Kitchen Updates Continue

January 2014

 

While we were waiting on the counter sealer to harden I had a few days off work for New Years.  I decided it was perfectly logical to repaint the kitchen.  Back in 2010, when we bought the house, the kitchen was the first room we started working on.  Together Josh and I chose to paint the space a bright green, Benjamin Moore Eccentric Lime to be exact.  Soon friends started affectionately calling it Shrek Green (maybe not affectionately behind our backs).  It was a little unorthodox and loud, but at the time it felt so nice to banish the sooty mustard walls with something bright and happy.

Over the last four years we have slowly painted other rooms in the house.  These rooms all were painted serene nature inspired colors: dark mossy greens, sunny yellows, rich earthy browns, and cool deep blues.  With each new paint color, the kitchen became more and more out of character with our home.  While we loved our Shrek green, it wasn't exactly fitting in the palette.  The clincher came when we got all new kitchen gear for our wedding.  For the most part we chose neutral white and black items, however most of serving pieces and smaller appliances were a bright cheery red. Since all of our upper cabinets are doorless, these new items started giving the room a bit of a year around christmas theme.

 

At first, I thought about painting the whole room white to match the trim and cabinets, but we decided a little definition would help call out some of the nice features of the room. We decided a nice neutral light gray would be perfect.  Since we already loved our bathroom color BM Stonington Gray, it made sense to get something similar.  We decided to go one lighter on the same paint strip which brought us to Wickham Gray. Having learned from our past mistakes we got the paint in our favorite Acrinamel Satin paint from Miller.  The enamel base will allow us to wipe the walls down much easier and will help us avoid greasy build up.  The existing green in our kitchen was Acro Pure satin from Miller (which is VOC free and good quality, but it took multiple coats and tended to smudge if you wiped it, long term we have been told it can go chalky as well).  

So, over a few days I washed the walls, taped, and then painted the kitchen.  I split the room in two; doing the nook first and then the fridge side of the kitchen a few days later.  This is currently my new favorite way of painting a room.  It allows me to not empty the entire space and gives me the opportunity to get two coats done in one day.  This did mean I had to move everything off our pantry shelf AGAIN, which I really could have done without, but still, it was relatively easy.

 

 

The paint definitely reads more blue than gray in the space, I wish it was a little more gray.  There is something about the lighting in our house we cannot seem to get right, it feels like everything takes on a blue tone. However, it achieved the look I was overall going for.  The room is now bright without being loud, feels fresh and clean, and allows a few of our more colorful objects to shine.

 

 

By the time I was done painting the counters were ready to be used, Josh added quarter round edging and installed back the window trim.  Together we cleaned the kitchen and moved everything back. I think this can count as a mini-remodel and hopefully the last kitchen post I will do for a while.
 

1970's Called.... It Wants Your Paneling

November 2013

After the wedding, Josh and I took a much needed month vacation from any house or life projects.  It was glorious!  Then it happened, I started to feel the itch and needed to find a quick and easy house project that wouldn't cost me anything.  Just so you can understand how much I need house projects I started this on November 9, 40 days after we returned from our honeymoon. 40 days and 40 nights without house project, the longest I had gone in over 4 years. Impressive.

 

 

Ever since painting the windows in the guest room I had the urge to paint the dark wood panelling in the space.  Originally, I embraced it in all it's 1970's glory, but the fact was it was in pretty beat up shape.  There were several areas that needed patching and repair. So it started on a Saturday when I spent a few hours moving everything to one side of the room and patching and caulking a few holes, gouges, and cracks.  A quick sand and wipe down and I was ready to rumble. 

 

 

We only have panelling on two walls, so this was going to be a quick project. I decided to put the primer on Saturday night right after dinner so it had a good 10 hours to dry.  Very quickly I discovered our primer had gone off (apparently 3 years is all you get with Kilz). It was chunky and smelled horrible. After spending 30 minutes trying to salvage it by mixing and adding bleach I had to call it.  I managed to find another primer deep in the depths of our basement hoard.  By the time I restarted it was 8pm and suddenly my easy project had me painting late into the night in a grumpy mood. Sigh.

 

This photo was taken with my cell phone- not classy

Sunday ,I woke up early so I could get two coats of paint on the panels.  The primer had essentially absorbed into the wall so I knew multiple coats may be in my future.  I decided to paint the entire wall with a brush.  I figured I could get more paint on, get into the crevices of the panelling and wood grain and hopefully give the panelling a more wood work look.  I used a three inch brush and moved through the room painting our bone white acrinamel.  It definitely was slow in comparison to a roller, but it wasn't horrible.  It took me about 90 minutes to finish the first coat.  Later, around dinner time, I went back and did a second coat.  Luckily, that seemed to be all the room needed. 

 

I cleaned the floors and dusted the furniture and then put everything back into place on Monday.  This is now the brightest room in our house.  It gets both South and West light so with the new white panelling it practically glowed afterward.  A small mini update and the room was ready for my parents to visit for Thanksgiving.
 

Bathroom Trim: Painting Around the Toilet

February 2013

A couple weeks after we finished the fireplace I started working on a list of things to do before September.  One of the rooms that needed the most work was our bathroom.  This was remodeled in 2006 by the previous owner and since moving in we hadn't done much to it. To start, it looks like a lovely bathroom, while not my style I appreciate that they made some good updates.   However, living with it for close to three years had really changed my opinion.  It was not my taste and many of the materials chosen have not held up very well to the daily abuse a single bathroom gets.

Back in 2010, we changed out the double hung vinyl window to a vinyl casement with frosted glass.  The main need for the change was this window opened directly to our patio and if the window was open, it was not discreet (this is a polite way to put it).  The new window opens towards the side yard and allows people to be on the patio and not looking directly in.  Also, the frosted glass allows us to avoid having to hang a curtain in a damp location. When we installed this window we did not patch or paint any of the wood trim that was mangled putting this in. I have carefully tried to cover this up with flowers or other bathroom accessories but it was pretty embarrassing.

Using a house guest due in two weeks to spur me on, I decided to patch and repair the window trim and then paint all the trim a fresh coat of semi-gloss white.   Over the course of several nights I came home and patched and sanded.  I figured this was the best time since Josh was away on a business trip so the bathroom got a lot less use then it would.  This had been the hold up for years.  Between two showers, numerous bathroom trips there never seemed to be a time for get in there and allow paint to dry.  

It ended up taking three coats of paint, which I applied mostly on my hands and knees.  I got up close and personal with our toilet and got to remind myself why this was the most poorly designed bathrooms I know.  There is literally about 18 inches of space around each item in the room which creates these wonderful thin slivers of useless space where hair can hide in nice balls and where I now needed to wedge myself to paint. There was a moment when I had to rest my cheek on the side of the toliet as I reached to get the back corner.  It was graphic (no picture, thank goodness).  The good news the bathroom is about 32 sqft so it didn't take long to do a coat, the bad news I got paint all over myself.

Josh came home to freshly painted trim and a cleaned up window and was dutifully impressed.  I was proud. 

But, the rest of the room now looked all the more worn for the new glossy trim.  We both agreed we really needed to paint the walls and clean up the grout as soon as possible.  I made an appointment for a tile cleaner and figured we would start there.