Shutters down!

As I expected after my last post I felt the push to get some work done on the kitchen. I've now repaired the walls in the eat-in area, and sanded and primed them. After clearing out the area I was given the chance to rethink the furniture in there.

As I mentioned in the last post the air conditioner is a real eyesore and we're not ready to replace it and fill the hole in our house (!). So I realized I could cover it with our hutch. Better yet, the hutch was on the other side but the heater on the wall was slightly in the way and it was sticking out a bit and not in an ideal spot. So now the hutch is in a better spot and the air conditioner is covered.

This is the "before" shot again so you can compare:Notice that there is also an ugly orange power cord on that wall. Well that cord was connected to the wooden outdoor roll shutters we had that cover the sliding doors. These shutters were built by a previous owner many decades ago and when we tried to have them repaired it proved impossible. This gave us the perfect excuse to just have them removed altogether. Luckily the house was largely intact underneath the huge box that housed the shutters:
So now these shutters are gone, the orange power cord is gone, the ugly plastic button that operated the shutters is gone and the holes are all patched up.The repair men were fascinated by these ancient roll shutters and took the whole contraption with them - possibly to go into some kind of shutters museum. They were certainly welcome to them.

The best part is that the shutters covered part of the doors even when fully wound up, and once they were gone it was such a change. With that dark shadow gone, the room seems so much lighter and brighter. I have to admit that they were practical but I'm glad they're gone. Here's an old renovation photo that shows the old shutters in place. Also the old tile on the walls and some general chaos. I like to look back at these photos to remind myself how much we've done already:And this is the "after" with the walls primed, the hutch moved and the blinds gone:Suddenly the area seems so large. Our table is quite small too, so it will still be spacious once that goes back in. There's nothing like emptying a room to help you figure out how to arrange it.