Kitchen Drama

Okay, wow I have been busy. We have finally began the kitchen remodel. Woo ho!!!
It's about done and it only took about a year. We began the demo 6 or seven months ago, tearing out walls (with only minor injuries and lots of laughs). Then we got the sagging floor fixed, which meant tearing out the linoleum and beefing up the floor joises then laying down my new plywood flooring. What a statement right? No rednecks live here!
Then we built us sum new walls. My brother had a friend, with a bad ass fast screw gun, he helped us put new drywall on the ceilings for free. Free is always nice. What wasn't nice is when he got a little screw happy with his cool screw machine and ended up making three big holes in the ceiling not to mention the 500 screws up there that didn't need to be there, that amounted to about 50 extra screws for each beer he guzzled, not bad I guess.... considering..... did I mention he was free. Then after awhile (months) we found a guy willing to do the mudding and taping for only $200.00. That's pretty cheap, the price included the walls and ceiling in the kitchen and the ceiling in the living room and the hall way, plus we only had to pay him $100.00 up front cus he had to go to jail and made us a deal to finish paying him with $20 a week in commissary money.... cool hu and not redneck at all :) He had to go to jail due to being caught with recreational paraphernalia which went a long way in explaining why he took so many recreational trips in our woods.... I just called um 'Breaks'
He even textured the ceiling, which I liked just fine, but there were several lines showing. It was not his fault, he did the best he could with what he had to work with and the short amount of time he had to do it all in before he had to go to jail.
There were a few areas in the kitchen he didn't have time to get to. I was just gonna do them myself, since,I'm pretty handy with a knife. But, I was at work and talkin' to a friend who happens to have a boyfriend who is very handy with a knife and he volunteered to come over and finish it (FOR FREE) wooho. I told him about the few lines that show on the ceiling and he very nicely included fixing that into the price.... wo ho... He came over and fixed everything in three days, he was like magic... like free magic....my walls are so smooth.

The ceilings had to be re-textured after he fixed it and it is now just gorgeous, the texture is like giant flowers.

We primed everything the next day. The paint colors have been chosen for months, green for the kitchen and brown for the living room (my favorite colors). So there I was, giddy with ready to paint excitement. We went to Wal-mart to buy the paint and ended up getting the only paint guy who didn't know fart about paint. He told me to use flat for the kitchen.. dumbass....then he proceeded to f*ck up both colors. I was pissed and seeing red. My oldest though, was seeing something else and whispered that she wished his jeans were tighter...UGH.. leave it to a boy crazy teenager to see the jeans he's wearing and miss the obvious stupid genes he possessed. After about four tries and lots of cussing, we storm out Wal-mart and go home, with my finally right paint.
The feelings I was trying to convey with my paint choices were warm and cozy for the living room, wanna grab a blanket, lay on the couch and cuddle. Bright and cheery for the kitchen, when you walk into the kitchen I wanted to feel a hello day.. good morning, morning kinda feeling. The colors had to blend well together cus the rooms are connected. Well, what I ended up with was a screaming green kitchen that kinda hurt your eyes and a dark gloomy brown that was depressing.
I wanted to cry :(..... We took pictures and the hubs took me to Sermin Williams.... OMG they are great, we went one shade lighter for the kitchen and the paint guy actually knew his ass from a hole in the ground. He also told me how to fix the brown for the living room, he even sold me the paint at the same price I paid for it at Wal-mart.....and.... his jeans were plenty tight :)
We came home and repainted the kitchen and it's beautiful with all the bright and cheery feelings and none of the eye pain.I did keep a little of the first scream green as a couple of stripes to better define the awesome foe wainscoted coat rack I designed, using one by fours and one by twos and some quarter round.---->>>>>>

For the living room I took a gallon of the gloomy brown, poured it into a five gallon bucket and started mixing in white until I had a color I loved. It is now so damn cozy we can't stay off the couch. The colors look great together and I'm very happy with the results.

We hung the new T.V. that's been in the box for five months, the hubs is in hog heaven.

My moms boss gave her a bunch of furniture that he didn't need and we traded her our old t.v. and entertainment center for a very nice sectional. It looks great in the living room, and obviously seats enuff:)

All we need now is a big fat lazy boy chair for my big man to watch his new 50 inch flat screen plasma t.v. on.
I have been having fun redecorating everything and surprisingly I have lots of cool shit that all just kinda goes with everything. We have chosen the flooring we're going to go with, laminate floating hardwood, we have already started saving for it. We should be able to start it about the middle of next month. We're gonna rip out the stinky carpeting sometime this week to get ready for the new floor. We need to figure something out for a backsplash in the kitchen, maybe ceramic tiles mixed with some glass tiles, maybe some foe stainless steel or maybe I'll bust up some pretty plates and make them the back splash, I don't know yet. Everything is coming together finally and it feels great to see progress.
Well, I'll keep you updated, and take lots of pictures.

Anyone have ideas for a cute backsplash let me know.