Wednesday, September 7, 2011

before and after: painted kitchen

You may remember the hunter green kitchen I inherited from the previous tenant:





I didn't hate this color, but I didn't particularly like it, either.  I started painting it about two weeks ago, thinking that I would tackle one wall per night, since there would be a lot of cutting in to do.  The first night put three coats on the wall.   I generally start my projects around 8:30 or 9 pm, after my kids are in bed.  That meant three coats put me in bed after midnight, and I discovered that the previous tenant had painted over wallpaper, which looked terrible, and that the three-coated wall still needed a fourth coat.  That kind of put me off the project for a while.

I procrastinated for about two weeks, thinking "ah, crap" every time I walked in the kitchen.  But Greg's birthday party is this weekend, and while my family would not hold a quarter-painted kitchen against me, I just couldn't face looking at it anymore.  Plus I really wanted that cabinet fastened to the wall and the countertop installed so I could get all my pots and pans off the dining room floor.  The only way out is through, right?  (Funny enough, the handyman that has been ignoring my calls for three weeks just called on Tuesday night, the day after we finally did it ourselves.)

And here is the finished project.


Anyone see another project I've been working on?

The kitchen is painted Sherwin Williams Linen White, not because I have any affinity for that color, but because the landlord left a 5 gallon bucket of that paint in the basement, and the rest of the house is painted that color.  I am totally down with free paint.  After 6 years of having Kilim Beige in every house we have lived in, I have come back around to liking white walls.




I painted the back door BM Gossamer Blue.  The plates on the wall are from Vietri, Italy, and used to hang in the bathroom in our old apartment.  I put up a bamboo shade we already owned on the door.



I used a valance that I had originally made for my mother in law's house.  The teal/red/brown colors go with the colors on the first floor perfectly, and it was free.  I have more of that material, so I could make some cafe curtains, and I might recover the bamboo shade on the door with it as well....or I might not.


My only other plans in this kitchen are to switch out the hardware.  I would love to put cup pulls on the drawers, but at $5 a pop and 10 drawers, I won't. I will probably just get the 10 pack of oil-rubbed bronze knobs at Target.

I like the white much better than the green. The kitchen looks brighter and cleaner and bigger, and I love seeing the pop of the blue back door when I walk in the front door. 

1 comment:

  1. Wow, what a difference. The kitchen really does look so much bigger!

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