Ryan McFarland

On Sunday afternoon we started painting the kitchen. We decided that the money i make writing for DIYlife can be used to make minor home improvements and that wouldn’t interfere with our debt elimination plans. We chose a very deep red and it took four coats to give us a satisfactory color. The first two coats looked quite pink. Here’s what the kitchen looked like in December of 2006 right after we put the new oven in.

And after painting four coats of red paint…

You might have noticed that we also have a range hood in over the oven and that the light is on. I’ve had it in place for months now but on Saturday took a few hours to get it wired. I wanted to just cut through the sheet rock behind the stove, drop wire from the hood through the wall and then run over to the nearest outlet. Unfortunately there was a stud on each side of where the hood wiring was. Also, behind the drywall was plywood. I love that there is plywood there improving the house’s structure and making hanging things easier but it makes cutting holes in the wall messy and difficult to patch. So i decided to tear off a piece of the siding on the other side of the wall. I ended up destroying a good part of the 4×8 sheet in the process of removing it. I also discovered that there once was a door where the stove is. The replacement siding piece cost $45. That means i need to do a few more posts on the Do It Yourself site. I still need to cut the piece and put it up but my saw and sawhorses are at Seth’s still. Once it warms enough to paint then we’ll paint it to match the house — well, paint it to match the slightly different color that i have been painting the house.

You also might see that there is no bread on the counter in the after picture. We decided to allocate a shelf of one cupboard for bread, muffins and bagels. we also changed the position of the microwave, toaster and toaster oven. We’ll see how we like that. we also decided to try and keep the top of the microwave, the windowsill, and the top of the fridge free of clutter.

Now we just need to stretch and frame the painting on the fridge that Seth gave Cena for her birthday and move some magnets to make even the front of our fridge free of clutter.