tales of a very ugly kitchen: paint

With our big ticket purchases on the books for the kitchen, we put our remaining funds–actually dwindling, is more like it–toward paint. Removing the wallpaper border at the ceiling revealed the original pastel pink (pink!) paint from yesteryear. I’m beginning to think the previous homeowners ate sherbet constantly, or at least were culinarily inspired by shades of sherbet.

After some heckling from my husband (who paints in his underwear, by the way) about which shade of beige I’d choose for this project, I bristled and plunged forth fearfully (and, I’ll admit, spitefully), toward color. I was actually shocked at my own color epiphany, when “orange” rang in my head as an accent wall possibility.  I heard the color gods saying, “Embrace the orange!” So I did a double take, and had to admit, all signs were pointing to orange. The foyer tile that I truly believe once graced the floors of a fine Mexican restaurant had many orange tones. The African mahogany trim that, according to the aforementioned husband who paints in his skivvies, is extremely exotic and hard to paint, also has orange tones.  (On the trim topic, I don’t buy it, and it WILL be painted, someday… but I digress.)  The hard truth is, there’s no escaping the orange in this house. I realized that I can’t afford new foyer flooring and new trim, but I can choose a color that might actually enhance these sad relics.

Once again, I repeated my “this is a cheap kitchen remodel” mantra and started painting samples in shades of orange on the accent wall. I homed in on a terra cotta shade (B.M. Sienna Clay #104), and after two coats on the wall and the initial color shock, it started to grow on me. For the cabinet walls, I chose a beautiful creamy beige (B.M. Alpaca #1074) that soothed the orange and charcoal gray tones and warmed up the white appliances.  More beige? “Okay, okay, ya gotta have a little neutral in the mix to take that orange down a notch,” I defended to my painting partner.  ”Now go put some pants on so I can concentrate on cutting in!”

spray painting frames for a new look

Do you ever get your best ideas in the shower? You’ve got no pen, no access to any method of recording your thought, so you just have to repeat it (for 8 seconds, actually, in order for it to transition into your long-term, short-term memory, or something like that, according to our dad’s best secretary ever). So I got this idea in the shower of how to pull the art in my bedroom together, and I already had everything I needed for this little ditty of a project.

For a wedding gift many years ago, we’d received these black and white prints of the beach in simple, natural wood frames. This pair has graced the living room, family room, and bedroom of various apartments and iterations of our house in Chicago, and is now living in the master bedroom of our Denver house.  Prior to my shower epiphany, I had just framed a painting of pine trees in Keystone for my husband in a black frame, and was loving how it played off our black iron bed frame. But these black and white prints which flanked the bed sides were lost.  So I got out my can of flat black spray paint, leftover from painting the bedside lamps months before, and got shakin’.

When spray painting a frame, there are two possible roads to travel, and the path you follow depends entirely on whether you can remove the glass and print below.  If so, just pop everything out, lay your frame down face up on a drop cloth and spray light coats, allowing a minute or so between coats for drying.

Here’s the natural wood frame before…

and here’s the after shot of the same collection of frames.

 Now, if your frame does not allow you to pop out the glass and print or painting below, here’s how to protect the glass and get the same effect with the spray paint.

Step 1:  Use painter’s tape to edge the four sides of the glass.

Step 2:  Use newspaper or newsprint to cover the glass by attaching the paper with more painter’s tape.  Be sure to adhere to your tape border, not the frame.

Step 3:  Spray away using light, smooth strokes.  It’s better to recoat several times that to spray to heavily.  You’ll avoid drips this way.

Step 4:  After an hour or so, spray painted items can be handled. Remove the tape and paper and discard. Since these were hanging by our bedsides, though, I gave them a few days to off gas before hanging, so we wouldn’t inhale fumes while we slept.

I love how the black frames now tie the art together in the room.

The painting of a pine forest in Keystone that I had framed for Steve set this whole idea in motion.

And our grouping of wedding photos.  Since we’ve been married, we’ve always hung this collection in our bedroom somewhere, but in this room I got the idea to nail the group of eight together in order to hang them tightly.  Ah, we were such youngsters…

So there you go, can’t get much easier than spray paint.  Have you spray painted anything lately for a big or small transformation?  Give it up, stylista!

tales of a very ugly kitchen: countertops and sink

With new floors and new appliances, the kitchen was definitely sprucing up. But as always is the case in happy home ownership land, one project begets the next.  Suddenly, the sparkly new white appliances were highlighting the impossibly stained countertops as well as the old cast iron sink and dreary faucet.  Cha-ching, more on the to-do list.  We scored a brand new Kohler stainless sink on craigslist and then splurged on an awesome contemporary chrome faucet from American Standard.  I love its clean lines and its “get it clean” functionality. 

Okay, so we had more sparkle, but, still…those dingy countertops and backsplash seemed to look worse than ever. They had to go.  Our funds were dwindling, and we knew this was not our forever kitchen, so my ever-clever husband began to research laminate.  To offset the warm, golden tones in the oak floor, we chose a cool charcoal gray color for the countertops. Our big find was a laminate with a brushed steely look that is designed for use vertically in industrial spaces.  It looks amazing as our new backsplash. Shimmer, shimmer.

tales of a very ugly kitchen: new appliances

New appliances were a must.  We went to Sears scratch and dent outlet and found a white Kitchen Aid side-by-side fridge for a fraction of the price of the retail model.  Score!  Then we negotiated a great price on a floor model dishwasher.  Yahoo!  We were eating on dishes we knew were clean! Harder to let go was the Tappan Fabulous 400 oven and cooktop.  It truly was the showstopper in the kitchen with its great retro appearance.  Clearly, it was the height of kitchen fashion when it was installed circa 1960.

But it just could not keep up with the needs of a household with three hungry kids.  Happily it found a home in a funky mid century modern home nearby thanks to craigslist. Since the retro Tappan was electric, we had a handyman, er…licensed plumber, over to run a gas line and installed a standard white five-burner range from an appliance liquidator.   New flooring, new appliances, hey, we’re cookin’ now.

tales of a very ugly kitchen: new floor

For our new plan of inexpensive kitchen renovation attack, we decided to start on the bottom and work our way up.  We priced out linoleum for the floor to maintain the 50’s groove, and because it’s biodegradable, we’d be guilt free when we were ready to upgrade in a future remodel.  But we soon discovered that was going to set us back over $3000, which was what we were hoping to spend on the whole renovation.

On to Plan B!  On a lark, my clever husband asked the floor guys we had used to tear out the carpet and refinish the hardwood floors prior to our move-in to come over for a look-see.  Bingo!  Their quote was half that of the linoleum to lay new oak wood flooring, sand and stain it.  I did not even mind the toothless installer who spent a week working in our kitchen. Hey, he was a nice guy, and we were making progress!  The continuity with the flooring and stain in other rooms improved the visual flow.  Check it out!

{The finish on the new kitchen floor (left) matches the original wood floor in the dining room.}

kid lampshade project

For a super simple and quick project, give your drab lampshade a little oomph by updating it with some austere ribbon or blingy fringe to suit your room’s style.  Here are two super speedy projects I whipped up in less than an hour!

Materials:  Plain lampshade, fabric scissors, fabric glue, ribbon or similar embellishment.

Step 1:  Before applying glue, wind the ribbon around the top and/or bottom of the shade to get your measurements. Add an extra inch to play it safe.

Step 2:  I’ve had better luck applying glue to the ribbon in about 6-8 inch sections versus applying glue directly to the lampshade. To start, find the spot on the lampshade where the original fabric or paper overlaps and begin to attach your ribbon there. Repeat the process for the bottom rim.

Step 3:  Give the glue some time to dry, following the directions, and then reattach to your lamp, and Viola, you’ve got a snazzy new shade. Is that Cheap and Easy or what?! It’s a great way to give your lampshade some new zing. Here are two after shots from my kids’ rooms.

tales of a very ugly kitchen: it's bad

The kitchen in our new old house was so ugly–old appliances, stained coutertops, dingy laminate flooring, faded cabinets all illuminated by a ginormous flourescent ceiling fixture, but we were still smitten, and  our home inspector assured us that everything was in working condition.  “Whew, that’ll save us some cash,” we thought, and give us time to save some dough for what I like to call a big honkin’ kitchen renovation.  So we figured we’d live with the uninspiring culinary digs for a few years before tearing down walls, replacing appliances and updating cabinets and countertops.  Right.

{The vintage Tappan Fabulous 400 and fridge.}

On the big move-in day, the fridge started to emit a mysterious chemical smell and was fit for storing only our celebratory six-pack and the jar of pickles we managed to gingerly trek across town. Only a few days later, we discovered that the one shining star in the kitchen, the amazingly cool, vintage Tappan Fabulous 400 oven/cooktop, made it tricky even to boil water for mac ‘n cheese.  To make matters worse, the floor and sink never seemed to get clean, scrub as we might.  Talk about uninspired.  Would we ever be able to serve anything beyond Triscuits and Cheez-whiz?

So, we hatched a new five year plan called the “get this kitchen in stylish working order on the cheap–pronto!” so that we can save up for the “big honking kitchen renovation” someday down the road.  Stay tuned to see how it all panned out…