I am starting my Christmas gifts, but got side tracked with a few House projects.  My husband has been on an easy schedule with work so I tried to take advantage of him being home to help with some projects.

In our family room, one wall has all these shelves.  This is what it looked like for the first 6 months we lived in the house.  My husband just unloaded boxes and shoved stuff in the holes.  The whole wall seemed kind of blah to me with all the white, and so many shelves.  So I decided to paint the back of the shelves a gray/ blue to give it a contrast.

So I first took out all the stuff and shelving that wasn't screwed to the wall.

We used Behr's WATERSCAPE flat paint, and a baby sponge roller and brush.

 
I put the shelves back in, trying to add more variety in the shelf heights. 

Now the hard part, to fill the shelves. 
We were able to get rid of half of my husband's text books we've been lugging around with us for half a decade when we went through everything. 
I'm still working on these, a lot of this was just thrown in so I could vacuum and will be rearranged in the end.
But already I like the contrast of the blue to the white shelving, and hope once everything's in its place the whole wall will look a lot better.

From the beginning, I wanted to paint the mantle.  For the same reasons I wanted to paint the kitchen cabinets.  But as we were planning everything, my husband said he didn't think we should just paint over an oak mantle.
{I actually don't think it's oak}

So I put it on the back burner and told him to think about it.  Once all the kitchen cabinets, doors, and trim in the house were white, he saw the light and told me Sunday, he would let me paint it afterall.  I was excited and jumped on it.

So here's the BEFORE when we moved in with the yellow walls:

1. Clean and tape off carefully

Now to figure out what to put on it.  The mirror is has to go there.  Although right now it's hung on the wall, and it fills the space between the mantle and ceiling.  I've thought about actually sitting right on the mantle, (obviously I'd have to secure it to the wall so it wouldn't fall off)

 I'm new to decorating, so if you have any good ideas, or links to mantles that are great, I'd appreciate tips!

I really don't know anything about interior design, so I'm just kind of winging it.

But anyway, I love the new mantle and I can't wait until Christmas time to turn on the fireplace to make it feel cozy!

This was a daunting task for me, but our new house had a dark kitchen.  We scored new counters, wood floors, and appliances, but the honey colored cabinets seemed dated to me.  So after reading a bunch of info on painting cabinets, it seemed like a project I could tackle.  It seemed worth the hassle to transform our kitchen so the cabinets would look modern to match the flooring, counter, white tile back splash and appliances.  Another bonus would be to brighten up the space to feel more fresh, clean and airy.

Here's the before, the day we signed the papers.

Oh yes, also the bright yellow paint also made it feel old and musty to me. 

2. Wash all the doors and frames with warm soapy water.

I found it easiest to use the sink and really scrub the grime off and rinse the doors well.

Allow to totally dry.

**May need to fill holes/ sand at this point

If you're replacing your knobs/ hardware with new, you'll probably have to fill all the old holes with wood filler at this point, unless your new knobs have the same measurements for holes as the old.

ALSO

If your cabinets have a thick layer of polyurethane and feel super glossy, you may want to sand them to remove the sealing finish.  My cabinets felt like wood, not plastic, so I didn't sand.

4. Paint

We closed on our new house, and got straight to work to paint prior to actually moving in.

Our house was built in the mid-80s, and all the doors and trim are this dark wood.

Lots of painting, but the huge difference having white doors, especially in this dark hallway, made it all worth it for us, the whole house seems more modern, light, and clean.