Building A Nest: Before & After of a Kitchen Floor

I am constantly working on creating a home for us here. I think "nesting" is the term these days. I have to admit, I started bawling when I first saw this place and its very institutional first impression. It's 1970s architecture at its worst, which involves minimal natural light, popcorn ceilings, buzzing fluorescent light fixtures, dingy chipped linoleum, and gritty "no slip" tape on all the steps: Wah! Wah! Waaaah! I have to mention that we arrived to our new hometown after 5 days of travel, a month of sleeping on couches, and a year of extremely intense grad school. Plus, a fire was raging nearby and it was raining ash (which I just took for Southern California air pollution). Oh, and as most of you know, I cry pretty easily.

For half as much money I got a bit higher quality of place in good ole' PDX. But, hey, that's the price you pay for paradise. And I have since realized the AMAZING value of having a spare bedroom in a town like Santa Barbara. This room doubles as my walk-in-closet/office/guest quarters/ project room/ professional library/ linen closet--and comes complete with it's own 3 ft x 3ft balcony. Okay, enough bragging about having an extra room. There are families of 8 squeezed into these townhouses--and we're filling ours up quite nicely.

There are some Utopian aspects of my community: Most of my friends here happen to be my neighbors, we have a free thrift store, a thriving and friendly community of gardeners, kids are always laughing and playing outside, and it's a very diverse community of pretty educated folks. Plus I have a view of the Santa Ynez Mountains from my kitchen sink and I can walk to the beach. So, now that I know better I like it.

As far as the interior goes--a little bit of paint goes a long way. And when a place is filled with stuff of your liking it starts to feel like your own. As a girl who grew up in the tropics with 17 foot tall ceilings in my house--the darkness factor does bug me. But I have mirrors squeezed into every dark corner, bouncing in as much natural light as I can get into this place. This helps immensely.

Despite an awesome view the kitchen is still pretty fugly. But it's on its way, like the rest of the house. I thought I would document a our latest do-it-yourself development. We found a roll of vinyl outside last night, neatly rolled and in perfect condition, ready to be swapped (or swiped?). This spot near the dumpster is also where we found our screen door . So we "redid" our kitchen floor.

Before we had chipped, 35 year old, green-gray, industrial floor tiles (read: underfunded public schoolhouse tiles). Plus, the cracks gross me out--who knows what germs lurk within them?

After: Fresh and fabulous, easy to clean, vinyl "wood" floor. Not the classiest, but a definite improvement, dontcha think?

Now, what to do about the peach gray colored cabinets...

I think I can deal with them for now.