ordinary zest
written by kate parrish
I love the color green. It’s been my favorite color for as long as I can remember. It makes me feel refreshed, healthy, and happy. So when I was thinking about how I wanted to redo our kitchen in our first home, I knew I wanted to incorporate green somehow.
If you haven’t done a re:style yet with my mom, you need to! I did this before doing my kitchen, and it completely confirmed my love of green. I kept being attracted to kitchens with green cabinets that were a little bit boho and modern. And so what do you know… we decided to paint the cabinets green! I will say in the process of redoing our kitchen I had my doubts. Haha, for a little bit I was worried it was going to look like a Subway restaurant. But I got over that real quick once we got the pretty gold handles on and the custom wood floating shelves up.
It was so exciting to see our home transform from a blah builder’s-grade home to something that felt like us. It was a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and we still have a little more to do (don’t you always when it comes to homeownership?), but our first home has been the perfect place for us to grow our family.
I don’t know about you, but it can be scary to make bold design choices for your home. Thoughts like, “what if I hate it in a few months?” or “I am never going to be able to sell it later if I do that” definitely came in. However I am here to tell you: push those thoughts aside. Paint is a magical thing, you can always go back. And you never know if someone looking at your house someday wants that same thing! It can be a feature!
Making that bold design choice to paint my cabinets a deep rich green is something that I am thankful for still (over 2 years later). My kitchen is my happy place. It is where I prepare meals for my family, have dance parties with my husband, and find quiet solitude in the mornings after Lucie goes down for a nap while I eat my breakfast (no coffee yet still… but tea sometimes!) It’s not perfect and I still have things I would like to do to improve it (hello ugly tile floors and outdated appliances), but it is my place and I love that it is my favorite color. It inspires me to want to eat healthy, and yes, like I’ve said— it just makes me so happy! I truly thought I would be tired of the green by now, but I am here to say I love it just as much now as I did 2 years ago.
So I want to encourage you; if there is something you really want to do in your home, do it! Make that bold choice! And even better, contact my mom, Blynda, to help you. She is so good at helping your vision come to life. I am terrible at follow-through with my home, but she is amazing at making it all come together and “look right”.
I think we limit ourselves so often. We are afraid of what people will think or we have fears for the future…which are both valid things to consider. I think we do this in our spiritual lives as well. We don’t go on that mission trip because we are afraid we won’t be able to raise support. Or we don’t go share Jesus with that stranger because we don’t know what they will say, or we have other things that we “need” to do. Here’s what I do know: God gives us today. Matthew 6:34 says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” The verse (33) before tells us to “seek FIRST the Kingdom”. So as you go out today, into this weekend, think about what BOLD choices you can make. Maybe it’s painting your cabinets green or blue, but maybe it’s to call that friend that needs your time and a listening ear. I promise you, when you seek first the Kingdom, that is a better happy place than any green-cabinet-kitchen will ever be.