I've been debating whether or not I should post a pic of the painted kitchen because it's storming and dark as pitch in here, and there is no way on earth I can get an accurate image of the paint color. BUT I did promise to reveal something today, and I am a woman of my word (when I want to be). So here we go, yo:

I'm so excited that our built in desk is gone that I don't even care about the other junk in the picture. LOOK at the magnificent tile job Matt did. BEHOLD the glut of space where once there was this:

My eyes!!!

Anyhow, I'll post pictures of the fully pink panorama as soon as the sun comes out.

Oh, and P to the S: my chandelier came and it is a thing of beauty.

Unfortunately it is also eye pokingly long...

Details to follow.

Did I ever mention that my husband is a handyman / contractor? No? Well that's just plain crazy. Let me catch you up to speed: my husband is a handyman / contractor. Recently he was hired by Design Crisis reader, Diana to clean up the colonial mess of a fireplace that was haunting her living room. There are still some finishing touches to be done but I just couldn't wait to show off his little project. Behold, the before and after(ish):

fireplace before

Sick of having guests throw up in their mouth when they came over, Diana decided to have Matt do this:

That's right, bitches, beautiful pristine plaster. Yum. And don't you traditionalists go getting your undies in a bundle, no bricks were harmed in the resurfacing of the fireplace. He built some fancy thing around it then covered that with the plaster. He also made little cubby holes in the back for her stuff. That TV is going to be mounted (I'm not 100% sure where) and Matt will be doing something very complicated and technical to hide all the wires in the wall. Ok, complicated to me only.

Believe it or not, the paint on the sides is just grey primer, she's going to be covering it with Sanders approved Harbor Gray.

And yes, yes, we know, those tiles are killing our eyes, but hey, no worries, Diana's a smart and savvy lady, which is why she's having matt shred 'em to install a glorious expanse of hardwoods. When he's all done I'm going to kick her out and move in. Then I will post more photos.

For now, I'll leave you with Diana's inspiration pic from the October '08 issue of Domino Magazine: