kitchen: before and after

this was my kitchen- classic old house galley-type kitchen with cabinets and countertop on the shortest wall in the kitchen! that was all the storage and countertop i had.....my window view above the sink was onto the roof of the business that is next door to us. lovely. the other boxed in window was so high on the wall that unless i was standing right in front of it, i really could not see out of it. it also did not open. what was its' purpose?

this is my kitchen now!!! this is that same wall. i realized the stove is right there, but, there is bountiful countertops on either side of the stove, with quick access to the storage.

this was my other window. it also was classic old house in the fact that it was huge. i loved my color before (marigold), but, it was time for a change!

this is looking on that same wall....a lovely window now looks out onto our backyard.

our new refrigerator stands basically where that big old window was.

this is is my south wall, and that counter top was a span of 12 feet. 12 feet! we did go with a laminate countertop after looking at all types. it reminds me of how i paint....it is almost like having spots be worn through to show other colors. it looks rather neutral, but, it is clay colored with purple showing through, and at night, has a much greener hue that i would have expected, but, looks great with the purple walls.

this is our new lights in the room. i love the artistic look and feel. i wanted some sort of a drum type light. i was actually shooting for a burlap drum type light, but, i could not get my husband there. he was not understanding my textural feel i was going for....oh, well. i got the shape i wanted, and i do still like these.

these are my new lights over the sink. i am so loving the industrial feel of these matching up with my arty drum lights. my new color is a deep purple. i put that onto 3 walls, with the other walls being a clay colored with white trim. i love the colors!

this is a peek into my stove. after much discussion and debate, we went with a stove with 2 ovens. this is looking into the top one. love the color. we did not do the floor yet due to our time constraint (graduation....), but, we will get it caught up here soon now that things are calming down.

thank you's.....

final step in this graduation process....the thank you! i made thank you postcards.

with matching envelopes!

i was using blank notecards that i trimmed to fit my envelopes. i sprayed them outside on the driveway. i actually lined up 6 cards underneath the stencil at a time.

this was the stencil i used, (which i love!).

these are the spray paint colors i used- ivy leaf and primer grey. i did a light spray with the ivy green just enough to get some color onto the cards and a little heavier with the grey to fill in more and give definition to the stencil. this gave the cards a variegated look that i liked. the final step was to stamp the "thank you" onto the front.