A Soft Blue-Gray Paint Color Meant for The Kitchen
- The areas behind the cabinets that we took down had never been primed or painted, and it is consistently good to prime drywall before painting it.
- Walls that have not been painted for several years may soak up more paint (as we experienced when painting Clara’s room) and we’d rather it soak up extra primer instead, since it is cheaper than paint (one coat of primer + two coats of paint is nearly consistently cheaper than three coats of paint because you typically need to buy more than one gallon of paint for more than two coats).
- Remove wallpaper
- Move fridge cabinet forward
- Remove upper cabinets on window wall to prep for open shelves
- Reinstall crown molding (you can read about how we did those first four things here)
- Prime & paint the pantry and the door to the garage
- Prime & paint the trim, crown molding, & baseboards
- Prime & paint the paneling (you can read about how we did those last three things here)
- Prime and paint the walls
- Remove the existing microwave (craigslist it?) and get a countertop one we can eventually install in the pantry
- Install a low-cost range hood (we have seen some like this for $20 on craigslist) to lighten up that wall
- Patch and paint the ceiling
- Replace the florescent light in the cooking area and the pendant over the sink
- Replace and center the light over the dining table
- Hang floating shelves on the window wall
- Paint the cabinets (you can see the colors we are leaning towards here)
- Update the old cabinet hinges and knobs
- Get a rug for eat-in area? Possibly install peel and stick tiles everywhere?
- Curtains for windows?
Another Monday, another leap forward for our kitchen. Here is where we were last week, after priming and painting the trim, doors, crown molding, and paneling white.
And here we are today, with the walls freshly coated with a little Nelson Blue (the light blue color that we have planned on from the start).
Shall we all let out a communal sigh of relief that the walls are not covered in wallpaper anymore and there are no more spackle holes and raw drywall from under those cabinets that we took out? Together now. Ahhhhh.
Update: There have been a few questions about the intercom and why we did not remove it yet, but we are not sure if we are going to retofit that with another system (perhaps that plays an ipod in each room or something) so for now we are planning to cover that whole wall with a pleasant framed out pinboard or something – so it’ll be hidden but the wiring will still be there for a future conversion.
Getting to this was a bit more involved than simply getting our paint on, though. For instance, you may have noticed that our big over-the-range microwave is now missing from the scene.
It is the only appliance we have planned to replace as part of our Phase 1 kitchen makeover, since it was so front & center in the room, it crowded our stove, and we consistently seem to prefer range hoods over microwaves with vents when it comes to performance. So we have replaced it with a stainless countertop version that we will eventually get “installed” into our pantry (which simply calls for an outlet to be brought in in there so we can plug it in). It was simply $78 at Home Depot (marked down from $139!) and that pantry solution is not simply for phase 1, so we are planning on using it for the long haul, even after Phase 2, which is pleasant.
Removing the old one was not 100% straightforward, but we managed. We had to unscrew it from above through the upper cabinet, but the screw was recessed a few inches below the cabinet, so our drill barely reached. Since it was so dark down there, we ended up breaking out the oh-so-thin battery-powered fairy lights from Clara’s Halloween costume to provide some much-needed illumination. #MacGyvering
I supported the cabinet from below the whole time so when it eventually came lose from the screws that Sherry was removing from above, I could guide it down safely. That puppy was not light. Likely all the dried food splatters inside wiring and stuff.
Once we unscrewed the mounting bracket from behind the microwave, we also had this old vinyl backsplash to scrape off the wall. We knew we’d prefer a seamless painted wall back there for this phase of the kitchen’s transformation since we in fact had a painted wall behind our first house’s fully renovated kitchen, and it held up well thanks to the paint being pleasant and wipeable – even with spaghetti splatters a plenty.
The pliable sheet of vinyl came off truly easily (Sherry simply used a spackle knife to pry it off) but it left the wall fairly pock-marked behind it. Thankfully it was not anything a little spackle could not handle.
We already had the spackle out because there were plenty of holes around the room to be filled (and sanded once dry). This is a terrible iPhone pic, but you can kind of see the extent to which some of the walls were nail-holed. We are talking 20 in a three foot radius.
We wrapped up all of our patching right before heading off on a whirlwind road trip to New Jersey for Thanksgiving, so it was not until we got back on Friday afternoon that we could bust out the primer for our first coat (which is what many of you saw in our Instagram feed that evening).
Even though we were painting a light color over an already light wall, we chose to do a primer coat first for two reasons:
We knocked out our primer coat during Clara’s nap that afternoon using our usual Sherry-cuts-in / John-rolls system, which took the room from this…
…to this. Do not mind the piles of stuff that we shifted to the center of the room, away from the walls. But much better, right?
That photo was taken Saturday morning, right before we broke out the Nelson Blue paint.
One thing we did to make our job (well, Sherry’s job) a bit easier was that we strategically taped off a few tight spots. Since it is hard to squeeze into the gap between two doors, for example, we put tape along the edge of the door frame to protect the face of the molding from getting paint on it. It meant that Sherry could focus on making sure she got full coverage on the wall without worrying about messing up the crisp white molding next to it. And in less tight spaces, she’s strong at simply freehanding things (seven years of being the cutter-inner in the relationship can do that to ya).
We also chose to paint a couple of the eyesores in the room – like the yellowed doorbell box and an old phone jack next to the intercom box, which you can see two pictures down.
We originally worried the Nelson Blue was a bit too faint, but it certainly showed up a bit more distinctly once it began to dry.
We enjoy the color. In fact, it nearly feels like a nod back to our first kitchen’s wall color – although this one is a bit lighter and has more green to it, and the horizontal paneling around the bottom half of the room adds a little something extra. I will admit it is a bit hard to fully appreciate the new color while the room is held back by things like the countertops, the cabinets, and the floor (we are certainly in that “middle” stage, so it should start making more sense as we tackle other things on our list).
And we can certainly celebrate the fact that we are a pleasant looooong way from where we began.
When you look at it from certain angles, you can nearly trick yourself into thinking the room is a lot closer to done. For instance, the view from the front door is much improved.
And the little breakfast area is shaping up to be a pleasant combination of white trim + horizontal planking + blue walls + rustic wood. Simply ignore the big intercom on the wall and the fake brick floor, mmkay?
So here is what our kitchen to-do list is looking like now. We have officially crossed 9 things off and have 9 more to go… some of which are a lot easier than the nine we have already done (switching out lights and hanging shelves are a welcome relief after all this priming and painting – although that 15th bullet is going to be a multi-step multi-day extravaganza).
*To read why we have chosen these steps for Phase 1 (for example, why we are painting the cabinets, why we are not going to attempt to paint the linoleum, and what is on the agenda for Phase 2) there is plenty of background info in this post for ya.
Our Go-to Paint Colors
If you are having trouble picking the right color to paint your room, check out these detailed deep-dive posts about our go-to paints:
