A few years ago we redid our kitchen. I love some of what we did, some things I would do differently if I could. C'est la vie.
One mistake we made was in hiring the painter we hired. She did a fabulous job in our living/dining room, not so much in the kitchen. She talked me into doing venetian plaster in the kitchen, which I think I would have liked had it been done properly. There are several things wrong.
- She did not truly do venetian plaster--there's not a lot of texture to it. That's actually not all bad as it will make it worlds easier to paint over.
- She didn't seal the plaster, our kitchen is so tiny that when I cook, sometimes the surfaces take a beating. In no time flat, the wall closest to our stove was stained. Seriously, yuckily, stained. I called the painter, she told me she would redo it and seal it and problem will be solved. Well, not so easy. First of all, she did a lousy job redoing it and it doesn't match. You can tell that in the first picture, near the top you can see the "before". Second of all, she didn't seal it first, so the grease stains bled right through in no time at all, except she did seal when she was done, so now the grease stains are sealed in. Yuck.
See the stains? Yucky.
This is our tile.
This is the floor. I don't love it, but it works.
These are the cabinets. I love them. Unfortunately I can now see how embarrassingly dirty my kitchen is. Oops!
I can no longer live with that wall. I've talked and talked with guys at paint stores and we think we know how to "fix" things, but I'm paralyzed. I've bought the oil-based primer, but I can not pick a paint color. I've brought home literally 50 colors and just can't decide.
We live in a bi-level. When you come in our home you look up into the kitchen. Our entryway is a deep, vibrant red. Our hall outside the kitchen is a buttery yellow. We're not going to paint the whole kitchen because
What color?????
I've thought about pumpkin, a deep yellowy-brown (pulled from the color currently on the wall), red (worry about darkness and it would have to match the entryway (?), chalkboard, green (ruled out), mustard. No idea. Nothing's lighting my fire. I can not figure out what to do.
**Edited to add: I wish we could just try again with the ventian, but it's really not an option. I have no idea what colors she used, nor do I have a prayer of matching it. The professional painter couldn't even match it. :(
If you're brilliant with colors and can give me your opinion, I would really appreciate it. We've got a 3-day weekend coming up. I want to get this done.
Hosted by Cecily and Mary
11 comments:
I am color challenged so this is just to cheer you on in finding something that excites you. Best of luck. I hope you have an awesome weekend. It looks like you good things planned. We also have a long weekend, and a date Fri. night. Woo Hoo! Can't wait.
I am all for neutral colors: off-white, creamy tan, pale wheat (though those might be the same color!). We've chosen some pretty bold colors in the past only to tire of them quickly.
Our kitchen is in desperate need of a makeover. It's literally stuck in the 50's!
I'm no good with decorating, but I love Kilz...we had to use lots and lots and lots of it after we bought our house!
I would stick with the yellow-brown again. That looks great and just needs the grease stains covered up. It shouldn't be too hard to cover...
I would say that whatever color you choose, you obviously need to be aware of the red hallway, so your colors need to complement and not clash. So no green. No bright yellow. And you'd need to match your red if you were going to do that...
I like the idea of the yellow-brown. Have you thought about a gray or slate? That would complement the red. Or a cream.
Or if you wanted to go really bold, I've seen a lot of funky wall papers lately when house hunting with my parents - you could find something that ties in all the colors.
Otherwise, chalkboard sounds pretty darn good. *wink*
I agree with Jill that you might want to look into funky wallpapers. That way you could wipe the grease off really easily. It would probably be easier to keep clean than the paint. And I would keep the color muted a bit since you have that bright red wall there. Maybe a cream or tan or light brown or something?
Make sure you take pics so we can see the results!
Good luck!
Brown! :) A nice brown would look fabulous! Sorry you've had so many issues with the painter. That's terrible.
It took me two months to pick a color for my kitchen. You need to show us the after!
I've always like caramel colors because SO much will match it and yet it still looks fresh and current. I agree with Jill and Kat, definitely consider the entry and funky wall paper could be a nice touch.
Having said that, I just ripped all of the wallpaper off in our living room and brought home a taupe to pacify our color-fearing landlord. I also bought a deeper color for an accent wall, but after I got the taupe on,I realized it wasn't mixed properly and now I have a silvery-hue that SO won't look good with "muddy puddle" :-( At least I'll get some money back.
You didn't even need all of that info, did you ;-)
Sounds like quite the problem..... Wish I could give ya some color help. I just let the room tell me what colors it would like slathered on its walls!
Uh, I read this last night and told myself I'd think about it and come back. I'd go with a tan color, or a light brown. I was looking at your tile and there is a nice light brown color in the hand-painted design that would be pretty and probably match pretty well...
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