Kitchen Makeover Prep, Old Family Quilts, Romantic Prairie Style, After Paint Job

Kitchen Makeover Prep-

Now that my little bathroom mini-makeover is done, onto the kitchen! It really needs a fresh coat of paint, after 10+ years! I went with a slightly whiter yellow, this "yogurt" from Behr-

It's a soft, buttery yellow, but with some undertones. It's more yellow on the paint chip than on the screen. Anyway, I'm taking off the old back splash tomorrow, then putting up the new back splash. Happy dance! Next week we'll have a plumber install the NEW sink, faucet and water filter, then I'll paint. Since we have the plumber coming to replace our very leaky exterior hose spigot (inside the wall) we'll have him do this too. Remove the HEAVY cast iron sink and install the new one. While Dave can do it, it's tough on the old back :) Both the old sink (bought used 10 years ago at Habitat) and faucet are on their way out. I can't keep the sink clean and finally got a new one, a Kohler, Brookfield, white, made in the USA with 80% recycled materials! 

Since our faucet was 10 years old we decided to replace it too, and this was much cheaper than replacing the big faucet we had, and I like the look better. It's a Moen (Dave knows plumbing brands!) a "Walden", tall but not huge-

Overall we're happy with the re-do, on a budget, since we're not doing the counter. We'll live with it. I've also deep cleaned my desk, on the end of the kitchen counter, and the desk drawers there. Here's the nice work I did. First I cleared off my desktop-

I also cleaned out all the old software, boxes and misc. junk out of my 3 desk drawers. I took my cookbooks off the desk top, out of the crate gave them a new home-

New home, desk drawer, easy to get to. The rest are on my bookcase

More cell phone stuff, papers, junk, time to purge!

All better! I can see what I have now, the rest is stored with like-wise items

Old Family Quilts-

Empress Anya loves to sleep in her bedroom during the day, when it's hot out. While we have AC it's cooler and she can hear the birds outside the window-

I was looking at my Grandma Marshall's quilts she made in that bedroom. I never knew her, but I love her design style and the colors she used! I can just see her on a snowy Nebraska night sewing away! I'm sure some of these were made from flour sacks-

Romantic Prairie Style-

My new FAVORITE BLOG is Cottage Of Vinnord. She has the best design style, I love it! She mentioned this book, Romantic Prairie Style so I checked it out at my library. It has some great ideas! While I am INCREDIBLY BORED with the all-white rooms, roses and burlap EVERYWHERE-look I do like the vintage twists. I think the whole chippy paint, fake shabby chic thing is on it's way out, but that's OK. I have loved old things my whole life and some of this fits me. Since I love Scandinavian & French country, with American vintage thrown in, it's a nice visual treat. Read all about it if you like! Here's a few of my fave shots-

Love the lemon yellow and blue! I would never have thought to paint the back of a cabinet a dark color, brilliant! This shot inspired me to make a lemon topiary, more later on that :) 

More yellow, how cheery! Similar to my old kitchen color but more intense, lemony

Love the blue and the mirror, wish I had a double window!

Nice idea with the hooks and jars with flowers

"After"

After Paint Job-

I bought this nice print about 15 years ago, and the blue wood stain was all faded-

The "before"

I bought a can of satin spray paint and tried to match the blue in the print, and did a pretty good job! Really makes the blue in the print pop, a good $4.00 fix!!! Ironically it's probably a "French country" print but I didn't know that at the time. I just liked it!