BEFORE
(Dark and not all that happy)
AFTER
(doesn't this room exclaim, "Come in here and do laundry! You'll love being in here!" Maybe a wee bit exaggerated.)
My goal to rid this house of all honey-stained oak woodwork is slowly being realized one can of paint at a time. I used Annie Sloan's Paris Gray and mixed in a bit of Old White. I'm really happy with the way the cabinets turned out and don't mind the visible brush strokes (although in the kitchen I went with an oil based paint cause I didn't want to see strokes).
Halfway finished! 
The girls at one of my favorite blogs, 'girls with good taste' came up with the brilliant idea of using contact paper for the stencil when making chevron stripes. Genius! The back of the paper has a grid on it and it was so.much.easier (and cheaper) than using a vinyl like I have in the past. I really wanted to use something bright and different then the rest of the house (where cool colors dominate) and this banana pepper yellow was the one. 
My intent was to put this 'be happy' vinyl on the refrigerator, but I decided it would be way more fun for us to try our hand at poetry with those little magnetic words.
I commissioned my girls to create some watercolor paintings to fill the space above the cabinets. Not too shabby, right?
You are my Sunshine...One of my favorite songs my mom use to sing to us. I made the sign using the vinyl as a stencil. One of those projects I thought I could whip out in under an hour but it actually took me 3. Ugggg.
