i live in a barbie house

or at least in this point of the kitchen painting that's what it feels like.

See what I mean?  That pink counter top is taunting me.  Especially now that we've lightened the cabinets.

I have pride issues.  I'm not going to stand for that pink counter bullying me for much longer.  I have back up.

Watch out pink counter top, I've discovered laminate paint especially made for changing the color of your counter tops.  We shall see who has the last laugh.

Bwahahahahahahaha.

To refresh your memory, here's some before pictures of the kitchen.

It first started when the bathroom above decided to sprout a waterfall, not a drip or even a leak, but a waterfall through the ceiling of the kitchen below it.  Strangely this only happened when Sean took showers. 

Note the drop down ceiling and lighting.

In the process we had to tear out the entire ceiling, thus getting rid of the fluorescent lighting and making the ceiling taller.

For a very long time our lights hung by wire on nails.  But we needed the exposed kitchen ceiling to have access to plumbing and wiring for the renovation of the bathroom above (which is D.O.N.E. and I'm thinking that should be tomorrow's post.  We are in love with it and so excited to not have to deal with it anymore).

Our kitchen felt dark.  We ended up removing the cabinets above the bar to open up the space.  The cabinets were a yucky brown and even though the walls were a pale yellow it was just sort of a gloomy space.

Looking at the pictures of the "now" stages at the beginning of this post, I love it.  I love how open and bright it's become.  We added a new chandelier over the table, and replaced the cabinets over the bar with pendulum lights.  We raised the ceiling and added can lights everywhere else.  We're not finished with the cabinets yet, they're actually an off white and we're going to sand the edges to create an antique look and then paint the counter top a darker tan.  We might even go so far as to make it faux marble.  The Man found a diy on how to do that with the laminate paint.  We'll also probably add another small chocolate wall somewhere so it doesn't feel like you need sunglasses on when you come into the room :).  And to round it all off we'll do wood flooring.

So even though we currently have a Barbie kitchen, it has come such a long way.  I couldn't be more pleased.  We've been working so hard over the past month to get the bathroom and the kitchen finished up so we can refinance and I'm proud of what we've accomplished together.  The Man is amazing.  Have I told you that before? He is.

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