I must be in an odd mood. I’m rearranging things all over the house. It may be I’ve still got the misplaced hope that if I’m organized enough everything will be magically clean.
My kitchen has been driving me crazy for months now. The floor was impossible to keep clean. Getting down on my hands and knees to scrub it was only good for a couple of days, and I’m not the kind of person to do that for such little reward. More and more tiles were breaking up and cracking and coming free from the floor altogether. And in the door way of the little half bath, it was positively scary. One day the tile in the doorway came loose, and I picked it up. The wood underneath was sawdust. My thought process went something like, “Oh shit! Termites? Carpenter ants? Rotting floor boards from leaky pipes? What could it be? And is it just here, or does it affect more of my kitchen? Aghhhhh!”
My husband, however, never seemed willing to discuss doing anything about it, other than an occasional meander through the vinyl tile section at Home Depot.
My opportunity for action came this past weekend, when a friend of my husband’s offered to meet him at Las Vegas. Mentally rubbing my hands together gleefully, I formulated a plan, with help from my wonderful co-conspirator, Mom. We decided to do the floor, and paint the cabinets and walls while we were at it. I had decided on a color for the walls much earlier, but had not painted because 
the rest of the kitchen was in such bad shape.
the rest of the kitchen was in such bad shape. Here’s a before picture, so you get an idea of the ugly blandness of my kitchen. While it’s not completely hideous, it comes pretty close.
So the first two days my husband was gone, I worked on scrubbing my kitchen and emptying out all the stuff. We have a lot of stuff. I only had the mornings to work, because I had to work in the evenings. I also finished getting as many supplies as I thought we’d need. Sunday was spent pulling up the old vinyl tile and scrubbing the floor as much as we could, as well as taking down the wall paper border. Monday we put the first coat of paint on, repaired the insect damaged floor, and lay down tile in the middle of the floor, leaving one corner, and the edges. Tuesday we put the second coat of paint on, and shuffled appliances so we could finish the last corner. We started putting things away after dinner, and were still not completely done when my husband got home at 11:30. We had enough done so that it looked finished, however.
And his reaction? A very tired “Wow.”
I was hoping for at least an exclamation point.
Wow!!! It looks great! These husbands need a beating sometimes : )
Aysegul
PS: I will surely put your blog on my favorites. I wish you guys were here (or we there), you could help me with scrapbooking. I have everything ready. just need to start!