I [heart] My Kitchen or How I learned to stop worrying and love the creamsicle.

My kitchen has been miraculously transformed from this:


into this:


For the last three days Andrea has driven all the way over here and tirelessly painted and painted and painted while I helped (sometimes) and did work (part of the time) and attempted to distract the children (mostly).

I wanted the two kinds of green, with a cream for the large sections of wall and a dark red for the back-splash behind the stove and sink.

But unfortunately:


Christmas every day was not really the look I was going for. I thought the light green would be enough to make it not-too-christmasey, but, um, well. Steve was right. He cautiously posed the suggestion that perhaps the red was maybe a little much.

After hanging on for as long as I reasonably could (too long, way too long - I knew it was doomed before he said it) to my color choice, I finally yelled across the house that he was right and I was wrong. He asked if I'd repeat that on tape, and of course I refused. But I did paint it, photograph it and post in on the world wide web.

The creamsicle orange was his idea, and damn if it wasn't a good one. It makes the whole kitchen feel fresh and bright and huge. (Which, if you can't tell from the pictures, it is not. Huge, that is.)

Matilda helped:


Freya helped too. She painted one of these:

I didn't take a picture of hers, but if you come over, you can tell which one it is because the finish is still a little lumpy.

We took a ridiculous number of in-progress pictures, none of which are nearly as exciting as the final version. Every time we did something new I was so excited, I had to take pictures, but now that it's done, the in between pictures seem so much less exciting than they did at the time. So if you want to see The Transformation ad infinitum, click on over there. Otherwise, there's really only one thing left to say.

Thank you, Andrea!

You are a wonderful friend, and this was the best present you could ever have given me. I love you and I love your family and I am going to miss you all so much.


You're not really leaving in this picture. You'll be back. That's how I want to think about you moving across the country too, even though I know it's not quite the same as leaving for the night. A girl can pretend, can't she? I love you.