Her Dad - my grandfather - drove a Carnation milk truck during her childhood out in Port Angeles, Washington in the 1950's. So she's got strong, sentimental ties to that. Obviously.
Yeah, I told her the walls looked like a Campbell's soup can...white on bottom, red on top. I offered to paint her the Campbell's logo over the table but she declined.
It was pretty much all her idea, the color scheme and all. I helped on a few things (the shade of red, etc.), and suggested the flooring, the cabinet hardware, etc. And the two-seater black casual pub table was my idea. Mainly just the grandkids show up and eat there now, but it's also a good sitting place if you're just visiting. But a full four-seater table was just overkill (and a space-zapper) at this point.
If left up to her, she would've just painted the walls (over the wallpaper, probably) and called it done. I'd like to think I put a bit more effort and smarts into it, and tried to do it right. If I'd gone on with the paint over the old cabinets, as is, it would've peeled or flaked off in time (because the old paint already was). Pain that it was, taking 30 years of paint off, and going back down to the raw wood, probably makes for a better final product. I've got two coats of Kilz primer on there and two coats of Behr pure white. If that ever chips off, you'll only see more white, or, at worst, the brown bare wood. Not the country blue and cream as before.
It's not perfect, and, looking back, there are things I could do better. But considering the fact that I don't do this for a living (and I'm "learning as I go" on much of it...the flooring and cabinets, in particular), and I've only dabbled in it a handful of times in the past, it's not bad. I'm happy (and proud enough to show it here). The main thing is,
she's happy and using her kitchen more now than ever (and with more ease and comfort). So that, alone, is worth it to me.
And when I go over there, I don't feel like I'm going to be attacked by clutter and junk. There's actually a place for me to sit now, put my drink down somewhere, help slice vegetables, etc. That wasn't the case before...trust me. There were no clean/open horizontal surfaces to speak off!