My mission today - Paint

I'm leaving this morning and not coming home until I find the paint color I want for the kitchen. It's been difficult finding just the color I want and I'm not having a lot of luck.

We live in a bi-level and the end wall to our house goes from the living room into the kitchen. That wall is painted Cranberry and we just love the color. But it's hard (at least for me) to find a color that I think I'll like to fit with the Cranberry wall.

Here's the Cranberry color on our wall. Like I said, we love it. It's a rich red and it's just gorgeous during the holidays. We put our traditional Christmas tree up where that rocking chair is in the picture and it looks just perfect there. And where that wine-and grapes Niagara Fall picture is on the wall, I usually hang my big Santa picture. So that wall color must stay; it cannot be changed. Rick has been more than willing to go along with everything else, but he really wants that color to stay.


My problem is finding a color that will go with the wall and that I can live with for awhile. And it has to go with the granite and the new cabinets.

Here's the granite. It's called Patagonia and the reason I like it is because that vein that runs through the slab reminds me of a ribbon of chocolate....and yeah, I know it sounds silly. But I fell in love with it the first time I saw and I keep coming back to that slab. The cabinet sample is there....it's an oak with a Carmel finish; this is not the actual cabinet we ordered, but it's the only Carmel sample the decorator had. (I know that a lot of people don't like oak, but I do and so does Rick.) You can't see the vein in this picture, but it's there. And I think every kitchen needs a bit of chocolate! That granite reminds me of cake or cookie batter with ribbons of chocolate that's not mixed in completely yet. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. (Rick says I'm always looking for chocolate.)

This picture was taken outside, so it's a little faded from the sunlight.


I think I mentioned that our new sink is a Blanco Silgranite II in athracite. It's just one big sink as I don't want a double. We talked about that before.

Really, there's not much to paint, just around the French door and right around the cabinets and the new window. That's pretty much it. Next year, I'd like to do a backsplash at the cabinets, but that's next year. I'm looking at some kind of Arabesque tiles or maybe some kind of subway tiles for that. (The new floor will be done next year, too.) But until then, the area needs to be painted.

Don't want yellow because I don't want to "yellow out" the beige in the granite. I'd love burnt orange, but I'm afraid that will bring too much orange out in the Carmel of the cabinets, not to mention it would really clash with the Cranberry color. Blue? mehhhh, no. A beige? I'd like some color and beige is pretty neutral. Nothing real dark because my kitchen has a northern exposure and I don't get a lot of light, hence putting in the larger window and the two sun tunnels.

I'm looking at green, just not sure what kind of green. I had some samples of olive-type greens and they're on the wall in various areas now, but in the end didn't like it. Now I'm thinking of a sagey type green, but need to go look again. I've been on the Houzz site (honestly, some of those kitchens are just gorgeous; they're also well out of my price range!) and saw some greens that I might like and wrote down the colors.

Off to Lowes, Home Depot, and Sherwin Williams or will be as soon a I get a load of laundry dried. I'm on a quest!

Ohhh have fun! I hate looking for matching colours

I know you said no blue.  But when I enlarged the picure showing the cabinet and the floor, I see a lot of blue in that, or gray.  Have you considered a smokey blue.  Some call it country blue or a shade of grey.

Well, you know, I was kind of thinking of a smokey blue. But I'm not sure about how it would look with the cabinets and with the granite. While I was out this morning, I did bring various blue chips home with me even though I did say no blue. Years ago, I lived with a kitchen that was done in blues and I really liked it. But we'll see. I'm not sure how the blue chips will do against the cabinet. And that red wall.

I did find this: http://www.olympic.com/color/paint-colors/crocodile-tears-c12-3  It's called Crocodile Tears. The interesting thing about this is that I swore that it was a really neat color of green when I was in the store and I really liked it. When I held it up to my granite chunk (which always goes with me to a store), it looked perfect in the store. To the point where I brought a paint sample home. But on my monitor, it looks beige-y and is more of a yellow-brown. I have a feeling it's going to be one of those colors that changes with the light. When it's daylight, it may have greenish tones, but after it gets dark and we have articifial lights on, then it will turn brownish.

I was thinking beige (or tan) but that light blue sounds like it might work also.

Well............I was talking to Rick on the phone last night about paint. And I mentioned that I really wish I could find a color like the Sage Green that's in our bedroom; I just love that color. His idea? Find the paint can in the basement, take it to Lowes and get the exact same green for the kitchen.  Cannot believe I didn't think of that. I held the granite sample up to the bedroom wall and it looks fine.

So then I said that we'd have to change the bedroom color (can't have two rooms with the same color now, can we?) and he started laughing. Then he said, "Well, you know, that bedroom ceiling could probably use another coat of paint, too." So that's what we're going to do. The kitchen will be sage green and the bedroom will be.....well, we're not sure yet.

There will be a lot of painting going on in this house!  I cannot believe that this whole thing started out with a simple idea of painting kitchen cabinets. It's like the home project that never stops!

It really never ends, does it? :lol3: I like the idea of the sage green. :bigthumb: We have that in our living room.