Anie's Space

  Here we are, back at it again!  This time I wanted to re-do the ceiling, but I'd always wanted to take out the soffits above the cabinets, and this was the prime time to do so! The first thing we did was take the piece of sheet rock that had been placed on the end of the stove side soffit.  This was the result of the wall that we took out 10 years prior.  We'd never gotten around to doing more than tacking up the square of sheetrock, so it was easy to take down.   Thankfully there was nothing inside and we were free to proceed with that side.  Removing the framework was the most challenging, but with some patience, a handy sawzall, and my trusty wiggle tool, we were able to get it taken apart in no time. We then took some scrap sheet rock and filled in the openings.  We weren't worried about the ceiling too much, but we did need to make the wall look nice.  We placed a 2x4 across the top to help hold the board in while we were attaching it. Now that we knew it would work,

Shortly after we moved in (within a year or so) my family came down to help move the wall in the kitchen.  It was so bizarre. There was this 5'x6' area in the garage that could have (should have) been in the kitchen!  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the progress because the device my pictures were on was stolen, but here are some before and after pictures.  Not only did we move the wall, I replaced the solid door with one that had a window in it, so that the evening sunshine that flooded my garage would shine into the kitchen!   See that wall to the left of the stove? All this space! See how small the kitchen was?  To the right of the fridge is the washer and dryer.   Here's an of after shot (several years later).  On the ceiling you can see where the wall was.  It made such a difference!  My mom and I found a couple of "broken" cabinets at Home Depot, and we fixed those and added a door on top for a few years and later I found a countertop that mat

  This is what our kitchen looked like when we first bought our home.  That was the brightest yellow I had ever seen, and paired with the high gloss, cherry wood, polyurethane cabinets, it was rather shocking to the system! I took a pendaflex from Sherwin Williams and any time I found something I liked the colors on, I looked to see what colors of paint matched it.  It's funny, but I found an iridescent placemat that had several coral colors in it, and that is how I made my final color choices.  Coral, Salmon & Foxy.  I did things a little different than most folks, and painted all the walls Salmon, except for most of the southern walls, which I painted Coral, which was just a shade lighter.  Folks often don't even notice, but it's a fun little thing to do. This is what the kitchen looked like after a good paint job.  Now the cabinets don't jump out at you and the colors are much more soothing.  If you notice the wall on this side of the bar, it's the lighter co