....those who think painting a kitchen means flipping through dozens of paint chips before finally choosing the right shade of yellow, pulling out all the nails, filling and sanding the holes, wiping it all down, washing the walls, putting down masking tape, paper and drop cloths, priming, letting the primer dry, painting, wiping up the lip of the paint can before closing it, and carefully washing the brushes and rollers before hanging them up to dry....
...and those who think painting a kitchen means getting a paintbrush and a can of paint and going to it.
Perhaps it would be wise if the Pre-Cana courses included something about painting on that questionnaire, and addressed the implications of different painting preferences for maintaining marital harmony on Saturday afternoons.
I think we had a yellow kitchen walls when I was very little, with orangey oakish cabinets. It was a sort of deeply colored mellow medium-dark yellow, leaning toward orange but not something one would call orange-yellow. Something like that anyway. Anyway, it was a nice mellow color. What shade did you end of choosing?
I hope your marital harmony has been restored, btw.
Let me guess. You're the first kind of "people" and he's the second.
Dear Mr. Luse, however did you guess? Women don't get everything they want, by the way; I have been trying for weeks to help my husband perceive that our kitchen ceiling is painted yellow, not white. But he insists I'm the one who needs new glasses -- this from the man who says there's no difference between leaf and sage green.
Dm --
Glidden makes a shade of yellow called "That '70s Color"! It's kind of a deep gold.
Our sellers had an unusual fit of good taste when they picked the yellow for the kitchen. I'd gotten rid of their old paint, since it was dried up, but I happened to remember the name. I wanted to keep the original color both because we liked it and because I didn't have the time or energy to paint the whole kitchen. I thought I'd have to just pick the best match, but then I found the name on one of the Glidden color chips. So we just picked up a fresh gallon of "Celestial Sun" (Glidden 54YY 85/291) and started touching up.
This morning I was really frustrated and discouraged because the paint was peeling around the edges, where I took off the masking tape. My husband was a sweetie and touched it up for me while I was at church. That really cheered me up, so I got right to the trim with renewed motivation, and now we're all done with the painting. Amor vincit omnia.
Oh, gold is closer to our old yellow than orange. My brain has holes in it or something. It was kind of harvesty and squashlike, not like gold jewelry. I will check out the two Glidden yellows mentioned when I have a chance.
Appliances used to come in Almond (dreary off-white), Avocado (no explanation necessary), and Harvest Gold, which I take to be more or less the shade Glidden calls, perhaps justly, That Seventies Color. I also remember that some acquaintances' mothers went for the hot orange color, but I don't remember what they called that. Horrible, quite horrible.
No offense to any avocado lovers here, but that is among the greens that tend to nauseate me. My (1964-born) sister is a big lover of olive drab and colors in that family. She used to regularly donate to me her castoffs, of which there was almost nothing I could even think about wearing.
My childhood kitchen color was much closer to your Celestial Sun than That 70's Color, though, Peony.
The last time I had control over the colors of a kitchen, we did it in black and white.
I am still debating how best to deal with the kitchen in this house. It has 50s aqua formica countertops, cabinet fronts that look like exterior siding with white paint and cut out for the doors and drawers, and what I want to call 'rec room' laminate wood paneling. I don't have the budget to do what I really want to do, so I guess we will live with it for a while.
I like the newer bisque/biscuit shade that's been out for the last few years -- it's not as intense as almond, it's more of a cream that works well with a lot of colors.
Dm -- I share your opinion of olive and avocado -- ugh. The only things that should be those colors are olives and avocados.
Alicia -- I have heard that laminate countertops can be painted and sealed. Would that be an option, or could the laminate be replaced? How about painting the paneling? Trying to picture the "exterior siding", not doing well.
I actually like olive and avocado, but as trim colors. I do not know the names of housepaint colors, as my reference point is artist colors, which are generally named for the pigments inside, but I have seen some great combinations of avocado and golden. It can be set off with very small amounts of what I call Indian Red, but only in a room with ample light. However, these colors must be used sparingly or they are depressingly dark (and appliances look terrible in them). Our landlord painted our bedroom some ghastly blue, and it bugs me more and more each day. It was tolerable when we first moved in, but our apartment is too dark to take blue in that amount. Oh well, it makes us spend more time in the great outdoors.
What I want to do is gut the kitchen and start over! Actually, there are a few things I like, such as the brick counter in the center of the house. The formica really does need to be removed - it is chipped and scratched. The facing on the cabinets is rough wood with vertical grooves in an irregular pattern - it has been painted but I don't think it was sanded before painting, and as I wash the surfaces the paint is washing off a bit (not peeling, just getting thinner so that the wood is peeking through).
I want cabinets and drawers that have some logic to them. I want the over the counter cabinets to be 1/2" higher so that I can put my Kitchen-Aid under them or open up the waffle iron without bumping into the bottom of the cabinet. I want a greenhouse window over my kitchen sink.
I at least now have a gas stove - now I just need to get the plumbing work done so I can hook it up!
I really shouldn't complain. It is just that we did a lot of work on our house in California to make the kitchen what a kitchen should be, and then we moved..........
I'm the second type of person :)
Here's a fun tool for picking paint colors.
These are, more or less, my real-life living room colors: Brick Road (wall) and Eldorado Tan (ceiling). Thank Heavens they had sample "design cards" I could crib from at the Home Depot.
Just add a few thousand books, ditch the couch, and you've got my real living room :-)