Tag Archives: kitchen

An Alpaca in the Kitchen

Ok. We don’t really have an alpaca in the kitchen. Although that would make for some interesting photos. We do have alpaca colored cabinets in the kitchen though.

Ok. So that’s not completely true either. We have cabinets that are partially painted in Sherwin Williams Alpaca. Partially is the key word here since so far I have only worked on the top cabinets and the doors are still covering my dining room table.

I just finished the third coat of paint on the front of all the doors and hope to start on the back side of them later today or tonight. For the most part painting has been fairly easy and quick. “Well what is taking you so long?”, you ask. Finding the time to paint. The best time for me to paint is during Noah’s naps or after she has gone to bed. It works well but it kind of draws the whole process out.

Thankfully I (and Michael Luke) am loving the color choice. I’m not sure Noah has noticed. Kids these days!

Thank you so much for weighing in with your color choices in our little poll. A majority of you chose Alpaca. Even with all your Alpaca encouragement I still almost when with Requisite Grey. Not because I don’t value your opinion but because I was just afraid it wouldn’t be dark enough.

After seeing Alpaca on the cabinets though I can’t imagine it being any darker. The tonal value is really close to the existing cream color which you can still see on the bottom cabinets.

The difference is in the underlying tones. The original cream color had a lot of yellow in it. Too much for our taste after painting the walls yellow. The new color has a subtle pink tint. It doesn’t come across as pink at all but it picks up some of the warmer tones found in our floor tile. And because red and yellow are next to each other on the color wheel they yellow walls work well with the cabinets.

The light grey of the cabinets really allows the counters to shine in all their glory.

Which is totally what I wanted! And kind of a cool picture as we, the body of Christ (the cabinets) want God (the counter) to shine in all His glory. Like I read in my quiet time this morning… “He must increase, but I must decrease.” – John 3:30

Hopefully, painting the bottom cabinets will move a little quicker than the top. I’ll be sure to share pictures along the way as well as let you know the process I used to paint and prep our cabinets.

Have you ever painted cabinets before? If so, how long did it take you? What do you feel like has been your most labor intensive DIY project?

P.S. Don’t forget that your purchase from Color Created Family helps to cover our adoption expenses as we journey towards bringing our little girl home from Hong Kong. This month a portion of each sale will also go towards The Sparrow Fund who helps families through the adoption process.

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Time to Weigh In

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Ok, y’all! Michael Luke has finally finished grouting the tile backsplash. Let me just tell you that it looks great. Even better than I imagined because we didn’t have to pay anybody to install it! I’ll be back with more posts about all our tiling adventures but until then I need your input on paint colors for the cabinets.

We have wasted countless hours staring at all our paint samples, re-situating them around the room, switching back and forth between favorites, and now we have narrowed it down to two choices.

Sherwin Williams Alpaca and Requisite Grey.
Originally, when I started pulling finishes together for our kitchen I was picturing a medium grey tone for the cabinets.

My Sunshine Kitchen by krystle-1 on polyvore.com

But now that I have had time to think a ~~little~~ lot more about it and see what the kitchen looks like with the counters and backsplash installed I’m honestly leaning more towards Sherwin Williams Alpaca.

I like Alpaca because being a lighter color it won’t enclose the kitchen. It has been truly amazing how much bigger the kitchen looks since we painted it yellow and I just don’t want to lose that visual illusion.

So here’s where you come in. It’s time for you to weigh in and let me know which color you would choose. I plan to get the paint mixed by the end of the week and hopefully start painting by this weekend!

Have you ever debated and then debated some more a major design decision for your house? Or are you one of those who goes with their first choice and there is no turning back?

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Our “Sweet” Counters

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It all started a couple of months ago when I put together this idea board for our kitchen makeover.

Back then I was swooning over some calcutta marble. Even at that point I knew actual marble wouldn’t make ~~cents~~ sense for our little townhouse but I had my eye on Formica’s 180FX Calacatta Marble laminate counters.

The other week I brought you up to speed with pricing and product info and shared that we were leaning towards Formica’s 180 FX in Dolce Vita meaning “sweet life” in Italian. That’s definitely the kind of life I want to be living in my kitchen. Did someone say chocolate?

So how did I go from 180FX Calacatta Marble to 180 FX Dolce Vita?

I love the look of white marble countertops and really wanted to implement this into the redesign of our kitchen. But the key to a great renovation is to integrate the new flawlessly with the old. The old in our case being our floor tile.

Dirty/ Off White tends to describe it best. So when I put our pretty 180FX Calacatta Marble sample down on the floor this is what I got.

Ewww! They definitely don’t work together. I knew then that we would have to go darker. Oh, and for a little memory update we plan on painting the cabinets gray.

After our first failed attempt, I ordered samples, more samples, and finally more samples.

Next, we really liked the Soapstone Sequoia.

It worked perfectly with the existing tile and had a nice long linear look in the veining. After leaving the laminate out on our counter for a few days though we decided this wasn’t the one for us. Each laminate is made to resemble it’s stone counterpart in sheen and texture. For soapstone this means a dull appearance and non-smooth surface. We were afraid that it the counters would come across as unclean. I do a bad enough job keeping the counters clean myself!

So we continued to test out samples and finally found one that we both liked, Dolce Vita.

(The guy on top.)

It has a smooth finish as well as the linear look that ML and I both liked in the soapstone. By using a laminate/stone with linear lines it will elongate the look of our kitchen. Which it needs.

Dolce Vita works with well our tile floors and black appliances. I can’t wait to see what it will look installed. Unfortunately, we are going to have to wait a few weeks on that part. The guys came out to measure the existing counters last week but because 180FX is special order it will be a few weeks until the counters come in. We should be enjoying them by Christmas though! I bet red party platters with all kind of Christmas goodies will look great on them!

What about you? Do you have a project that is stretching out for weeks on end? Do you find yourself going through several finish selection before finding “the one”? What do you hope to have accomplished by Christmas?

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