Labor Day, Projects, and a Call for Blogpinions

Yesterday was Labor Day and, apparently the end of the summer that never really seemed like summer. Today was freezing! I had to bundle up when I took Scout out for a walk. Anyway, yesterday was a lovely, relaxing day. What did we do?

Lots of swimming in our new pool:







Playing in the water:



Tried to fix the pool sweeper:



Scout even did her favorite activity. She LOVES babies and loves to chase them:



Of course, we topped it all off with a BBQ. Hamburgers are so appropriate on Labor Day.

Okay, so on to the projects. My kitchen cabinets are finished and I have photos.

Here's what the cabinets looked like before (this is actually the cabinets in the hallway, but they had they same finish. Ugly, brown varnish):



And, after:





I painted the bases white and the doors and drawers orange. I'm pretty happy with them. Of course, we eventually plan to redo the kitchen and get all new cabinetry (you know, when we have some money again). But, for now, it's a fun, happy kitchen. And, way better than before. The next project we'll be working on is our ceiling. With the popcorn ceiling gone, we have decided to put up tongue and groove wood paneling on the vaulted ceilings. The other ceilings we'll just texture to match the non-popcorned ceilings in the kitchen and office. Here's the living room ceiling in its current state:



And, here's another view with the floor so you can see how dark the floor is (and the added bonus is that you can see Scout sleeping in her little bed):



This is all important because now I need your blogpinions. We're putting up the tongue and groove, but first we have to decide what color to stain it. Mr. Frisby votes for a lighter stain. I'm thinking more of a darker stain. We've talked about doing a whitewash which could look good, but I don't want it to look too country and I'm worried that it might with a whitewash. I'm also worried that a lighter stain will make it look like a mountain lodge. So, we've tentatively decided on doing a cherry color stain. Of course, whatever we do has to look okay with the floor. So, blog readers, what should we do? Would a whitewash make it look too country? Would a cherry stain look okay with our floor? Will our living room end up feeling like a ski lodge? Opinions, please!