Needles and Pens

Well, it was bound to happen eventually... no "reveal" post for this month. May is always a super busy time at our house, so I'm really not surprised. And there were a lot of extra goings-on this year besides. So I'm still working on the kitchen, slowly but surely. At this point, I plan to keep at it into June and hopefully squeeze in my June project, too. Or not. We'll see. Life happens. I do have a few progress pics to share at least. Cleaning out and organizing the cabinets seemed to take forever . I was seriously NOT in the mood AT ALL. I was overcome with such overwhelming lethargy over the whole thing, I was doing well to finish one a day. Hated, hated, hated cleaning out the cabinets. Like pulling teeth. Seriously. At any rate, I finally finished that miserable job and got around to painting -- which pretty much destroyed the kitchen. For a week or so, it looked more or less like this... But it was so worth the mess. The color is off in th...

It's official. I'm overwhelmed. A progress report might give me some motivation to keep on going... maybe. So far, I've cleaned out all of the upper cabinets in my kitchen, thrown out all the outdated things, rock-hard marshmallows and such. I opted not to paint the insides or put new liners in, because they still look fine (and there's still that hope in me that one of these days, we'll have new cabinets!) All they really needed was to be cleaned, organized and the paint touched up along the front edges of the shelves. Amazing what a difference it makes. Before: And after: Much better. The rest of the week's energies went into both my boys' birthdays (on the 3rd and 8th) and my youngest's confirmation (on the 6th). I did start in on the lower cabinets, but then discovered my dishwasher has been leaking, clear through to the basement (luckily nothing was ruined down there) and swelled up the chipboard underlayment under the tile. Kind of too...

Well, my family will be happy to know that I'll be spending most of my time this month in... the kitchen. (That's #5, in case you're joining me in this crazy challenge.) Maybe I'll find the time to whip up some actual meals while scrubbing, painting and wallpaper stripping. Then again, that could be considered unsanitary... I did clean up just a bit before taking pictures, but oh boy, does my kitchen need work! Here are my "before" shots. I'm not sure if the horizontal or vertical views are better, so I'll just include them both. From the computer/laundry/family room end: And from the living/dining room end: I think the counter below has a secret built-in junk magnet. It's become even worse with all of the painting and repairing going on lately. Does every kitchen have a counter space where everything in the free world eventually lands? The cabinets all need to be repainted, and some of the knobs have disappeared...

Previous Posts on April's Project: Before Pictures Mid-Month Progress I'll admit, I nearly ran out of steam on my master bedroom project this month, but with one more big push today, I actually finished just under the wire. When I last posted, I was in the middle of (several days of) wallpaper stripping. After that, I painted the ceiling, and then finally got around to choosing a wall color. But buying new bedding, curtains and such was not in the budget, so I decided to pull out the round robin quilt I finished for our bed a few years back, and use that for my color inspiration. I had in mind to go with a periwinkle blue, but I learned my lesson well with the bathroom project and quickly steered away from my first choice (the brightest one, of course, coincidentally called "Pure Periwinkle") and toned it way down to the second one down on the top left, "Essence of Blue." It turned out plenty periwinkle. I'm still using my lace curtains (on...