Kitchen Paint

I finally finished painting the kitchen. The pantry wall has been painted since before Christmas, but the rest of the walls have been in some stage of primed and. . . not. And the ceiling is visibly dirty - because the hood is a microwave hood, it doesn't really function well. (Kitchen dreams: a functional range hood!) (below is a photo taken after priming things very early in my move-in - you can tell by the amount of stuff in the kitchen that doesn't actually belong in the kitchen). 

Mondays are my day off, so I got up bright and early to start prep. I had to wash the ceiling over the stove, tape, remove one cabinet door, and slide the fridge out from it's space. Everything went well until I had to move the fridge. As I slid it out of the space, I saw some feathers sticking out from underneath. I really, really, really wanted it to be a cat toy, but when I pulled on the feathers (with my gloves on y'all), I felt what I was pulling on sort of jerk and tear and a bird wing came out from under my fridge. There was a dead bird. Under my fridge. And it was a little stuck, but I did finally get it out and throw it away and everything was terrible. Dead animals DO NOT belong in my kitchen, unless it's already been butchered and I paid money for it. (I mean, I guess I paid money for this bird, which has definitely been under my fridge for a long time!)

Anyway. I got the dead bird cleaned up (bleach. there was a lot of bleach involved. are you supposed to put bleach on ceramic tile i don't know and i don't care!), and began priming. It became super apparent that there was just a lot of edging to do - and a lot more with just the brush instead of the roller, so it was not a particularly fast paint job. I got everything primed, and moved onto the ceiling. The ceiling went very quickly - except for one corner, where I could barely get the roller into the corner, because of the cabinets and the fridge. (Though now that everything is done, I am realizing that I've got some spots to go over a second time with a brush - wah wah). 

While I waited for the ceiling to dry, I took the dog for a lovely walk, and then came back and did something I have literally NEVER done before: I taped the ceiling at the edge of the wall. And, uh, it totally made a difference. I will admit that I only taped along the edges that are easy to see from the living room. (You can just barely see the edge of the tape along the ceiling just above the door). I painted two coats of my new fav - Behr Marquee in Whisper White flat.

Y'all. It looks so good. And bigger? And definitely cleaner. (I mopped in the fridge nook before I put the fridge back and that was grossssss, even discounting the DEAD BIRD). Now I'm dreaming about a different (better) kitchen light (though I did adjust the positioning when I put it back up and that has helped). And making the above cabinet shelves actual shelves - right now it's just two 1x8s that used to be shelves sitting on top of the cabinets. And figuring out an open shelving option where the table is. . . never-ending projects, I guess.