Our Kitchen (Before)
Hey, friends! I hope you had a splendid weekend!
After showing you our guest bathroom and a glimpse of our living room many of you started pounding your voyeuristic fists on your laptops and chanting “We want more! We want more!” So I decided to succumb to the peer pressure and show you another room. But, please, be warned. Oh dear, be warned.
When we bought our house every room was painted the same color. Beige. This is what the kitchen looked like when we toured the house the second time. Mmm, take in all that honey oakliciouness.
There are aspects of our kitchen that I love. I love the size of the room, the island, the storage space, and the layout. But there are things I don’t love– all the honey oak, the cheap wood laminate floors, the florescent light, and the FLORESCENT light.
Before we moved in I was all like “I’m going to paint the kitchen green!” I really don’t know what my 24 year old self was thinking. I’m going to blame my decision on being an excited 24 year old new home owner. Legitimate excuse, I think.
So I painted the kitchen Valspar’s Emerald Isle a week before we moved into the house. The sample swatch looks nothing like how the color looks on a wall. Trust me.
Please don’t adjust your monitor because this is for real, people.
The color is more of a green apple, in my opinion. And at first, my 24 year old self loved it. But then I turned 25.
I just grew tired of all that green. I was over it.
Brad and I have talked about painting our kitchen cabinets white since we’ve moved in. That’s our big fall project. Knowing that we’re going to paint the cabinets I thought about the new color I wanted to paint the kitchen. But I’ll tell you more about that later this week when I show you our newly painted kitchen. I’m sure the suspense is going to kill you.
In closing, I hope we can still be friends after I’ve shown you our 2009-2012 kitchen.
Ever paint a room, love the color you painted it, only to hate it later on?
What room(s) in your home would you like to paint?
What color do you think I painted the kitchen?
Love the green! It really brightens up the space. 🙂 Megan
Seriously impressive and I love the green
I love the green. I have one wall that color in my bedroom. Its just enough as an accent color for me. The room I painted but kinda hate is my kitchen. Its blue. I wanted it to pop b/c when we bought our home the cabinets and counter top make the room look like a jail cell. Gray counters and white wash cabinets are horrible. Its my least favorite room in our house. Its such a huge task. Good luck!
Can’t wait to see what color you go with! 🙂
The fruit art on thewall is pretty stellar, I hope that’s staying.
I painted the computer room in our last apartment blue, and it turned out to be the most baby blue shade of blue ever. Looked like a nursery! Oops. I also painted my bedroom close to the color of your kitchen once. It was a bit much. Lol
I now hate the color I chose for my bathroom. It’s a peachy-taupe (no other way to describe it) and doesn’t “go” at all with the other colors in the house. Thankfully it’s also the smallest room in the house which is why I’m not going to worry about repainting it! (for now anyway…)
I think white cabinets will be awesome! We want to paint ours, eventually. I actually really like the green, but it’s definitely a little overwhelming. I’d leave the one wall with the fruit art green though, just for fun. Maybe I like it because I’m 23 😉
I closed on my house at the end of March. Every single wall is beige – flat beige at that. Dirt and dust just clings. I have painted half a wall in my bedroom. The grey looked to pretty on the paint chip but it looks horrid on the wall. I’m too terrified to choose anymore paint colors at the point.
I love the green! I wouldn’t change it, maybe we can swap kitchens you wouldn’t mind the wallpaper we have in ours from the 70’s would you? 😉
I say you painted it gray. It would be a nice cool color for the kitchen and would look nice against the white cabinets and leave room for pops of color through accessories and curtains.
But I can’t wait to see the final results! =)
I’ve totally done that before…and it’s so much work to go back and paint again. I can’t wait to see the kitchen once you’ve painted the cabinets white….I’m in LOVE with mine!
I like the green, but can totally see how your love for it would fade. It feels great for summer, but I’m not thinking it has that cozy, warm feeling for fall or winter. I do think you did a great job choosing art to go with it though! Love the fruit prints. I’m excited to see what color you choose and what you’re going to do with the cabinets. 🙂
We had some friends paint our house while we were on vacation a few years ago (they are professionals :). I have no idea why I chose yellow for our foyer. I don’t even like yellow. It has bugged me since the day I saw it. Do you know how hard it is to keep 4 kids’ fingerprints off of yellow walls in the stairway? Ugh. Definitely planning a re-do as soon as I can talk myself into painting all the way up the stairs. :/
Uh yeah… I’ve been there a million times!! Have you ever seen my yellow stenciled craft room? Loved it for a month, then had to change it! Can’t wait to see the makeover!! I’m actually starting to paint my kitchen cabinets white next week. I’m pretty excited!!
Can’t wait to see the new paint color! 🙂
We just repainted our dining room. I liked the previous color we chose, but it wasn’t the right choice for everything else in the room. Sad.
My guess for wall color: I think you stenciled over the green in, say, brick red…with maybe some purple accents.
No? What you chose is way better? I guess I believe you. 😉
Wow, that green was definitely much much different on the wall. I am betting you replaced it with something neutral, maybe gray. I can’t wait to find out.
I once painted a red accent wall in my dining room. I liked the color but i wasn’t able to live with it on the every day. It didn’t last long and the beige had to come right back. I know, I’m boring when it comes to wall colors.
I also don’t hate the green, but can definitely see it growing overwhelming with time. Isn’t it obnoxious how paint colors never come out even CLOSE to the color you expect? Irritating. I painted most of our new place gray–I was going for a light gray, kind of silver-y instead of beige-y, and I thought I found the perfect one. I do love how it looks in the bedrooms and hallways upstairs where it’s not as bright–it’s perfect up there–but it is so insanely bright downstairs that the gray really gets washed out and basically just looks white. All that work to replace my white walls with something that essentially reads as white during the bright daytime hours anyway. But our ceilings are 20-some feet high and painting up there was a HUGE pain in the butt, so it’s staying for a good long while.
I’m going to guess you went with a really light turquoise/blue (sort of like your curtain fabric color). That would be gorgeous with white cabinets!
I love that color, my husband just never gets it. Yeah paint them! My mom had the same cabinets and I talked her into painting them a kind of vintagey off-white color. The room looks so much bigger and brighter! You might not be able to do that because of your counter tops, but I’m sure whatever you pick will be beaut!
I am a green girl Chelsea…but I have to admit that I have a love /hate relationship with some greens!! Can not wait to see it!! 🙂
ugh, yes!!! I painted two walls of my living room orange, two lake blue, and the adjoining kitchen sunshine yellow. It was WAYYY too much! I changed the yellow to a warm tan and it was better, but still pretty bold.
After I graduated high school I painted my whole room {except this awkward entry to my room} a deep, dark MAROON…and all of my furniture was BLACK. How horrid and depressing does that sound? Haha! I guess it was stylish when I was 18? My 24 yr old self has to disagree though 🙂
I love the wisdom that comes with age.
I get irritated when the fancy pants bloggers are all like “Painting is the cheapest and easiest thing to change.” There is nothing easy about painting an entire room…fools.
I love the green too. My first thought was pear, but green apple is more appropriate. But, either way, I think it’s great for a kitchen. However, it’s your kitchen, and YOU have to love it!!
YES!!! i used to hate paint choices all the time, until i started painting everything grey. Now i live in grey heaven. Who can hate any shade of grey? Not me! I cannot wait to see what you do with the kitchen!!!
I’m thinking you painted a grey. Or taupe. Or a taupey-grey! Ha!
I’m in the process of re-doing the master bedroom … getting it painted on Friday! It is grey. Accents are teal and mustard yellow. I can’t wait for it all to come together!
I like the green! Its such a great pop of color.
There’s something magical about the age of 25. I definitely think your improvements made the space SO much better than when you first bought it but I CANNOT WAIT to see what the new color/plan is. (I love the idea of painting the cabinets btw.)
I AM POSITIVELY DYING FROM THE ANTICIPATION>
Is it wierd that I kind of dig the green? I think it tones down the cabinetry a little.
But, I’m excited to see what you did because you can do no wrong in my book, friend.
That is defenitely apple green. Cant wait to see the new color!!
Paint is wondrous! Lovin’ it! 🙂
I am a new follower 😉
I painted one wall in my dining room blue… with the rst of the walls yellow but cannot find anything that matches! Now I wanna paint the wall!
Feel free to pop by sometime and say hello!
I actually love the green in your kitchen. I think you painted it about the same blue color as in your new curtains.
I’ve pretty much never NOT regretted a paint choice. 🙂 BTW, you’ve been rocking blogland lately! I keep seeing your features everywhere! WTG!
I love the color of your kitchen. I have only painted one room in my house (doesn’t help when you have to re-drywall every single room in the house) but I definitely didn’t like their color choices at all. Next room to be painted is the guest room.
Late to the party here, but THIS SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME. We picked that exact swatch for our son’s nursery when we painted it in early 2010 and I about lost my mind when it came out weather-wall green. It’s still that horrifying color, but we’re going to repaint soon…probably to something subdued and lovely like your mint!