Sweet Home Project #3

I'm here again.  I know it's been a long time, and I really don't have an excuse for not writing.  I started this blog as a creative outlet for myself, but now I've come to a horrible realization...I'm not creative! But I am a work in progress.  Every week brings a new project, and sometimes I even finish them! 

I did finally finish one project, even if it's just a small one.  I painted my kitchen "Mark Twain House Bark" and I absolutely LOVE it!  But this wall is just so sad.  Our plan is to eventually install a gas fireplace here and build a stone surround and mantel, but that's still at least a few months in the future.  We've been talking about some kind of shelves for a while now, but I couldn't really decide what to do.  On the spur of the moment though I decided to do one long shelf all the way across. 

I'm glad I did!  The color of the wall looks really weird in this picture.  It's still the same brown though.  Having the long shelf gives me plenty of room to display my stuff.  I think decorating a kitchen can be difficult.  In my kitchen there isn't a lot of wall space, because it does have two outside doors, two inside doors and three windows.  So I pretty much just have this one wall for real decorating.  I'm not sure if I'm going to leave the cups hanging there or not.  The jury is still out on whether that's weird or not. 
The shelf itself cost next to nothing.  We bought the brackets at Lowe's for about $5.50 and the shelving board at Lowe's also.  It cost about $6 I think.  So altogether the shelf cost less that $25.  I am thankful for my handy husband who cut about six inches off the original board, painted it and centered it on the wall.
It seems like the kitchen has gotten a lot of our time and money, but it's a really important room to me.  We were hoping to build the fireplace before winter-the kitchen gets very cold because of the floor-but now I really want an island.  I'm debating the pros and cons of not having a kitchen table.  Our current table looks like it could seat six, but when you seat four adults there with plates, silverware, serving dishes and elbows, it shrinks fast.  We want to build an island to reasonably seat six adults and have room to move around.  Billy has done some initial measuring and we think we can work it out the way we want.  So we've been doing a lot of research to decide exactly how to build it, plus doing some pricing at Lowe's-OUR FAVORITE STORE!
So which will it be?  I'm really wanting the island right now, but I may change my mind when fall comes in.  So we're just going to save the money and decide when we have enough.  Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

Lynz