When we moved in to our house seven years ago, there were so many things that we wanted to eventually change about our house to make it feel more like our style. What we found is, life gets busy really quickly. Pretty soon, kids come along, and it’s even busier, and that list of things to update/change goes on the back burner. BUT, after spending the past year plus living and working from our home, we decided it was time for a fresh coat of paint.

Here’s a peak of our kitchen “before.”

Although, not truly a before picture, because the true before picture would be missing some can lights on the ceiling that we had installed last summer, and the horrendous fan we had over our kitchen table.

I hated this red. We don’t get a lot of natural light in our kitchen or living room because of the screened in porch right off of the kitchen, and this red and the dark cabinets made an already dim kitchen feel really…dark.

Here’s some more before’s of the kitchen:

Nathan and I had always talked about painting this. We had a painter lined up, and then, COVID. And the world shut down, and our painter cancelled. So after living with our red room for almost an additional year after having our painter lined up, Nathan came home one day and out of nowhere suggested, “Why don’t WE just paint the kitchen?” It was days before Christmas. December 21, to be exact. I was headed into my last week of maternity leave with Jonathan. I mean, why NOT paint the kitchen just days before Christmas?

So, again, here’s the before:

And here’s the AFTER:

So much brighter and LIGHTER.

Beautiful prints from Lindsay Letters.

And I failed…yet again…to take before pictures of the rest of the house, so here’s a look at our living room before our fresh paint:

The rest of our first floor was this color, except for the dining room, which was…brown. And here’s the AFTER:

And here’s a look at our dining room repainted:

We love this color so much more. I just wish we hadn’t waited seven years to update it to something that fit us better!

Kitchen walls: Sherwin Williams Neutral Grounds

White walls elsewhere & trim: Sherwin Williams Alabaster

Green walls in dining room: Sherwin Williams Acacia Haze