Small Changes

 After a visit to my friends' beautifully and carefully updated home, I realized there was beauty in what we already had because it was original to our 1950 home.  We had planned to entirely gut the kitchen and put in new appliances, flooring, electrical, and cabinets.  Our dreams involve knocking out doorways to make them larger, knocking out part of a wall to make a peninsula, and so much more.  But until we have the money to make such huge changes, why not use what we already have - sand paper, primer, white glossy paint and light gray-blue paint - to update what we have and celebrate it?  I've been itching for these last 5+ months to do something, ANYTHING to this old home!  So I took off the cabinets last Sunday.  Then we discovered this hole in the top right cabinet:

It was behind some warped, water-damaged cardboard lining the top of the cabinet. Turns out this is probably where all the bugs (we usually see a dead roach every-other morning or so on the floor somewhere) have been coming from.  The roof has been recently replaced, so the water-damage shouldn't continue, and this hole will be repaired.  I moved all our dishes out so Jason could spray insecticide up there, and what do you know? No bugs the last two days! Glory!

 Here's a project I've been hoping to get done for the kitchen - a blackboard menu.  The frame was free from a neighbor's yard sale leftovers, and Jason cut a piece of melamine to fit.  I primed it and painted it with my friend Rachael's left-over black board paint (thanks, Rae!).

Jason repaired a giant hole in the bathroom wall behind the mirror/medicine cabinet that was WAY too big for that unit.  Then he hung this mirror (I think it was $10 or $15 at a yard sale) - which has a lovely frame and is more my ideal size for this space. It feels SO GOOD to have some small things improved!  Bit by bit! :)

So now I want to field a couple of questions:
A.) We plan to paint the open shelves in the kitchen white with putty-colored bead board backing them, and the lower cabinets light blue-gray. What colors do you think we should paint the kitchen walls?

B.) We plan to remove the pink tile in the bathroom and put in white bead board on the bottoms of the walls with a chair rail molding above.  What color do you think we should paint the bathroom walls?

Thanks for your help!