BigPinkCookie

Finally! Kitchen photos! (Click any small photos for larger versions.) There are even more photos over on Flickr, but these are the highlights. First we will start with the before shots:

I always hated that the back wall was split into two tones. I had considered adding trim to make a dividing line, but eventually decided (after consulting anyone that would stop and listen) that it should be all one color. Then we had to pick a color. Oh, what fun.

We ended up trying only one shade of green before we realized it was just sort of “blah” in the room. Then we tried 5 shades of red. We were going to go with Borscht from Sherwin Williams, second from the right in the above shot, but I was concerned that the hint of purple came through just a bit too much. Purple is opposite of orange on the color wheel, and it would make the cabinets and the floor look much more orange than it should.

We had a whole primer incident on Friday, along with a last minute paint color change. Originally, I bought Sherwin Williams 200 primer tinted to P5. The painter needed another can, so I went to pick it up. I didn’t write down what primer I needed because I had no idea that there were so many primers at their store. (I was tired and not firing on all cylinders. Oops.) So I called Mike and got the number, and the employee pulled a can to tint it for me. He handed it to me and I paid for it. Then I was looking at some samples again because something about the Borscht bothered me, and I told another employee (a female) about my concerns. She told me that Theatre Red was the same intensity and a very similar color, just with less purple. I was tired of painting swatches, and at that point just over it all. I bought three cans of the paint without ever seeing it on the wall.

I know, exactly what I think you should never do when selecting a paint color. Fortunately, it all worked out. I promised Mike that if it didn’t, I would repaint it myself!

However, I should have double checked the primer the guy sold me when I was still in the store. I had asked for the 200 primer, and he picked up the 400 can instead. There is enough of a difference in the formula that when the painter put it up on the walls in some places that he had to touch up, we had darker primer spots on slightly lighter primer. Splotchy places, all over the room. Of course, I discovered this about 6:12 pm on Friday, just minutes after they closed. Saturday morning I called and spoke to the manager on duty and told him my situation. I asked him if we should primer over it again or not, and he said that he would. It should be all one color so that we didn’t risk having weird looking walls when it was all done. He replaced the “wrong” primer for free, and then I had to break it to the painter that he was going to have to roll those walls all over again. Fortunately, that took him all of 30 minutes or so, and the primer is fast drying, so we were able to move on pretty fast.

We also changed out the light fixture, and I am so glad we made that call. I don’t like the fluorescent lightbox, and Mike does. We like/dislike it for the same reasons – it is really, really bright. I suggested that if we changed out the other light, it would make the lightbox more tolerable for me since the new fixture is bright enough I don’t need to turn on the fluorescent lights if I don’t want to. It was a good idea and it looks great now that it is done. To make it even better, we put in a dimmer switch, so now we can make it ambient lighting or task lighting, depending on our mood.

Someday, we want to get rid of the breakfast table altogether – we have a huge island in the kitchen that seats 4 – and convert that area to a small coffee house like seating area. I’m keeping an eye out for inexpensive chairs and a coffee table that would do the trick. We already have a small iron table from Ikea that I bought last summer for the bedroom that we ended up not using that would be perfect. That way, Jason & I would have somewhere comfy to sit while Mike cooks and we can all be together! Plus we think it would be fun for when we entertain.

We are really happy with how it all came out, and it is amazing just how much it changes the mood in there. Half of the kitchen is still covered in dust and we’re not done moving things around yet, but as soon as we are I will post full kitchen shots later this week!

I keep forgetting to post this link, but the videos there are really great! (There is also a 3D designer feature offered, but I haven’t tried it out yet.)

HGTV Kitchen Design

Painting the kitchen has whipped me into a manic redecorating frenzy. I’ve had to touch almost every surface in the downstairs of the house (the upstairs is next) to get the fine layer of dust off of it from the sanding that the painter did while repairing the walls. I actually had to ask Mike last night to come and make me dinner because as I stood in the kitchen I kept seeing more things to clean!

I keep finding specks of red paint too, and I’m trying to make sure we get all of those up before they do damage.

On top of the kitchen, I’ve been clearing out my closet. Sure, I have thinned out the clothes in the past and donated them to Northwest Assistance Ministries, but this round has been HARD CORE purging. I decided a few weeks ago after watching one of those dangerous HGTV shows that I really wanted nice hangers. They give the closet such a clean and polished look. My theory then was that if I bought a set amount of wood hangers, that was all the clothes that I could have. Buy a new shirt? An old one has to go. If you have 40 hangers for shirts, that means you have enough shirts to go for almost 6 weeks without doing laundry. That should be plenty of shirts.

I bought wooden hangers on Saturday. Sunday, I couldn’t wait any longer to dive in and start using them!

I have since realized that I have a “summer” (most of the year) wardrobe and a “winter” wardrobe, plus a “casual” wardrobe and a “work” wordrobe. Since I’m not working in a corporate office, I don’t need corporate clothes. It is so hard to get rid of some of them though. Not because I like them, but because they are nice clothing in good shape. I have made a special donation pile for the Dress for Success campaign to give them to, and it helps me feel better about it knowing they will go to help someone that needs work clothes. The rest of the piles are going again to NAM.

I’m about halfway through the closet, moving all of the clothes off of the wire hangers and on to wood ones. Even after the initial pass, I still find myself questioning some of the clothes to see if they are wood hanger worthy. Several have not made the cut, and the donation bags are growing larger.

When I ran out of the wood hangers yesterday, I started working on Mike’s side of the closet. Nothing can escape me! (I didn’t put his clothes in the donation pile though – he did that himself.) He is getting white plastic hangers, his hanger of choice. I can’t stand plastic hangers for some reason, but they look nice on his side of the closet.

Mike commented this morning on how he didn’t think that a change of hangers would make such a difference in how the closet looked. He then went on to suggest that maybe we needed to get a color wheel and sort all of my clothes in order. Smartass. Instead, I pointed out that they are sorted by clothing type – short sleeve on the bottom, long sleeve on top. Long sleeve clothes are then divided between jackets, dress sweaters, more casual sweater sets, and even more casual clothes.

Now it is on to the pants/skirts/dresses section of the closet. Well, after I clean the kitchen up some more first. I can only handle the dust so long before it makes me start sneezing, so giving myself a break from that to work in the closet has probably been the best move.

I’ve taken progress photos of both the kitchen & the closet, but I can’t post them until I find my card reader for my camera. I moved so much around before the painter came, now I’m missing things! I’m sure it will turn up soon, and they will be posted tonight! Uhm, that is if I manage to tear myself away from organizing everything!

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. ~William Morris

I’ve watched HGTV for years; it is my background noise most weekends. I love to look through magazines to see the pretty rooms and dream of what I might do some day just as much as I like them to read the articles. (Right after Knitting Pr0n magazines, Decorating Pr0n are my favorites.) I love the idea of having a beautiful home. Not a designer showcase, but one that I can live in. I can normally “visualize” what I want after I find just the right piece for inspiration. So I decided I would share my thoughts on this subject.

These are my tips for how to redecorate a room. Please note, I am NOT an expert. These tips may not work for everyone, but they worked for me. I wanted to write them down for my own future reference and to help anyone else out if they can. I definitely have to credit the fabulous Tara for some of these thoughts, and she gets props for letting me drool all over her Domino magazines last summer when I was at her house. (I wrote a post last summer on how to paint a room, in case you are curious about my thoughts on that.)

1. The KEY for starting any redecorating project: find something that you LOVE that inspires you. (This tip is all Tara, and it was number one on my painting list too.) When I was working on the bedroom last summer, I was stuck at the very beginning – I had no idea what color I wanted to paint the room. Tara suggested that I find something around me – ANYTHING – that I loved, and work off of that for the inspiration. Do not limit yourself to just things that will be in your finished room. The inspiration can be your favorite shirt, your favorite place to go for dinner, your favorite flower, whatever. When Tara said this to me, we were sitting on the second floor patio of a multi-million dollar home that Tara had just finished work on I was totally obsessed with the vintage patio furniture she had (cabinets all over the house), and I told her that I loved the view. (Fluffy clouds – how can you resist?) So I knew my color scheme must be blue, and I wanted chocolate brown to go with it. From there, Tara & I went on a shopping spree and brought home FOUR comforters to select from in the light of my own home. (This is key, and I will return to it again in this list.) Once home, one of the comforters was perfect – and it turned out to be an exact match to the William Morris bag that I adore from the V&A Museum in London. From there, finding the paint was easy, as I wanted it to match the comforter. In kitchen project, I have wood floor contractors gilbert az that I really love and don’t want to change out, and they go with greens or reds and that set up my color choices for me. Having an inspiration piece makes it all so much easier.

2. Look at magazines, at books, at TV shows, at websites, and figure out what you like. You will be able to find YOUR style that way, and find what appeals to you. Remember, trends come and go. If you are trendy person and you don’t mind repainting and redecorating (changing out accessories) often, go with the color of the moment if you love it. Personally, I tend to be a more classic style person; the things I pick are likely to be in style for years. No matter what, remember that paint is cheap. (Relatively speaking) You can always change a color, but the core foundation is not so easy to change – so know your style and what you like.

3. This goes right along with the first two – create a “tear book”. Tear magazine photos out or print things off the internet and save them in a file for later. Use a post-it to note what it is that you like about the picture, and if necessary what you would change. This will be a big help for you when you get started. If your budget will allow you to hire a decorator, they will find this very valuable in figuring out what you want; it will allow you to guide them. Sure, you can hire someone to design a room for you – but if you don’t tell them what you want, you will get what they love. Not what you love. And guess what? You have to live with it when it is all over. Whether you hire someone to do the work or you do it all yourself, knowing what you like is key. Research, research, research. Look for the inspiration room that sparks everything for you.

4. When it comes to paint or anything else, look at it in the room where it will end up. The color that looks amazing in the store might look completely different in the room where you will be putting it. Don’t just look at it in the bright afternoon sun; look at it at night, in the morning, early evening, even a cloudy day. This is what happens when you live with it, so it only makes sense when you are selecting it.

5. Buy paint samples and put them on the wall, or at the very least on some foamboard. My kitchen looked like a blue and green battlefield stained with a lot of blood yesterday afternoon. I was originally convinced that I wanted the kitchen painted a shade of green. I got one that in the store looked perfect, and bought a small sample to test out at home. I painted it on the wall and it went from lovely Pottery Barn green (seriously – Benjamin Moore carries the Pottery Barn colors) to a hideous shade of khaki green. Ewww. With my cabinets in their current honey oak stain color, it was just ugly. I soon realized that any green was going to just die on the walls, and since one wall is a continous wall with the living room that we planned to also paint in the final kitchen color, a green was going to be hard to coordinate with our olive green chair. Fortunately, I knew what colors I loved, and for years I have said that I wanted to paint a room red. Deep, dark, rich red. Unfortunately, it turns out that every red looks a little different, so it took me almost 18 hours to find the right red. I did it though, and tomorrow the room will be painted Sherwin Williams Theatre Red. When I get this done then I plan to paint the house but its going to be big project so I decided to hire Madani Group in Winnipeg to paint my house.

6. Speaking of paint, prep work is key. Matter of fact, while the painting is what brings about the final impact, the prep work is probably 80% of the whole job. Wash the walls. Fill holes. Fix plaster. Tape. Use primer. (Or, if like me, you have a messed up shoulder and you are dealing with wallpaper, hire someone to do it for you.) One thing we learned this week – the painter did not seem to know about this either, but Sherwin Williams hooked me up – when using a dark color, they offer gray tinted primer that will hide the wall below and also act as a base for the color you are going to apply. They formulate the colors for use with the gray primer at a specific level. For example, we used Sherwin Williams primer in a dark gray, so now we should only need two coats of the red – a color that would often require a whole lot more. Sherwin Williams can actually tell you what tint they should use in the primer you will need based on the color that you select. The Sherwin Williams guy took me into the stock room to show me an example of a paint put on with white primer, with the correct gray primer, and with too gray of a primer. It was amazing to see the difference. Good thing to know for when I do the guest bath in the next few weeks.

7. Set a budget and stick to it. Ok, I realize that this should probably be number one on this list, but really it is right around the time that you are painting one room that you realize the things you want to do in at least four other rooms to fix them up. Scope creep is a nasty thing. So if it isn’t in the budget, you just need to wait. Decide if you can do the project in phases, and prioritize. For example, I still want that green kitchen. It was one of the first things I thought of when I woke up this morning (I was really stressed over finding the right red paint), but I don’t want a green kitchen with my current countertops or cabinets. So someday we will save up and get the granite countertops of our dreams, with a new stovetop at the same time, and we will refinish our cabinets then and I will paint the kitchen green. For now, the budget allows for paint and a new light fixture in the breakfast nook. So I am painting a different color and getting a light fixture and I will be quite happy – just still dreaming of that granite countertop! (Someday!)

8. Once you make your room lovely, don’t bring the clutter and the junk back in. Evaluate what you have, and if it isn’t something that you love or need – get rid of it. Donate, sell, give it away. Recycle it in some way. Maybe move it to a different room if it is something you treasure but it doesn’t work in there? But never rearrange clutter. That stuff just needs to go!

9. Don’t second guess yourself. If you have done your research and are confident in what it is that you like and what works with your personal style, don’t let anything anyone else says change your mind. Design is a very, very subjective thing. I will love my Theatre Red kitchen, but it may not be for you. That is ok – you don’t have to live with it. I do. So when someone says that what you love isn’t in style or isn’t a color or style that they would pick, don’t listen. You know what you like, and that is what matters most.

10. When you are all done – sit back, relax, and enjoy the perfect space that you created!

What are your decorating tips? Anything that I should take into consideration?

(I will post photos of the red paint swatch battle scars tomorrow, as soon as I find where I put my card reader as I moved things out of the kitchen to get ready for painting!)