My plan to work on Act 4 yesterday was shelved when I decided I would rather get everything organized in the kitchen, finish painting the trim and get all the crap off the table. I’m not a person who can leave a mess behind. Some people have no problem with that, but I’m someone who cleans and straightens up before I leave town. I did assign Don the bathroom; heaven knows when he’ll take care of that. Most likely, when he knows I’m two hours away and headed home on my day off. Same with washing the sheets. I will wash them before I leave and I think I can rest assured that he’ll leave them as is until absolutely necessary.

Not the best picture as it’s dark and rainy today, so I had to take it with the lights on so the yellow looks darker than it is, but you get the idea. Still have to re-mount the roman blinds and hang a few things here and there.

Anyway – all done! For now. We’ve decided that we want to paint the entire kitchen yellow, which isn’t as overwhelming as it sounds because we have lots of windows and trim and all the cupboards and a door that will be painted ivory white. And the ivory white I’m using is lighter and brighter than the current paint color. That’s just fine with me as I’ve never liked the paint color in this house, which is the same in every room, save the two bathrooms which I painted not long after we moved in. This house was flipped and I am absolutely sure that the flipper had every wall sprayed in this same blah color – not white, not beige, but somewhere in between. In a flat finish. When was it ever wise to paint a kitchen in oil-based paint in a flat finish?

We’re coming up on 12 years in this house and I’m finally getting around to painting the kitchen, which I’ve been threatening to do for years. I doubt I would have started painting, knowing me, but then we fell in love with the vintage stove.

And I’ll do anything for that stove.

The process will take a long time. I’m going to do it a section at a time and I’m headed off to Hartford for five weeks, so there’s that.

Again: dark, rainy, the floors look darker than they are but here’s the table. I find I’m really liking it. Don tells me he had no trouble cooking last night and the pots and pans and baking supplies are in another cupboard now that is much closer to the stove. The crate under the table holds miscellaneous items, including dish towels, some rarely used utensils, etc. I think it will work. Eventually, we’re going to replace that microwave with a smaller one in white. (I’ve never liked this one, but it came with the house, so we accepted it.) I’ve also never liked the black stove and the black dishwasher. The dishwasher doesn’t work. It’s never worked. Right now, we’re storing supposedly essential kitchen items in there. But we never use them. So they’re getting tossed and we’re getting a new dishwasher. In white. None of this will happen immediately, but with the paint, the new dishwasher and the vintage stove coming, we’ll have a mini makeover.

Oh, and I hate the tiled countertops.

You can see how the yellow changes depending on the light, the time of day and whether I have to resort to turning on the overhead pot lights.

The other item I purchased on Saturday was not a need, but I fell in love with it, so it came home with us. It’s almost impossible to take a good picture in the den because there are windows on three walls and it tends to stay dark in there until late in the day.

This table. Fell in love with the shape, the paint color – everything. I had no idea where it would go but this seemed like the right place and Don agreed. Excuse the laptop cord, but hey, this is real life. This is also pretty accurate in terms of the color. I had to close the blinds to get it that way.

And for those of you who asked, here’s the former island on the porch. I haven’t really done anything with it yet. No time.

It does look pretty there.

As you will see, it’s facing the entrance to the porch.

I have to find some place for the bench that was there – it’s currently shoved over to the left.

What do you think?

To sum up: Photos, but none of them very good. But there you go. It is what it is.

Okay. Acts 4 and 5 today and then Tuesday and Wednesday are for shopping and laundry and packing.

Happy Monday.