Kitchen Painting Project

So I decided last Thursday that this past weekend would be a good time to paint the kitchen. I had a coupon for Home Depot and a Home Depot giftcard from credit card rewards that had just arrived in the mail.

So here's the before shot of the kitchen. It's not always this messy, I promise. The one slat on the blinds on the left window is always broken though. This is after I started Friday night so I was using the cordless drill to remove switchplates and outlet covers and had other miscellaneous painting supplies strewn around the kitchen. The room looks a little dark, but the paint was a soft yellow color.



Friday night I stopped by Home Depot and picked up a couple of Glidden samples to match with the paint chips that I liked the best. I picked up "Whispering Wheat" and "Water Chestnut." If you use these paint samples, don't use the brushes that come with them, they are pretty awful. Imagine using a nail polish brush to paint your walls. It ain't pretty and just makes a big, drippy mess.



I got a little crazy trying the paint samples on the walls. I wanted to see how it looked in different places. I've heard that it's a good idea to paint a piece of posterboard and then carry that around the room to see how the paint looks in different lights and locations. I didn't have posterboard and I knew the paint over white posterboard would look different than paint over yellow walls.


This photos shows the lighter paint on the left and the darker one on the right.




This one is reversed, "Whispering Wheat" on the left, "Water Chestnut" on the right.



I quickly decided the lighter color was too light and I was digging the darker color. So I stuck it in some more random places. I hope to paint the cabinets white at some point, but I wanted to see how the paint looked against the orangey oaky wood until then.



And one more spot for good measure.



So I figured the Whispering Wheat was the winner and Saturday morning headed to Home Depot to pick up the paint. I found another major goodie at Home Depot for the kitchen. I'll reveal that upgrade along with the final painted room tomorrow. My legs are still sore from going up and down the ladder for 6 hours Saturday. I did discover a great tool for painting that helped alot. More about that later too. So stay tuned for more reveals.