A pointless exercise in aesthetics

I've been pretty adamant so far about one thing when it comes to the house - we do it once and we do it right: no re-dos.

But the kitchen turned out to be the exception.

I was going to leave it be for awhile, but it's the kitchen! We're in here everyday, all day sometimes. We just couldn't keep it the same. And the gut-reno is maybe a few years off.

So after removing the country kitchen wallpaper as mentioned last week, I painted the wall today:
Voila!

As I put it to my mother earlier today, I totally understand that what I've been doing to the kitchen is comparable to putting a band-aid on a broken leg (hence the title). This entire wall I just painted will someday be torn to bits, covered with cabinets, or tiled within an inch of its life.

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A couple things I should point out...

1) A major upgrade which was totally easy, cheap, and worthwhile was staining the cabinets. As you can see in the below photo, most of the cabinets are in this condition - worn, and ragged.

I simply took an old rag, dipped a corner in a small can of Minwax Jacobean stain and ran it over the cabinets, wiping with a dry rag as I went. It made a noticeable difference in the appearance of the cabinets. Cost: $0 (I already had the stain left over from another project) and about 20 minutes of labor. Yes, I could have taken the cabinets apart and refinished or painted, but the main point of this makeover was "cheap and quick" - this step made a pretty big difference for such a tiny amount of time and money.

2) I also painted the doorbell thingy to match the wall:
Much better than yellow-ed plastic!

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And because everybody loves before/after photos:

Before
Country Blue Kitchen


After


Before


After

The paint color is Benjamin Moore "SIlver Fox" - I used the Ben line, eggshell finish.

So far I've spent $35 on this "in progress" makeover (on a gallon of paint). And about 4 days of on-and-off labor. And a ton of elbow grease.