Are you ready for some before and after pictures?!?

Well, you're in luck because I finally managed to exert the massive amount of energy it takes to copy my pictures from my camera to computer.  I don't know why I hate that part so much.  Okay, well today we are going to focus on the large wall in our kitchen.  I would feature the whole kitchen, but I forgot to take pictures and I can't right now because that would require me to do the dishes.  So here it is...the before kitchen (with the previous owner's stuff still in it):

 And this is "the wall" as the previous owners had it.

All white, a framed poster, and an ugly phone.  Now, don't get me wrong, this is an adorable kitchen, but it just wasn't our style.  We wanted something a little more modern, a little more colorful.  So we painted. And this is "the wall" after we painted.

Now, I wish I could say this color turned out the same as it photographs.  It did not.  I was going for a creamy lime, a muted apple green.  It turned out fluorescent.  I hated it. Painter's remorse.  I thought about going back and painting it white.  For months I tried to find something to tie the royal blue tiles in the countertops with the lime green in the walls (curtains, plates to hang on the wall, hand towels, anything?!!) and I could not.  And then I found a dresser buffet on craigslist for $40. It fit very nicely under the chair rail.

But of course it needed an update.  I thought about staining it, but the top was covered in laminate and that seemed like a heap of trouble--I'm a DIY rookie, y'all.  After weeks of staring at it, I decided to go bold.  Below is an "in progress" shot.  The Home Depot guy told me I should use tinted primer or it would take a bazillion coats.  I told him I already had primer and didn't want to buy more, so he suggested pouring some of the paint into the primer to self-tint.  I do so and ended up with this.

(Note: The garage door is 2/3 shut because of the ridiculous amount of wind that day.  Lynne and I were both painting our little hearts out, and we kept getting dirt and leaves in our paint.  Normally, I am against breathing paint fumes.)

At this point, my husband came home and Lynne and I tried to convince him that the buffet was complete and this pepto bismol pink was the color I picked out.  We are both very bad liars.  I had actually decided upon ladybug red.

A couple of coats of red and I was in love with my new buffet.  But still not in love with my walls.  I decided that maybe the green wouldn't be so in-your-face bright if it weren't for the big blank lime wall.  And I knew what must be done.  CHALKBOARD PAINT!  I know, forgive me for jumping on the bandwagon, but I needed to tone down the brightness and keep the modern.  So I used the ol' self- tinted primer trick and then slapped on that chalkboard paint.  I followed the directions on the can, waiting the appropriate amount of days before applying chalk.  The directions then state that, in order to help with erasability (not a real word), you should use the side of the chalk to cover the entire wall, like this:

You might have noticed that I painted right over the ugly phone jack right in the middle of the wall.  I couldn't stand the thought of it being the focal point.

Here's a close up of my new red buffet.  Pardon the lighting--it's hard to photograph in a room full of windows.

 And here it is all together in one crummy picture:

And here are the beautiful hydrangeas that I put on display thanks to my sweet buddy Lynne who brought them to me:

I will eventually share the rest of my kitchen soon so you can get the whole picture, but I was long overdue for showing some of my projects around the house.  I'm hoping that sharing my progress will keep me motivated to continue working!  Happy Makeovers!