Signs of the Apocalypse

There used to be a running joke on '50s and '60s sitcoms about the hard-working husband coming home, late at night, and tripping over a new/moved piece of furniture in the living room because his stay-at-home wife had been redecorating...again. Apparently women like to move furniture around all the time and/or get new stuff as often as possible. It was used as a plot device on at least 3 "I Love Lucy" episodes that I can think of, probably more.

I must have been hiding behind the door of heaven when that gene was handed out because I almost never move furniture once I've placed it and I don't buy new stuff until the old stuff falls apart. So Mr. French considers it a sign of the apocalypse if I suddenly start dreaming about redecorating.

Consider yourself warned.

I blame Pinterest. After days of looking at cute living rooms, adorable kitchens and fabulous yards, I look at my own house and go "bleck." It's not that I want new furniture, it's just that I want my house to look like the pictures that I have been pinning - cozy, stylish and, I don't know, just different somehow, like the house of a grown-up.

The trick now is to take it one project at a time. I've already identified things I want to do in the living room - new cushions for the wicker couches, new rug, repaint the dining table and chairs - as well as a big re-do for the kitchen cabinets. I've even got Frenchie on board with the whole idea of starting to repaint those cabinets this coming weekend. Being a lazy sort, I've never really wanted to tackle anything like this but now I'm raring to go, wishing it were Friday already. Weird and kind of scary.

I'll take pictures of the "before" this week so that we have documentation of this once in a lifetime moment. Trust me, neither one of us are big do-it-yourself-ers so this might be a one time thing. Let's hope our enthusiasm lasts long enough to do all the cabinets.


rustic new handle

I've already taken the first step. The other day I realized that our drawer pulls were different. We had 2 that had rustic handles just like the one to the left and all the rest were booooooring (see below). I think the rustic ones are actually originals that somebody never got around to replacing with the boring ones.  Lucky for me, I LOVE the originals. They have that cottage-y look that I'm going for so I went to the local hardware store yesterday and found the one in the picture. It's an almost perfect match for the ones I have at home and Mr. F loves them too (which is unusual because we have very dissimilar taste


boring old handle

usually) so he was on board with my idea of replacing all the boring handles with these cool ones. Then HE came up with the idea of repainting all the cabinet doors white. They are orange now, well, more of a soft peach color which is also the same color as our kitchen walls...and ceiling. It's like being inside a giant pumpkin. There's just too much of it so painting the cabinet doors white would help a lot.

We're also going to look for rustic-looking hinges for the cabinets but that's the lowest priority, if we can't find that it's ok as long as we have the new handles.

Wish us luck...well, actually, wish me luck. Mr. F is a perfectionist so I know it'll look amazing and perfect when it's finished but I just hope I'm not finished right along with it. Hopefully it'll be one of those projects that goes smoothly and has us saying "why didn't we do this sooner?"

Famous last words?