Out of the loop and in Baltimore

I don't know if anyone really follows this. But I've been trying to reorient myself to Baltimore, figure out this house thing, and write a paper. It ain't so bad. Writing will always plague me and feel like pulling my fingernails out. I feel like it's just the nature of academic writing and I am not sure if it'll get easier. I really miss (but don't) the formulaic style of journal articles. Lit review, gap in the literature, how I intend to fill that gap, methods, findings, limitations of my particular study, using those limitations to suggest future research and get myself tenure. Ta da!

This post is actually about the house. The ugly, soon not to be as ugly, house and our hopes for it. Actually, the kitchen is the room that's plaguing us the most. Other rooms are easy enough (until I really think about the bathroom). But the kitchen! Planning a kitchen from scratch - well from scratch with the parameters set up by the space - is so hard. First, most kitchen cabinets are u-g-l-y. Really. Chances are, if you are renting or didn't choose your kitchen cabinets, they're probably not the ones you want to look at. Given that ours can easily fall apart at the stroke of a sponge, we are just getting rid of the fuckers.

We've heard from several folks that Ikea has the most affordable, durable, and attractive cabinets around. Frankly, upon visiting, we really weren't that impressed. I had all these dreams for a penny round tile backsplash and wooden countertops and attractive, but sparse, white cabinets. Nope. Cheap and u-g-l-y. Unless one is willing to plunk down a hefty chunk of cash, it's pretty likely the cabinets she buys will be fairly unattractive. So, Chris and I, in a moment of clarity, decided on the module, free-standing Ikea cabinets. could this post get anymore boring, you ask? Sorry. I'm gettin' this down for posterity.

Here's what we're looking at:

From this:

To something like this:

Or some approximation of this kitchen given that we are not morons and know we cannot make this exact replica. But these are the units we're interested in. Now this question is: what color walls?