The time had come for us to re-decorate. I don’t quite know why we chose to repaint the kitchen;
Perhaps because it was August and we were having summer-holiday-fever.
We wanted to deepen the turquoise so we brought the walls and the cabinets up a couple of shades to match the back splash…
Of course, as with all things, preparation was the key and took far longer than the paint job.
Our man on the spot wanted to spray it…
‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘inside?’
“We can do it,” he replied to the questioning crinkles around my eyes.
So off they went in the face of my hesitation, armed with power tools, brown paper, masking tape and plastic.
The three of them took cabinet doors off and lined the interiors with brown paper,
took out all the drawers, wrapped them,
then draped hundreds of yards of plastic over everything that wasn’t being painted,
they pitched a protective tent inside our house and on stepping inside I could feel the rise in temperature and the potential for suffocation…
The children would have loved it; I was very aware of the toxic environment that had been created and thanked God I didn’t have any daring youngsters underfoot who could only see adventure in a massive bubble.
Some of the spraying was done over in the barn, on drop cloths to ‘protect’ the cement floor.
I learned that there’s no containing the fallout; when I came to clean up after the job was complete I found a fine turquoise film outlining the protected area.
Evidence…of a job well done.
Back in the house the kitchen walls were denuded and the area was ready to be sprayed.
By late the following afternoon spraying was finished and drying had commenced.
It was enamel so this meant a few days.
So we lived with our indoor tent and admired the results from afar, keeping the cats locked up.
During the wait for the kitchen to set we embarked on our second painting project, this time in our master bath and my closet.
We were tired with the standard bathroom look that was original to ours and many other homes from the era,
I cleared out all my drawers in preparation for a more traditional painting job which eliminated the need to drape plastic and tape edges.
I took the opportunity to organise and cull; I found photographs that needed re-framing, books to give away and made plans to move my office from our bedroom to the spare front room and began a search for a couple of small pieces of leather furniture.
I get easily sidetracked.
Back to the project in hand.
As it turned out the French blue shade of enamel we had bought for the cabinets and tall-boy in my closet was all the rage among influencers.
We only know this because we subscribe to HGTV magazine and it was everywhere! Proving that Hubs and I instinctively know what’s ‘in’ without trawling through social media, fix-it-up blogs and shows for ideas.
My blue-eyed cowboy and I have ‘the eye’!
And our black cat Magic has ‘the mark’!
He jumped up on my tallboy and ‘oops’ jumped straight back down again and scurried under the bed.
He’s since moved across the driveway to keep our barn-mates company but his little ‘Oopsie’ paw prints ensure he’s not forgotten.
We had already chosen the classic black marble for our counter top in preparation for the pair of electric blue vessel sinks to sit on.
And here they are in place with two large mirrors scored from antique shops in Smithville near Austin and spray painted vintage gold by my blue eyed cowboy.
The kitchen was still draped and in-waiting so we had the other bathroom cabinets and sconces re-painted in a mustard desert sand to complement the lovely river rock vessel sink we had installed earlier this year.
With a few boudoir-type touches our guest bathroom got an upgrade to match the vintage mirror we had inherited from my cowboy’s grandmother.
At last the end of the week came and it was time to pull the plastic down and open up our kitchen.
Our workers replaced the cabinet doors and we began re-filling drawers, very carefully, because rogue fingernails and sharp edges around slowly drying paint don’t make the best of friends!
By the start of the following week everything was accounted for and back in its rightful place; a lingering smell of paint was soon eliminated by familiar cooking smells as we returned to normal.
The depths of colour made all the difference and we began to focus on the backsplash.
Behind the piece of painted Luan was a wall of white subway tile which we’d covered years ago because of its non-creative look.
It had been too plain for our colourful palette and was a glaring mis-match with our bolder upgrade.
It needed something to liven it up, something unusual that would pop.
We experimented with various types of stone tile but decided the rustic look didn’t go with the upbeat style we wanted.
We were looking at artisan tiles to feed our bohemian vibe and I finally found sets of Indian mosaic vinyls, reproductions of hand-painted terracotta, which could be adhered to the white tile.
Made by Avery, the leaders in sticky labels, we ordered a set of these plastic replicas and had to wait for several weeks as they made their way from India.
In the meantime, still on an east Indian theme, we found sets of cabinet knobs designed by artisans and ordered them. Amazon delivered in a day or two so we were almost instantly gratified.
While we patiently waited for the stickers to snail mail their way half-way round the world, we added our eclectic door pulls.
When the small packet of tiles arrived we loved them and immediately ordered another set.
We spent several hours designing a quasi-irregular pattern and a-fixing them to the prepared tile;
a skilled job assigned to Hubs;
the finished effect spoke loudly of our personalities.
Who would have thought such drama lived in a small 4×4 inch, brown paper package?
This is just the start of re-doing things while we are still able, in the hopes that we will age-in-place.
That’s our plan anyway for which we pray.
With all the construction taking place around us as developers come in and rape our farmland we’re becoming more open to suggestion…
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
