Farmhouse Kitchen

Today was the fourth day of school and the kids are home and are doing well.  The first day of school and all of it’s pressure has come and gone…and I have permission (from myself) to sit back and relax into the rest of the year.  Perfectionists, like myself, will understand.  The first day of school…like any monumental occasion (and let’s be honest…I can make an everyday walk to the mailbox a monumental occasion)…comes with high expectations.  And the expectations are for myself!  Perfect outfits.  Perfect shoes.  Perfect backpacks.  Perfect lunches packed in perfect lunch kits.  Perfect spirals and perfect pencils.  Perfect penminship on perfectly stapled forms.  Perfect pictures.  Perfect night before tuck in’s.  Perfect prayers.  Perfect goodbyes.  And perfect memories.  I don’t really care if I seem perfect.  No…I’ll go to the grocery store in a get up and hair due that’s down right embarrassing to anyone who’s with me.  And I have no problem telling the room that I completely dropped my basket and yelled at the kids like I was starring in a movie about an exsorsism because they didn’t clean their room after the 3rd request.  (No perfect parent here.)

But for some reason…I’ve associated making things perfect for them with making them feel perfectly loved.

And at times…it can be exhausting.  And a little ridiculous.  Because I know that perfection doesn’t equal love.  But at other times…the meticulous attention to details pays off.

Sometimes…I have to tell myself to just “stop.  Just let this one be relaxed.  If you don’t get the photograph…it’s okay.  Just focus on being present for the memory.

And then at other times…they notice the attention to the details and they smile really big and say thank you…and they feel…

well…

loved perfectly.

All of that to say…

I’m aware of the problem and I’m working on it.

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Let’s re-visit Summer, shall we.

We painted the living room, kitchen, and our bedroom and bath.

The house was becoming very dark.  The kitchen was a dark, brick, rust, red color.  When I originally painted it almost 10 years ago, I loved it.  It was exactly what I was going for…rustic and ranch-ish.  It off-set the white washed cabinets and mingled with the darker counter tops.  At the same time…we painted the joining living room a chocolate, brown color.  I wanted my house to feel like a cabin in the woods instead of a cookie cutter house in the burbs.  I loved it.  And over time…we slowly replaced couches and inherited antique furniture that added to the look.  But at some point, I went a little crazy with the dark wall colors.  Colt decided he wanted a navy room.  Chase picked a dark, woodsy green.  Until one day…a couple of years ago…I told Chad…”I feel like we are living in a dungeon.”

We finally decided to paint.

I’ve been really pulled toward the color gray.  And I thought a putty color…kind of like river rock…would lighten things up without completely changing the established look of the house.

However…I wasn’t expecting it to throw off my Texas, ranch kitchen so much.  It’s like nothing went in there anymore.  At first I thought I really didn’t like the new color.  But then…I had vision.

Operation farmhouse kitchen went into full effect.

I woke up one morning and thought, “Today…I’m going to take off some cabinet doors.”

So…I did.

Then…my brother trimmed them out and I stained the trim to match.

And then I thought…”What should one do with a few nice cabinet doors?”

So…I screwed them above the windows instead of messing with curtains.

I really hate curtains.

And I really love wood.  So it worked out.

I went on the hunt for some simple decor that would make my kitchen a place that represented the things that I love.

And used some of my old stuff as well.

Now…I’m completely in love with the wall color…and the kitchen.

Plus…I kinda want a farmhouse sink now.

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Up next…the master bedroom and bathroom.

I’m gonna have to clean them and make my bed before I take those pictures.

Happy Thursday.