You know...

I never quite realized just how big my kitchen floor was...until we recently painted our kitchen, and I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed the entire thing with a handy-dandy scrub brush.  I have one of those Hoover hard floor cleaners...well, let me tell you -- those things apparently DON'T work very well.  When I saw all of the dirt and nastiness that I got off of my floor by scrubbing, eeeeek.  I was embarrassed that I've been using that thing for so long!!!

Anyway -- I'm quite happy with how the kitchen turned out.  We've been talking about painting it for over 2 years, and we FINALLY did it.  When we first started talking about painting, I had bought new bulbs and shades for my chandelier in the dining area, and I said "That way when we paint, it will look fresh and new".  Well, one by one the bulbs started to blow, and I kept saying "Nope, not going to change them until we paint - then I'll change them all at once"...by mid-November, we were down to 2 bulbs...it was getting hard to see dinner, lol.

We had volunteered to host Thanksgiving dinner, so between that and the nearly non-existent light to eat by, we decided to FINALLY paint.

Here it is, all finished, and looking pretty :)

This is the dining area end:

and the kitchen end:

Now, I'm most excited about this -- I have plate covers on all of my switches...you know that saying "the shoe makers children have no shoes"?  Well, my hubby is an electrician, and since we had been talking about painting the kitchen (following a Family room addition onto our house, that partly involved the kitchen), he never put plate covers on all of our switches in the kitchen...SOOOO, now the room is complete, and looks so nice!  Check out these fancy schmancy switches:

Since we had a little more than 2 years to prepare for this momentous occasion, hubby sprang for these super duper programmable dimmers, buying them here and there, until we had enough switches for the kitchen. (about 8 or 9 all together)

Thanks for taking a tour of my home improvement project with me!! :)

Hope all is well with you all -- have you got your Christmas shopping done yet???  I'm about 90% there, YEAH!!! :)