The kitchen who will be blue

If you've ever seen my house, you know that I've done a lot of painting in my day (the kind with a roller on the wall--not the kind with a fine brush which requires talent!). You also would know that I'm not afraid of color. Well, all that has changed. I have met my arch enemy of color: GREY. It has me hiding in a corner, sucking my thumb.

I feel I must clarify. First of all, I'm not afraid of the color grey in general. In fact, it is my latest color obsession. But trying to PAINT a room grey is freaking me out--more specifically, painting my KITCHEN grey. Evidently, that room wants to be one color and one color only: BLUE.

If you've painted with me, first of all: SORRY, and second, you know that I have a system to make sure the color in my head and the color of the finished wall is an exact match. First, I gather all the possible color swatches from as many stores as possible; then I will cut out my favorites from the swatches and tape them on the wall in a row. I live with that for a few days, periodically ripping off the losers and throwing them away. When I'm sure of which color succeeds in every possible lighting situation, I go to the paint store and mix up a quart of it--just a quart. Then I come home and paint a square on the wall, scrutinizing it for at least 24 hours. I will repeat this process as many times as it takes, because compromise on color will DRIVE ME CRAZY everyday for the rest of my life. IF I like the color, then--and only then--will I commit to an entire gallon.

Because of this process, I have PILES of paint cans in my garage. You could paint an entire house with the paint I have out there; that is, if you don't mind several colors on every wall, because most of those cans are quart-sized rejects. (Imagine what that does to their little paint can psyches, knowing they didn't make the cut. Sad.)

So, back to my kitchen. First of all--and sit down for this--we decided to HIRE someone to paint a few rooms for us. Amazingly, I was more than okay with that, although it is a little hard to admit. I have a rep to uphold, afterall. Anyway, they painted, but I still had to do the paint-picking-process (PPP). Unfortunately, these paint dudes didn't want to hang around while I enacted my 10-day system for every room. So I was under some pressure.

Here's what happened: I bought quart after quart of yummy greys, and each one, the second they hit the wall, turned blue. And then they'd dry even bluer. And my face would get redder and redder and steam would come out of my ears. Back to Sherwin Williams I'd go, which happens to be the farthest paint store from us but also the only one with good low VOC paint. And the workers wait. After buying a few quarts, I got tired of the long trip, so I started buying gallons (to avoid coming back for more when I got it right). Same thing...blue. Me red. Workers suggesting I just pick up an move, because this kitchen does NOT want to be grey.

I took a picture of the tester wall. The one we finally picked is outlined in blue.



I know, the one we chose looks blue, too. However, on the wall across the room, it looked very tan:


Can you believe that's the same color? I didn't want tan any more than I wanted blue, but I figured that surely it would end up looking somewhere in between (i.e., grey) by the time it covered the whole room.

And...it does. Behold the end product:


Actually, I'm not sure this is the end product. It's actually much lighter than my 'vision,' and I want to repaint it. HOWEVER, Hubby has put the kabash on anymore projects for awhile. (secretly glad...don't tell him) So I'll live with it and see if it grows on me. (yeah, right)

In the meantime, you can find me on the corner, trying to unload cans of grey paint onto unsuspecting victims.