Confessions of a sleep deprived mom!: How to make a dinner conversation piece!

Just tear your kitchen and dining room apart before Thanksgiving when a houseful of guests will be arriving! Surely the 1/2 painted walls and spackling will have them asking "WHAT were you thinking!?"

Yep. That is what we did. Cause I didn't want my guests to have those odd moments of quiet when no one could think of anything to say!!!! Yeah. That is the reason! Or.........I am just crazy!

My kitchen and dining room/family room area was put on hold when we moved Grams. But it was in bad need of repainting. As I sat in there one day I asked Todd if he thought we could finish the areas before Thanksgiving. You know....in between dr appointments, swim classes, work, etc. "SURE!", he said. But keep in mind, Todd is not a handyman. So I knowingly took my risk when I started pulling the wallpaper off the walls!

I was, at the time, very optimistic. After all, we had almost 4 weeks to do it when we began talking about it! So I peeled wallpaper. Took things off the walls and got ready for the work that would happen the next day. I went to the store and ordered wallpaper....which they said would be in at the latest the weekend before Thanksgiving. No problem, I thought. I will just get everything I need, paint and wait. Then when it arrived we just had to slap it on the walls and pull the turkey out of the oven. Done.

Well....like usual, not much runs smoothly in my house. We lost a week from the flu. Then the day Todd was to get the paint, my van broke down. So we were down to one car. And instead of getting the paint, Todd was now sitting in the dealership waiting for the bad news! The walls did not begin the paint prep till the next day. The only thing that got done, because we had church in the morning, was the ceiling and the trim!!!

Then I got the dreaded call yesterday! My wallpaper was on BACK ORDER! It would not be arriving for another 4 weeks!!!! That means it will be here the 1st week of DECEMBER!!!! After Thanksgiving. Lovely!

So here I sit, with spackling on my empty walls, 1/2 torn off wallpaper on the chair rail, and a 1/2 painted ceiling cause Todd ran out of time painting that after church!! My goal is to at least get the walls painted! Course, I am sure my mother in law will be wondering WHY I would pick a baby poop mustard color for my kitchen cause I have NOTHING to tie it all together. You know...that wallpaper I so need that has the yellow in it!!!!!! So I expect that, was we sit in the baby poop yellow kitchen with the green counter tops and 1/2 paste covered chair rails and unfinished ceiling...we will have plenty to talk about over turkey and stuffing!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BEFORE (well sort of. Some of the paper is already torn down. And the backsplash is started. But it is still the beginning........)

Wallpaper torn down and backslash started....