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.
 

Kitchen The Saga Begins...

 May 2010

 

For the next 6 days we officially owned a house, but were not able to enter it.  The flooring guys came and worked their butts off but we were breathing down their necks.  There was a list of things that had to get done before I was willing to move into that house and we now had only two weeks until move out day in our apartment.

 

Kitchen was #1:  My first job was washing the walls.  There appeared to have been a small but smoky stove fire that had left everything in the space with a grimy layer of soot.  Josh and I both agreed we wanted a fresh green kitchen, however, our bold choice of Eccentric Lime was probably due to the depressing dinge of the original walls. 

Everything in the house is lead, that is the truth, you really can't expect anything less in a house of that age. My take on it is: encase it, and don't allow toddlers to knaw on your wood work.  Everything required a thick coat of white oil primer, thank god for kilz!  It is pretty much the wrapping that protects us from our house's true inner dirt.  Before we could prime we also had to remove some AMAZING vinyl floral 70's wallpaper that I honestly wish we had kept as a souvenier.  Josh set about that task and I went about removing the 2-3 layers of contact paper that covered every cabinet. We scrapped for two straight days, it was mind numbing.  

 

 

In the end, everything took three layers of paint on top of the primer.... so yes that is four coats of paint.  This process took a very long time and the cabinets required endless patience with a wee roller. We were painting the kitchen LONG into our move in process.  Which meant we 'camped' for about 2 weeks before we could unpack everything.  The kitchen would become and continues to be a daily struggle for me.  You will see more blog entries about this kitchen then you ever thought possible.