Watching paint dry

Due to popular request, ie one reader in  the comments section, I'm posting the results of my house painting efforts.

Kitchen
I'm embarrassed to  post the before pictures now that I see how awful the walls were.  No, those dark spots aren't shadows, they are actual grime.  Yes I really was living like that and yes it was stressing me out and driving me crazy.  This is what happens when everybody is working and riding bikes and training dogs and too tired to paint and you spend your mad money on the dog agility instead of the painter.  See all that wallpaper?  Somehow it came down no problem, much easier than the border in the living room.  I think it was so old it was being held on with spit and a prayer.  Who puts wallpaper behind the oven?

Before:

 

After:

I know, some of you are going 'Really, those are the "after" shots?'  But I love the color though admittedly it wasn't exactly what we were originally aiming for.  It looks different in different light and at different times of the day and was hard to photograph, especially since I hadn't worked out the manual settings for the camera yet.  I think I did a little better with the living room photos once I figured them out.

We also got rid of the big ugly bookcase thanks to all my purging but now we have nowhere for the recycle bins except the top of the fridge and I'm too short to reach them easily so I'll have to figure something out.

Living Room

I've been putting this room off for years because like the kitchen I knew it would be a huge job.  Those casement windows and fussy window sills were a screaming pain in the ass.  So many little ridges and crevices.  But I'm so happy now, I've hated that sea foam green for 12 years and finally it's gone along with the weirdo wallpaper borders that made the short walls seem even shorter.

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

 

I found a collage type frame that holds 9 photos so I was able to get rid of all but 2 of  the agility photos cluttering the top of the unit housing the records.  It has kind of a 3-D effect too, very cool find at Target.  We got rid of a bunch of records too so now they all fit in the unit.  We also pared down the 7"ers and bought some nicer looking boxes rather than the dumpy looking shoe boxes.  One of these days we'll live entirely like grown-ups.

 

Lola enjoying her new digs

 

It was a lot of work but I love my 'new' house.  We've lived here 12 years and finally it feels like ours.  Except for the part about all the money we still owe the bank.

The trim was supposed to be more of steely grey-blue and that's what it looks like on the trim away from the windows but it looks a lot more blue on the windows because of the effects of the light.  But I like all the different shades it presents itself as and we were tearing our hair out trying to find something that wasn't boring white that looked good throughout the day.

All that's left to paint is the dining room and 2 bedrooms, all of which should be easy except for the border in the dining room.  They're all relatively small rooms and shouldn't take much effort.  I'm taking a little break from it for now though, I'm a bit burnt out and the agility field has dried out so it's time to get back to training.