Kitchen and cottage cleanup

This week I have been a painting fool. Not really the kind of painting I WANT to be doing,

more the kind that is of necessity.

My house was built in 1978, we bought it in 2002 and moved in Labor day of that year.

The kitchen was HIDEOUS, okay well dated.  

(Emily was 2 here and that's my pretty Mom)

You can't see the counter, but it was butcher block formica....

Pretty....NOT.

John was a craftsman and set about to the task of redoing the kitchen.

Instead of building all new cabinets, he built new doors and refaced all of the surfaces, adding molding to the top and bottom edges.  I don't like Granite, preferring old fashioned white tile.

He thought my idea of butter yellow cabinets was great, until I said I wanted a clouded sky ceiling and olive green walls.  But after all was said and done, he loved the combination of colors.

It will be 9 years this September that we refinished the kitchen and I never got around to painting the inside of the cabinets which always drove me crazy...

So the past few weeks, I decided, it was time to do the insides and scrub and repaint the outside as well.

Removing all of the contact paper I laid down 8 years ago as well.

Seriously, my kitchen is NOT as dirty as this cabinet looks, but dang, how much dust gets in on things you never use.  Also a great time to Clean out and get rid of those very things you never use....

My son Dylan and his girlfriend Tawny, spent two days with me working on this and in total, it took me 4 FULL days to complete.  My shoulders ached from all of the painting and scrubbing, but am I SOOOOO overjoyed at the outcome.

There is not much that brings me more joy than a freshly painted and clean surface.

Last weekend, I tackled painting the inside of the playhouse....

Since I confiscated it back from the kids, who totally ignore it...

When we built it, the inside was all pale pink.

Then one day, I let Emily and Jeremy paint the inside walls green, to make it more boy friendly.

I had long ago painted vines on the floor.

Trouble is, let a 9 & 11 year old paint, and this is what you get...unfinished walls.

Utilizing paint I had left over from my Yoga room, which is now Christian's room due to 

the Man moving in...I decided to put the very lively green on the walls...

The floor got an delicious turquoise color that I will probably paint another vine on top of it, 

I loved it so much.

Will gradually add to this and let it evolve, but want it to remain fairly open.

Feels like a little Mexican/Caribbean/Gypsy so far.

My Dia De Los Muertos cross looks great on the green.
More than likely, this will just be an overflow space for finished merchandise between shows,
or my little escape in the back yard to read, write or paint.

So, even though it is technically still winter,
Spring Cleaning is coming along very well here at my abode
and it feels so good to have "less",which is actually "more".

What projects have you been working on this year so far????

Hugs,
Lisa