Good Riddance

January is by far my least favorite month. It's long, it's cold, and due to the post-Christmas wallet resuscitation underway, retail therapy is out. I'm unmotivated to get us out and about and as a result, we get sort of stir crazy.

Last Thursday night Chris and I were chatting and having a glass of wine after a mutually crappy day. We were talking about all the house projects and what we still have on our list of "Phase 1" projects (all the things we can do ourselves or have someone else do for relatively low cost. Bigger projects like a full kitchen remodel will wait a little longer). We started talking about our kitchen and Chris happened to mention that he thought it would look really good if we removed one of the cabinets, opening up the kitchen/dining room a bit more. We chatted a bit about it and went to bed.

Fast forward to Saturday morning: we got up, rearranged some cupboards and got rid of some extraneous stuff and...knocked down a cupboard.

I love this about Chris and I. We don't really agonize over decisions about house stuff. If we think it would look good and Chris thinks he can do it (he's really good at DIY), we tend to just go for it. A trip to Home Depot, a wall patch, plenty of spackle and some paint later, you can barely tell there was ever a cabinet there.

As you can tell, we also don't shy away from color!

It's really made an amazing change to the feel of the kitchen and dining room. Chris actually put together a photo album of all the changes we have made to this house since we moved in and it's pretty impressive what we've accomplished in 18 months. There is still plenty left to do, but I'm really happy with everything we've done to make this our first real home.

And with that, adios January! Back tomorrow to check in with how the year's To Do List looks after Month 1.