Mamma Mia Here We Go Again

Well it's been a pretty sweet 24 hours around here. I already told you all about the Kit Kat ice cream. I'm still excited about it, you have no idea. I just wish I didn't have to share it with the rest of the people in the house. Then this morning I hear that they are planning on making Mamma Mia into a movie. I have been saying they should make it into a movie since I saw it twice in 7 days at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto. I don't know how I'll manage to wait until the end of 2007 which is it's projected release date.

So my life sounds pretty good doesn't it? Well it gets better. About two years ago Mike and I started a kitchen renovation. It wasn't anything major, mostly cosmetic, something they would have banged out on Trading Spaces in two days. Well here we are two years later and it's still not completed. Shocking isn't it? Most of the work is done; all the painting, new floor, new counter tops, new sink, new faucet. The only thing that was holding us up was the back splash.



This is the business end of our kitchen before the reno. That's a lot of knotty pine cabinets right there. I knew they had to be painted, they dated the kitchen so much, but boy did I feel guilty about covering up all that wood. Especially since I spent the better part of a year painstakingly stripping the many layers of paint off the trim in the living room. We took a test door to a friend to have it routed out to add some interest. So yeah it turns out those doors are chip board with knotty pine veneers. The guilt was gone, bring on the paint.



This is the table end during the demo stage. Yes folks that's panelling under the wall paper. The people who owned the house before my parents LOVED panelling. Half of all the rooms in this house were panelled. That included the kitchen and my bedroom. To make matters worse in the kitchen they put up the panelling and then installed a drop ceiling. So the panelling stays unless you take out the drop ceiling as well. My Mom's solution was heavy textured wall paper and paint. Mike and I decided to go with a paint approach for the whole thing.



So here we are after paint, but before the floor. The panelling actually looks quite nice painted. It lends itself to a country kitchen look. We tried not to get too cutesy with it though.



Here's the cabinets after paint. Originally I was going to paint the lower cabinets the creamy white like the uppers, but I thought white cupboards with a toddler wasn't going to work unless I wanted to spend everyday scrubbing finger prints off them. I think it looks a lot better this way. You can also see the floor we laid down.

As for the back splash we had orginally thought we would tile it. Michael was game to give it a try. So we went and picked out some tile and brought it home to check how it would work in the kitchen. These are the 4 inch tiles we picked out.



Now some where down the line after we purchased these 4 tiles and decided they would work two things happened. We ran out of money and Mike got cold feet. He flat out refused to even give tile work a try. He was just going to paint it yellow and leave it at that. Well actually he wanted me to paint it, but I was holding out for the tile. So last night we had his Aunt and Uncle over for coffee and Uncle George starts talking tile with Mike. Turns out UG's been doing some tile work himself. So he tells Mike there's nothing to it, I'll come and give you a hand, just do it. So Michael has tile fever again and I just happen to have a Home Depot gift certificate burning a hole in my wallet. He has promised me that we will go tile shopping next week. I cannot wait! I should of had UG over for coffee months ago. My kitchen will finally be done.