My Kitchen!

It's amazing how a two-sentence exchange with the neighbor who lives across the street could lead to so much stress...and joy! Here's what was said sometime back in June:

Me: I hate my kitchen -- it's boring and looks old-fashioned.
My neighbor: You know, a very simple and inexpenisve way to solve that is to paint it and put in new hardware.

That got me to thinking (which is rarely a good idea when it comes to house projects, I know). I made some mental calculations. I figured for about 200 bucks I could do a pretty decent makeover of my kitchen. Add new paint and hardware, but leave the rest alone.

So I went to the store and got a paint sample. Nathan hated it. We debated. Then I bought some more paint samples....
The paint-sample part of the story goes on for another 12 colors, so let me sum up by saying that eventually I found both paint colors and hardware that I LOVE, so after about 1 week of long hours (2 days of which were very intense, and my wonderful mother came down and was a tremendous help), I have a beautifully facelifted kitchen. Just look at these before and after pictures:

There are still a few little things to do (small spots that need a paint touch-up, plus I'm planning to replace that picture over the stove with a big spice rack... from Ikea, maybe?), but isn't it beatiful?!