I posted about the bold paint choices we made for our kitchen, and I finally have some photos to show…
Here’s what the kitchen looked like before we began:
That’s Son in the last shot. Always happy!
I already had this print hanging in the kitchen in my old house. That kitchen was painted the same yellow that most of the rest of that house, which is the same color we used to paint over the paneling in Son’s playroom. It is one of my inspirations for the new kitchen, and this time I wanted to go bolder/ This print isn’t short on bold colors!
Then I found some inexpensive wood bowls (vases?) in Homegoods, and I knew I had my kitchen color – Volcanic Blast by Behr. Well, at least one of them…
Too bright for the entire kitchen, I decided on green to ground the orange. I picked the green in 5 seconds on the first green color page on Behr’s color wheel. It’s Herbal Garden…
Here is the kitchen today…
See the table and chairs I got for a net $125 on Craigslist? I’ll post about that coup and why it’s a “net $125” later this week… And after seeing this photo that red bag is no longer hanging from that drawer pull. 🙂
Those plants were free, and the pots were 99 cents at Ikea. I was going to paint some regular clay pots using the paint from the walls, but I like the white – and they have cool textures you can’t see in the photo. And that’s an apple I was cutting up for Son. Whoops…
The original plan was to paint the inside of the bar area the orange-red, but I changed my mind. I’m so glad – I just love the way the green looks with the off-white cabinets and the black granite!
This entire room makeover cost under $200, and that includes the table and 6 chairs, the paint and a few accessories. That’s bang for my buck!
Now I have to decide what color to paint the family room – which you can see through the bar in the above photo. A few people have suggested leaving it white, but I’m not sure. I was thinking of also doing that room a lighter green, or perhaps the dreaded taupe.
What do you think?
Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest of The Time I Know You? 
June 15, 2009 at 9:51 am
Love it!
Have you thought about painting the ceiling beams with a color? Your print has a nice gold hue in it, and given that the beams run between the orange and green, a bold gold hue might look really cool.
As for the family room, I vote against white. You’ve gone so bold, it seems like leaving an adjoining room white is like leaving part of your canvas blank. And a color too pale won’t hold up between the two rooms, it might just get lost and go completely unnoticed – and then, why even bother painting? Again, I’m back to a golden yellow. I think it would coordinate well and really play off the colors in the kitchen. It will go with the green when you’re looking from the kitchen into the family room, and I assume you can see some of the red when you look from the family room? Again, if you can, it would coordinate well.
And if you do decide to paint those beams, you could use the same color you use in the family room to tie it all together even more.
Lastly, I know you’re a Behr fan — and frankly who can blame you, it’s great paint at a great price — but the Benjamin Moore site has an AWESOME color selection tool. It even has a few room setups where you can set your colors in one room, and also set a color for the room you can see from the room you’re currently ‘in’. It’s how I selected the general color for my dining room.
June 15, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Lighter green, for sure.
Take the color you have in the kitchen, and go with that same one, in one less hue.