A Sunny Outlook for 2012

If 2012 isn’t sunnier moneywise, then by God it’s going to be sunnier colorwise.

We're painting the kitchen walls a bright, bright yellow. The original color was a thirty-year-old beige. Our first idea for a wall color was bright, bright white. But with the white refrigerator, white storage cupboard and a white paneled wall where a makeshift closet once was, the room has more than enough white. And the red 70s-era Twister carpet called for an equally bold wall color. And the color that called to me -- loudly -- was yellow. 

I started low on the color swatch strip with Playful Lemon Spritz, then inched up to Delightful Canary. And by the time Mike and I checked out at Menard's, we had ascended the color summit to Pineapple.

Fun with Knick-Knacks
Making a room your own with knick-knacks is always fun, especially when you have yellow as a backdrop. Both of these belonged to my grandma: cocktail glasses with silverplated stems and a sugar-and-creamer set made in occupied Japan.

The sunny outlook in our kitchen continues to the barnwood wall with this 1930s poster. Sunshine Biscuits was a brand name belonging to the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company. According to this Wikipedia article, in 1912 Loose-Wiles was the nation's second-largest manufacturer of crackers. The company had a brand called Sunshine Biscuits that they never registered. To keep other companies from using the name, Loose-Wiles was forced to change its name to the Sunshine Biscuit Company in 1946.

Sunshine sounds a lot more appetizing than Loose-Wiles, in my opinion.

Downsizing means living more affordably, but hey, you've got to have fun along the way. We've continued working on the kitchen as time and funds allow. We still have a long way to go, but it's amazing how far we've come. The photos you see here are "before" and "after."

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