86'n It

Of people who have started a kitchen remodel AFTER ours and finished BEFORE ours, so far it includes my parents and my coworker, who has actually built a whole house :(

My parents just got their countertops today, so they officially beat us. Here's some pics.

The weather yesterday was amazing, so after my AM run, Marc and I hit the yard pretty hard. He mowed and broke-in the new Huskavarna weed-wacker while I weeded the entire garden, revamped the very front planting beds a little and cleaned the walks.

My legs are killing to me today and I have a wicked farmer's tan from my running tights and shirt, but it is nice to have the crack housing appearing like someone actually lives in it.

In other terrific news, we've made it through another year without killing the wisteria! Yeah! I only had to tent and covered it once a couple of weeks ago during a late freeze. It's starting to bloom now and smells terrific.

So...... don't hate me, but I changed the color. I figured out why I was having such a hard time picking between the 3 in the poll was because they weren't what I wanted. So I put away the Sherwin-Williams fan deck and whipped out the Ben Moore fan. It was love at first sight for me and Scandinavian Blue (which I have renamed "Indi-Glo!" - with the '!').

Let's take a little trip down memory lane. This is what this room looked like when we closed on the house. (There is a cat in this photo - play where's Waldo and find it!)

And here's my after shot. I realize this color is not for everyone, but heck, I'm not everyone. I absolutely love it. Marc wasn't so convinced as I was painting it because at 11pm and wet, it looks like Violet from Willy Wonka burst her blueberry-self in the room, but dry he loves it too. It's intense, so that is why we decided to leave the chimney white. Also, check out my design on no dimes black spray-painted twig art. Crafty, no?!
Here's so more pics including an example of the patched plaster cracks. Holy cow there were a ton of them! Next up, living room paint! Wait until you see what I have in store for that color! :)

Don't hate me, even though the Mesmerize only got 32% of the vote, I think I'm going to go with that. Now there is one outstanding question: what to paint the fireplace flue?
This is an actual mock-up of the two options (yeah photoshop!)