My latest obsession with white rooms, and ventures into the DIY world

Lately all I can think about is white rooms.  It is definitely the trend -- see Elle Decor, Apartment Therapy, Country Living, HGTV.... I could go on and on.  I also posted a collection of my favorite white rooms recently.  Since then, I think my obsession has only grown.  Here are some white rooms that I love by designer Lauren Stern, and then I'm going to show you what I did yesterday to my kitchen to make it more white (it involved a power miter saw, which is usually not good news for me).

Everywhere I look I see the chandelier that Tobi Fairley made so famous... here is is again, above.

Ok, so I have admitted to myself and completely embrace that I am not, and never will be, Centsational Girl or Thrifty Decor Chick.  I love love love them both, their blogs are amazing, and their talents undeniable.  But I am just too impatient, get too frustrated, and lack the skills to do what they do with such apparent ease.  So while I usually hire a professional for everything (except paint), I decided to take on a full room carpentry job myself.  I admit I was in tears to my friend's husband once (an architect who is also a great carpenter), made A LOT of mistakes, and almost gave up.  BUT, I am finally making some progress, and think it is coming out alright, so I want to share it with you.  The paint before was Shaker Beige (you can see it here in the first photo), but I just wanted it a little brighter because the room gets very little direct light.

It's sports day, so my family is running around like crazy as I write this.  The doors are all open, cleats are missing, water bottles forgotten, etc... so the house is an absolute mess.  These are just work in progress photos. 

The reflections are just some dripped glue.  I still have to caulk and paint. I'm painting Benjamin Moore Cloud White in a high gloss finish.  Risky? Yes.  The gloss shows every single imperfection.  Thankfully I never messed up my walls before.  Haha, what a joke!  I have 14, yes FOURTEEN layers of paint on those walls.  I had to hire a guy to come sand and spackle.  There was so much paint he chose to literally peel it off the walls rather than sand. Said he'd never seen anything like it. My husband jokes that our kitchen used to be 15 x 30, but now it's down to 10 x 20 because of all the paint.  Yes, he's a trip alright!

                                                     [I shared this one at Addicted 2 Decorating]

So what do you think?  I know you can't see the whole thing here.  I'll post more later and I hope it was worth the work!

Thanks for reading!!

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