Kitchen - the finishing touches

When I got out my Sherwin Williams Color sampler and held it up to my kitchen,it was obvious that a few gold colors made Dorothy's cabinets look great. All other colors made the cabinets look every one of their 40+ years.

Perhaps there is a lesson for my wardrobe in there somewhere.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a couple of Sherwin Williams sample paint cans in the most promising shades. I put some of the paint on the wall, lived with it for a week to make sure I liked it, solicited input from others, and this weekend, I took the Plunge.

In stage 1: crack repair, I made a startling discovery. My chosen paint color 'harvester' almost exactly matches one of the prior paint incarnations in my kitchen.

I could have just SKIPPED all of the decision-making stages.

After completing the paint job, we were Motivated. I finished grouting the kitchen backsplash, left incomplete for the past 13 months. Martin replaced the electrical outlets with bright white shiny new ones.

And I had a small epiphany.

When we moved it, we basically lived on one, somewhat tolerable floor. There was no obvious place for the kitty litter, so it wound up in a rather inappropriate place - the kitchen. Ewwwww, I hear you say.

Yes. Imagine how fun it is to host a small party and have the cat decide it's potty time in front of your guests. Very special.

But with the completion of the basement insulation and weatherstripping, we could now just leave the basement door open! And this means a whole new floor of potential Kitty Litter locations!

I chose an appropriate place under the stairs, dealt with Hissy Cat, and reclaimed my kitchen.

But this left an unoccupied region under the counter at the end of the sink, former Kitty Bathroom. This was once the location of the fridge, until I decided that 30" didn't meet our fridge needs, so I bought the 36" side-by-side model complete with water filter and ice maker, which didn't fit in the 30" fridge spot, so we jammed the new fridge in front of the back door leading to Rotting Back Steps (Safety Feature!), and in the process of last year's kitchen facelift, we extended the counter to the end of the wall to get a desk spot.

Or, at least, it would be a desk spot if it just had a chair. Specifically, a 24" barstool.

Fortunately, with one short trip to the Ballard Fred Meyer, an assemble-it-yourself barstool is had for $35. 15 minutes with Elmer's Glue and a screwdriver, and I've got an upstairs office location!

My original plan was to replace this large window with a similarly sized set of French Doors leading to an Enormous Party Deck, then wall in the existing back door/rotted back steps combo.

Sadly, the Side Sewer Adventure rather ruined the budget for any such extravagant plans. I have resigned myself to 'Plan B' - get rid of the Trusty Wood Stove, push the fridge over to the current Wood Stove Location, and rebuild Rotted Back Steps.

The full picture:

The 'before' shot can be found here.