At the beginning of the month, we delved into a non-gardening project that’s long been on our to-do list: remodel the kitchen. And by “remodel” we mean paint and get new appliances and countertops. Since we started working on the first objective, painting the kitchen walls, work in the garden has slowed down some but not entirely. We’re still doing regular harvests of shelling beans, cucumbers, lettuce, and now the peppers (we’ll probably feature them next week). And without a doubt, the tomatoes continue to ripen at a speedy pace.
And though we think we’ve gotten the last of the zucchini, we still have other squash to harvest, like butternut and acorn.
But back inside, it’s all about painting, which might be one of our least favorite things to do even though it always brings about wonderful results. The issue with our kitchen is its odd L-shape and many walls (thanks to a couple alcoves). We don’t have a pantry, so all of our dry and canned goods are on several different shelves that we’ve moved into the space. And since we don’t have a ton of counter space, we’ve also moved in several tables to make for additional prep space. The point is, we had to figure out how to best approach painting the space: move all the furniture out and paint everything at once, or work wall by wall, moving furniture (and appliances) as needed. We decided to go with the latter option because that way we don’t have to shut down the kitchen for any length of time. So over the past couple weeks, we’ve been working around the kitchen, moving stuff from one space to another to clear out a designated area. We clean the walls, put down masking tape and drop cloths, and we get to painting. Though it takes a couple days to get a single wall done (taking into account drying time, our schedules, and the weather – August heat waves are no good for painting), the results have been great so far. We can still use the kitchen throughout the process, which is the best thing of all. Sure, it takes longer, but we’re in no hurry. It’d be another matter if we had a house full of people, but we don’t. However, the cat has been keeping a close eye on our progress, especially since we had to move his food and water out of its normal place in the kitchen.
So what of the paint choice itself? Well, when we moved into the house, the kitchen was painted blue. This blue:
While the blue is not necessarily bad it…no, it is bad. A light blue semi-gloss that sucks all the life and light out of the room. A blue that makes the kitchen feel very dark and small. We knew from the first moment we saw the kitchen that we would paint it, and that we would paint it orange. This orange:
After gathering many, many, many paint chips from various hardware stores, we settled on an orange-yellow shade called Exotic Blossom. (No coincidence that it happens to look the shade of marigolds and sunflowers!) The difference between the parts of the kitchen that are now orange and the parts that remain blue is drastic! The orange makes absolutely everything pop, from the less-than-white trim to the old, brown cabinets to the tired, beige countertops. Plus, it makes the space feel much more inviting, warmer, and larger — all good things for a kitchen! And after the walls, it’ll be onto the cabinets, which we plan to refinish in white. That’ll certainly make the space even brighter and happier! And that’s the goal, because a happy kitchen means happy people. 🙂
Garden State-ments 