Kitchen & dining room before & afters

I've been working on 'changing' the decor in our house for what seems like forever.  I hate doing stuff like this.  HATE IT.  I have no idea what I'm doing, no idea what looks good, no idea of anything.  I'm super impatient so I want to just buy it all at one time & be done w/ the whole thing.  I don't wanna go to 5 million different stores & look at stuff.  Don't wanna...

I had high hopes of doing a whole before & after post for ya'll when it was all done.  With grandious fanfare & pomp & circumstance....

BUT, since it's taking me so long, the internet may not exist when I'm ALL done so I'm giving you what I have so far.  

And I will preface this by saying that decorating is like past hairstyles...at the TIME they seem like a good idea...

The kitchen.  The horrible paneling on the walls.  The horrible lighting for this picture.  This is what I did when we moved in 15 years ago.  I love sunflowers - why NOT put them all over my kitchen cabinets?

A year or so ago I took all that down & replaced it with these, uhm er - things?  They had some purple in them (shocking) & I LOVED that plate.

Then with a welcomed 'it's ok - you're not crazy for wanting to paint your whole house purple' suggestion to paint the kitchen & dining room purple from Alicia, I painted the dining room first...then maybe 3 or 4 months later the kitchen. 

I wasn't happy with the 'things' on top of the cabinet after I painted, but I left them there while I decided my next move.

I bought this bowl of glass balls at Kirkland in New Albany to put on top of the cabinet between the kitchen & living room.  It doesn't have much clearance between it & the ceiling so it works perfect.  

And this is when the obsession for colored glass began...

I bought these at Hobby Lobby for 50% off.  I put them on the dining room table & thought they went great against the fabric wall.  I love how the light reflects through them.  

(My friend, Rose, made the table runner from scraps we had from the fabric wall.)

Then I decided I wanted to find fun, different colored glass containers to put on top of the kitchen cabinets.  B-rad & I went to Old Time pottery one night & I found 2 red colored glass vases.  I snatched them immediately & told B-rad, "This is what I want for on top of the cabinets.  Help me look for more."  

As we wandered aimlessly through the store, my red glass vases clanking on the cart because their stupid floor is concrete & the most un-level thing I've ever seen, we turned a corner - & I shrieked.  

We had found the colored glass area...

I know the lighting is awful...sorry about that.  Just know that it is SUPER cute in person & I LOVE it.  That green plate was the most expensive purchase.  It was $40 & I did NOT wanna buy it.  Lucky for me I have a hubby that loves to spend money & he kept telling me, "Who cares?  Buy it if you like it."  

I'm glad I did because I think it breaks up the whole 'vase' theme.  I love the ones w/ the knobby thingies on them too.  The blue one has bubbles & etching on it.    

I got a monogrammed cutting board from work a few years ago for Christmas.  Of course I will never use it for what it was intended so I decided to use it as a decoration on top of the cabinet.  

Before:

After:

My friends, Debbie & Rose, came over last Friday to finish drapes we were making for the sliding glass door.  While they were there - we had other little projects we did as well.  

New pillow covers for the couch.  I wanted to pull in the fun colors from the fabric wall onto the boring, brown couch.

They also hung up my anniversary gift from B-rad.  They raved & raved about how cool they thought it was.  It's hanging to the left of the sliding glass door in the dining room.

I hadn't ever hung up my paintings from Uptown Art because I wasn't sure what to do w/ them.  I knew I wanted them in the hallway by our guest bathroom.  I knew I didn't want them to be all lined up nice & neat AND I wanted to be sure to leave room in case I do more.

Debbie & Rose raved about my mad painting skills (see why I love them?) & had a FIT when they saw these just stacked in my office. They forced me against my will gently coerced me into letting them help me hang them. 

It really worked out for the best because we had 6 hands to hold them in different places to see how they looked best together.  I love how it turned out.  And I have room for more.

Debbie is an awesome seamstress & she's the one that gave me the crazy idea that we could "MAKE" curtains & drapes.  She helped me with my kitchen curtains over a year ago.

Before:

After:

I bought those colored things to go along w/ my  newly discovered colored glass obsession a long time ago.  I never liked how they looked, but had no idea what to put in the window.

These are short & small so they don't take a way from the picture window.  Found these at Old Time Pottery too.

The dining room.... Before:

After:

I didn't want anything too loud & crazy for the door because I didn't want them to compete w/ the fabric wall.  I went with plain grey to pop against the purple walls.  Then we trimmed them in the same fabric we used in the kitchen.  

Eventually I'm going to paint the living room grey.  We have an open floor plan so I wanted to be sure that everything complimented each other.