dining area wall. So off to Lowes I went with paint chip in hand. I used a satin finish on the walls and love how rich and nice the color came out. For the cabinets, I decided to go with a semi-gloss finish to better protect them from normal wear and tear. Well, that ain't gonna happen! I handed the paint guy the color chip and told him I wanted a gallon in semi-gloss. So he went to get the paint, came back and started mixing. When he finished, he dabbed a little on the lid and all looked good. I was super excited to get home and get busy!

Once home, hubby took off one of the drawer fronts, sanded it, and I started painting. I noticed when I opened the paint, it looked rather pink. Sort of salmony color. But I trudged on thinking that surely it would dry darker. It. Did. Not.

I tried a couple more coats just to make sure, but still ended up with a dark pink, salmony color. Not what I wanted at all. So back to Lowes we went with the gallon of paint in hand. I asked them to add more red to it and they did for free. Back home we went and I tried it on another drawer front. This time the result was an even darker salmony pink. Still. Not. Happy. So back to Lowes we went. This time without the gallon of paint. We decided to just buy a sample container in a darker red and see how we liked that. We reasoned that it would be easier to redo the wall section if we found another red we liked that looked good on the cabinets. So this time I picked a red that had a burgundy tint to it. Got home with it, painted another drawer front and ended up with a pink toned burgundy/red color!!!! AAAARRRGGGHHHH!!! At this point, I'd had enough with the red paint so we decided to walk away from it for a while. I think the problem with the original gallon we bought for the cabinets is that the paint guy tinted a yellow based paint with it and they did not do that with the gallon of satin we purchased to paint the walls with. So after much deliberating, hubby and I have decided to purchase another gallon of the satin in the Apple Peel red and maybe polyurethane the cabinets. If this doesn't work, y'all may have to send in the guys in the white coats!!!

I did get some painting done this weekend. You may recall, a while back a friend was giving away four ladder back dining chairs and I snatched them up. They were showing some signs of wear and tear, but I knew I could work some magic on them. So with some black paint and a little time, I transformed this:



into this:



Much better, don't you think? I am very pleased with how these chairs turned out and can't wait to get the table painted black and get the dining area put back together. If you look at the before picture, you can see the new paint colors on the wall. The red on the bottom is the color my cabinets will be. I hope! I cannot wait to get rid of the ugly floor! Ugh! I hate this floor. It never looks clean, I don't care how much you scrub on it. It will be one of the next things we do so stay tuned for that!

If these cabinets don't kill me first!!!

I'm linking up with Kim at Savvy Southern Style for her Wow Us Wednesday party. Go check it out!

Until next time. . .

Cranberry Chicken

I discovered this wonderful recipe on line a while back and finally got around to making it this week. It's called Cranberry Chicken and it is awesome! The hubby and kid both liked it and neither of them are huge chicken fans. The best part: there's only three ingredients (not including the chicken) and prep time is quick and simple!



Cranberry Chicken

4 to 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 can whole berry cranberry sauce
1 8 oz. bottle of French salad dressing
1 envelope dry onion soup mix

Place chicken in a casserole dish in a single layer. In a seperate bowl, combine cranberry sauce, salad dressing and soup mix. Mix well. Pour over chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour.

This is so good! No one in my family really cares much for cranberry sauce or French salad dressing so we were a bit skeptical about this recipe. But I had to try it, just for the simplicity of it if for nothing else! IT. IS. DELICIOUS!!!! Hubby says this has be at least a once a month dinner from now on. I served it with garlic mashed potatoes and a simple garden salad. Yummy!

I'm linking up here this week:



Until next time. . .

Having a ball!!!!

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been a while since my last post. The hubs and I worked all last week and thru the weekend on our kitchen redo. We did manage to finish all the wall painting and we tried to get started on painting the cabinets, but the color we bought, which was Apple Peel in a semi-gloss finish, turned out to be more of a salmony pink color. Definitely not what I wanted!!! We used the same color on the lower half of the dining area, in a satin finish, and we love it! But I guess maybe because of the different finishes of the paint and the cabinets being a different texture than the walls, it just ain't cuttin' it. So we are going to use this paint as a primer/base coat and go with another paint color a couple of shades darker than what we used on the walls. I'm hoping that will do the trick.

I have managed to get a little bit of crafting done in between all this remodeling mess. I made some twine balls and I love them! I've seen this on several different blogs and decided to give it a try. I forgot to take some "before" pictures but basically all I did was blow up some cheap balloons to the sizes I wanted my balls then I mixed some regular old white school glue with some water, cut some twine in the lengths I wanted, dunked it into the glue mixture and wrapped the balloons with it. I let them dry overnight and then popped the balloon and pulled it out of the ball. Here's what I ended up with:



This was a fun and inexpensive project, albeit very messy!! I love the way they turned out. The little white figurine thingy you see in the picture came from the Dollar Tree. It was a dark brownish color but I slapped some vanilla craft paint on it, letting a little bit of the original color come thru.

I also made some rope balls. I found this package of three decorative balls on clearance at Wal Mart for $3.



I was going to use the twine you see in the picture to wrap them with, but once I got started, I didn't like the way it looked, so I opted to go with some heavier rope. I already had the rope left over from a Christmas ornament project I did this past year. All I did was take some hot glue and glue the rope all the way around the balls. Quick and easy! Here's the finished project:




I also made a book bundle (Pottery Barn knock off) that I've seen several people do here in blogland. I already had the books so all I did was tear off the covers and tie them together with some twine. I decided that I wanted to jazz them up a little bit so I added a key on a piece of ribbon and took a key stamp and a "love" stamp and stamped all over them and, voila, cheap and instant art!



I decided to set Mr. White Roo on top of them for a little added interest:



A while back, I was the lucky winner of some beautiful blue and white candlesticks from Marty over at A Stroll Thru Life . I decided to use them along with some of my new creations to brighten up my fireplace mantle a little bit. I'm very pleased with the way they look on my fireplace. Thank you so much Marty!!!



Sorry for the poor picture quality. I took these shots early in the morning so the lighting wasn't all that great. Here's a pic showing the entire fireplace mantle vignette:



Hubby made me the window frame out of some scrap wood he had laying around. I painted it black then went over it again with some white paint. The blue plates were a Ross find as was the cute little white pitcher. I added some Dollar Tree flowers to it for a springy feel. The cream plate hanging above the window frame is from Wal Mart.

I'm linking up with these great parties this week:















I'm working on a few more Easter related crafts. Hopefully, I'll actually finish them before Easter arrives. If this kitchen remodel doesn't kill me first!!

Until next time. . .