The Project of All Projects

I've never really been a fan of the red paint on my kitchen walls. I felt like such a bold color in such a small space made it feel even smaller (a luxury that this kitchen can't afford).

But I think it was the hideous border with baskets of apples on it above the half wall of fake brick that really made me hate this room. Needless to say, I've always been kind of embarrassed when new people come over to our house- like I have to put out a verbal waiver to say, "We're just renters. I promise I would never intentionally do something like this to my own house."

Since I have a decent amount of down time these days, I decided to ask our landlord if I could paint the kitchen. Spencer was completely against the whole idea since we'll only be here for one more year, and I always offer to foot the bill for paint and supplies since all I want is a "yes." Sure enough, she gave me the ok, and even said she'd be happy to see the border go.

I decided on a sagey green color called "Artichoke Hearts" that I thought would complement the cabinets and tie in with the green in our living room. So after removing the border (a project that resulted in me peeling latex paint from the wall behind the stove until 5:30 am), I primed the walls. The primer was tinted green as well, and let me tell you... I felt like I was on an alien planet after those walls were painted. Like everything in the room (including me) was glowing green.

Of course, these pictures don't do it justice. I promise it was really bad.

I was pretty relieved when I started putting the actual paint on the walls and saw that it was significantly lighter than the primer.

But that relief quickly faded when after one coat I realized that "Artichoke Hearts" was just Martha Stewart's code word for "Mint Green." Uh, not exactly what I was going for.

It looked TERRIBLE with the cabinets, and worse with the brick. Plus, it looked really bad from the living room because the wall color in there is so warm. It totally disrupted the flow of the house, so it didn't take long for me to decide that I would have to redo it.

After practically clearing out paint samples from Home Depot, analyzing them for several days, and getting my friend's decorative opinions, I decided on a color called "Natural Twine."

And it looks 384,957,834,895 times better.

Of course, I couldn't get off completely easy on round two. Notice the blue tape in the picture below?

It's covering this:

I was moving the fridge away from the wall, and it was putting up a fight. So I pulled harder, not realizing quickly enough that a balancing foot under the fridge was caught under the linoleum. Unfortunately, it's kind of in a conspicuous place, but for now I'll just focus on enjoying the new look of the room.