Not New Niceties #7: Grey Paint

At Christmas time every year the 're-decorating bug' seems to grip Devo and usually, perilously close to the big event, he begins to tear something apart in order to improve it. Last year, a couple of weeks before Christmas, it was the living room. This year, two days before Christmas Eve, it was the kitchen he set his sights on...

Now, there is no doubting that it needed to be done. OR that my other half is the most fantastic handy-man on the planet. (Even if his timing can be a bit dodgy...) The kitchen hadn't been painted in years and our cupboards were cluttered and not being used efficiently. We had been dreaming of re-doing the whole room - floors and all - but having no budget for such large-scale work we had been just ignoring it and getting on with life.

It was ugly though. And the thoughts of having another festive dinner in such dismal surroundings was kind of depressing. So he determined to do something about it.

The day before Christmas Eve.... it was chaos...

The only stumbling block was that we had zero budget at that time of year for... well... anything extra so if he wanted to sort it out, he'd have to get creative... or go begging...

My mother-in-law has recently had her own kitchen redecorated. More or less to match her new black fridge (!). She chose a gorgeous deep grey colour for the walls. During the summer I decided I also wanted a grey kitchen, but the tester pots I'd chosen at the time were a lot lighter in tone. 

However, beggars can't be choosers so when she mentioned that she had a full extra tin of paint leftover that we were welcome to, we decided to abandon our own half-hatched plans and say thank-you-very-much for the new-to-us paint.

Along with the painting, there was a mammoth clear out which saw us whittle our collection of kitchenalia down to what could fit into the 'fitted kitchen' cupboards and onto the open shelves. This allowed us to move our huge dresser into the hallway where it is currently employed storing books, hats & scarves and the few kitchen bits we only use occasionally - such as serving platters and the likes - that we couldn't fit into the very few cupboards we were left with.

With the dresser gone we could finally push our kitchen table up against a wall - something I longed to be able to do.

I really love the grey. It matches our counter tops perfectly and goes really well with the green shelves and window-blind we already had.

The re-jig has also made our kitchen feel so much bigger. It 'flows' better too and we are spending a lot more time in there - even though it's the coldest room in the house!

Screen print 'Ha'penny by Night' by Leo Boyd

It was so lovely to be able to celebrate Christmas in fresh, clean surroundings... even if our table decor was somewhat minimalist... which was all we could muster after such an intense bout of hard work!

I'm loving the pared-down possessions too. Everything has a home which makes tidy-up easier. Our dry goods being displayed in jars makes putting together the weekly shopping list so much easier, as I can see at a glance what we've run out of. I actually feel like we got the brand-new kitchen I've been longing for - but at no cost!

It's amazing what some shameless begging and a lick of paint can do, huh?!

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For more posts in this series click on the links below:

Not New Niceties #1: Sticky Monsters
Not New Niceties #2
Not New Niceties #3: Hemingway's House
Not New Niceties #4
Not New Niceties #5: Tiny Things
Not New Niceties #6: Ancient Adult Colouring Book