Work Weekend #1

Whew, we are exhausted. It has been a busy few days since we closed (just four days ago). I am going to break each level of the house out into a separate post so it's not too long, but for reference here is what we have done so far. Stripped all the wallpaper from the kitchen, removed the kitchen desk and cabinet (just the one, not all of them), removed kitchen chair rail, pulled up about half the carpet, knocked down the wall between the third floor bedrooms and had a plaster repair guy into repair the walls (among other areas which needed some attention). Not to mention we went to Cincinnati yesterday to celebrate Christmas with Danny's grandmother!

Here are the pictures of the kitchen:

Just a before picture to refresh your memory. I didn't get a good picture from the other side, but there is a soffit above the cabinets that is covered in the floral wallpaper as well. 

And the other very

In progress. Chair rail gone

More progress

Bye bye desk

No more wallpaper 

Desk, paper and cabinet gone. My plan here is to put a bench by the window and get a rectangular kitchen table with 4 more chairs (see below for the chairs) around it to create a cozy breakfast nook.  

Wallpaper totally gone

No more wallpaper

Removing the wallpaper was a tremendous pain, but I'm proud to say that I did it 100% by myself! Danny assisted with the desk and cabinet removal though. I have never removed wallpaper before and from the way people talk about it, I expected myself to be in for a 30 hour project. I was glad I had low expectations because I was pleasantly surprised. It still took quite a bit of time, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. My dad gave me a scorer which allowed me to make tiny holes in the paper and I simply sprayed the paper with a mixture of water and vinegar and went to town. Getting the majority of the large pieces off was ok, but it was the little paper pieces that stayed behind that almost pushed me to my breaking point. But now that it's done, I'm quite proud of all my hard work. We had our plaster guy repair a few places in the walls where some water damage had caused the plaster to come off and I think it will look great when it's painted.

Speaking of paint, what color would you paint the walls? We are not planning to put the chair rail back up. The cabinets will not be changing, but we likely will change the backsplash out at some point. And here are the four kitchen chairs we just bought. I absolutely love the upholstery! I haven't the slightest idea what color to put on the walls so any and all suggestions would be welcome!

This is not the exact table, but I want something like it (this one is just a bit too big I think).  I am thinking that we will have a bench under the window on the long-side, with two chairs on the other long side and one chair at each end.