Home Improvement

I really wanted the title of my post to be that noise that Tim Allen used to make on the show “Home Improvement”. The confused dog noise he made? Remember? But, I didn’t know how to spell that, so I left it alone hoping you all would get the reference.

We are painting. Wait. Whoopsie. MR. PERFECTLY is painting. Our tiny, tiny kitchen. Our kitchen is the smallest kitchen known to mankind. The fact that I way overbuy at the grocery store, and am a poor housekeeper makes for the nightmare of small kitchen CLUTTER. We have a nice sized countertop in our kitchen. It’s away from the fridge/sink/stove area, but it would make a wonderful work area, or SOMETHING….but it’s always piled to the gills with bread, chips, candy, snacks, my disposable coffee cups, liquor bottles, a basket (which was hoped to contain the clutter), a mandolin, a knife block, and our cutting board collection………(deep breath). And I’m sure many other random, miscellaneous items that actually don’t belong there, but somewhere else, and we are far too lazy to DO SOMETHING with it all.

Anyway, this whole thing was a patchwork of decisions, made without much thought process. It started with our greasy, ugly, old track lighting. It’s pretty gross, and very outdated. Lighting is not terribly expensive (I mean it CAN BE, but you can get pretty cheap fixtures) . Actually…this story started a LONG….LONG time ago. Back in the 90’s. Let’s take a walk down memory lane.

We bought a house built in 1960 or so. It’s décor when we purchased it reflected the 1960’s theme. Only the ugly one, not the cool, retro Modern one. The green carpet…the olive green and turquoise blue carpet in the kitchen AND BATHROOM….

Perfectly’s dad said one year at Christmas that he’d give us $1000 for a decorative re-model, if we kicked in $500----making our renovation budget a whopping $1500. We anxiously awaited for tax refund time, and we went about re-modeling our kitchen and bath. The bath just got paint and flooring---the kitchen got flooring, track lighting, counter tops, paint and a stove. A lot of the work was done by Mr. Pefectly and my dad……..We bought the cheapest stove we could, and I bought—get this---DEEP BURGUNDY countertops. Yep. Burgundy. And we painted the walls the darkest Hunter/forest green imaginable. RULES BE DAMNED!! Who says small spaces can’t have dark colors? We painted our cabinets white, and due to the generosity of my mom, we also got a set of cabinets for a blank wall in our kitchen. Our linoleum is white with burgundy diamonds (original, huh??). I was so happy and proud of our color choices. We AGONIZED over just the right shade of DARK HUNTER GREEN for the walls…….

Who knew that a few years later that the trend of green/burgundy would go away? That jewel tones would give way to neutrals? REMEMBER internet……I was not around when the decorating/creative gene was being handed out. I was down the way trying to snag the lazy, get my way all the time gene…….

So, back to now……last weekend Mr. Perfectly installed a digital—programmable thermometer in the house. This made us look at a new light fixture (since it was in the same aisle as the thermostats)…….which brought to the forefront that our kitchen ceiling was really gross. Grease and steam had taken their toll on our pretty white ceiling. It was now white with brown-ish grease spots all over it. We decided that we’d replace the light fixture, and paint our ceiling. Seems simple enough, right?

Well, then we decided to maybe put an updated color on our walls. All the while, trying to remember that we bought BURGUNDY countertops………so we needed to try to stay with something that would compliment the burgundy….because we certainly can’t afford new countertops. I found a color called ‘Barnwood’. A tan-ish color. I also found a paintchip in the approximate color of our countertops…..when you put them together, they look pretty good. THe links to these colors do not look like the paint chips.....the red is more burnt, and the tan is not as true, BUT it gives a slight idea of what I have in mind. White cabinets, too.

Now, Mr. P is painting our ceiling, replacing the light fixture and is trying to prime the DEEP GREEN hunter walls---that will be a chore…….it’s taking many coats of KILLZ to cover the green-ness of it all.

I will video my horrific kitchen tonight. Warts (filth….clutter) and all. Just in case you think I jest at the smallness, clutterdness of it. Oh, no, Peeps…..not me. I lay it all out there…….you’ll be shocked—I promise. Now, some if it will be re-model clutter….but you can tell the tool bags and paint cans from the other kitchen and non-kitchen clutter. My dishes from last night didn’t get done, so I may cheat and wash those first…….. because who wants to see dirty dishes?

On a more pleasant note….we smoked an obscene amount of meat yesterday. 2 chickens, a half of a pork shoulder, a brisket and some ribs. I made cole slaw and stuffing (yes, like Thanksgiving….it’s my favorite food EVER….EVER….EVER). Then we gorged ourselves, and then put half or more of what was left into our freezer. We are bad with eating leftovers, so one day, in a couple of months when pondering over what to cook, I’ll go to the freezer to happily find smoked meat----we can gorge ourselves again on pulled pork sandwiches, and b-b-q chicken. MMMMMMM.

Tonight, I may have heated (well, fried) stuffing and gravy. That’s all I may eat. Because there is NOTHING better than stuffing all crispy with gravy. NOTHING, I’m telling you.

So, what did you do this weekend? Anything fun or exciting? Son #1 just texted me and said that a local grocery store called him---one that I shop at all the time---one that he recently applied at……..and I’ve sort of hit up everyone I recognize there asking what he can do to get hired on….(so I’m all momsy-womsy----I’m tired of bankrolling him!!!). Keep your fingers crossed that he can get a job there!!!! And that they aren’t just trying to humor ME-----I really am in there a lot. Like several times a week. So, I’ve had the opportunity to hit up at least 3 people I sort of know in a customer sort of way------

Anyway--hopefully regardless of how, he'll get a dang JOB!!