I really can’t explain or predict how, why, or when I will make progress toward any of my goals. This spring, you heard about my Big Plans for our kitchen (which surfaced as I avoided my Big Plan to re-upholster (at least partially) Dr. T’s favorite chair.)

Most of the upper cabinets and doors in the kitchen got painted early last summer. (I can now confess that two doors were inadvertently stacked in the pile of laundry room cabinet doors, and therefore missed being primed and painted.)

Our upper kitchen cabinets are hung under soffits (which have always bugged me.)

My theory was that if I painted the soffits with vertical stripes, I’d have the effect of higher ceilings. It was a great theory, but it took me months to get the nerve to try it. I have since verified my theory, but learned that I  am not as adept with painter’s tape as I might like. Let’s call it a noble experiment gone wrong.

More time passed, and the almostbutnotquiteright stripes irked me every day. I realized that the effort required for perfection exceeded the effort I was willing to expend in achieving it.

After some consideration, I decided to try chalkboard paint (surely you remember that I have used the same paint on the side of one cabinet and the panels of several cabinet doors)  on the soffit over the sink, and  the same soft gray paint that I used on the walls under the cabinets on the remaining soffits.

For no particular reason, I executed this plan yesterday and today.

I like it- I really like it!  Now that the soffits are painted, the cabinets really “pop” (as they say on HGTV.) Inspired, I finished  painting  the crown molding with the same color as the cabinets (Celery Ice by Behr, for those of you who are keeping score at home.)

This is not to say that this room is done, but it is to say that progress is being made, and that personality is creeping into a space that used to have none.

The lower cabinets even look better, though still in their original loathsome oak finish. I am optimistic now, but I know impatience will strike again before I am through.