A Color Adjustment

It was fun reading all of your comments and suggestions.  I tried not to reply

to any comments that would sway you one way or the other. I don't think

there's any one right or wrong answer but I was surprised  to hear so many

people suggest dark navy or black.  By the time I had done the post...

...I had already gotten a sample pot of Farrow & Ball Down Pipe.

The color is meant to imitate lead and I thought it would give an  industrial feel.

I should also add that I REALLY wanted to use Farrow & Ball.

I had gotten as far as buying a quart of Lamp Room Gray and painted one

of my window casings before deciding it was a little too blue for the cabinets

but I absolutely LOVE the paint!  It's got a beautiful consistency, paints on

smoothly and dries to a beautiful finish.  I'm completely sold on its quality.

In the end it was the perfect gray that I won out.  I didn't feel I was too far

off.  During the day, the old gray was reading a little lavender.  I went back

to the historical colors and found a gray that was a little darker and drabber

and I think it's perfect.  Benjamin Moore Chelsea Gray.  The darker tone really

highlights the marble and the hue give me the historical look I was shooting for. 

"Christmas Gift" amaryllis is late to the party but she's putting on a great show.

You can see the contrast of the two colors on top of the column on the left.

And the entire column on the right has been painted in Chelsea Gray.

Between the dishwasher and refrigerator is a new cabinet

that will have doors made from the old store counter...painted

in the Chelsea Gray.  I love the contrast of this gray with the marble.

The little wine rack next to the refrigerator has shelves made from the

store counter mahogany that I showed in an earlier post.

And you also get a glimpse of another color I've painted in the

small recess next to the refrigerator.  

(Oops, the flowers have moved over to this shot.  That's bad styling.)

Above the counter next to the refrigerator, I've designed a little built-in cabinet

that will house a small microwave, a TV and leave a little extra room for 

cookbooks and some white pottery.  My thinking is that the dark color

(Benjamin Moore Deep Creek) will help disguise the microwave and TV,

highlight the white pottery placed in front of it AND provide balance to the

black armoire that will go over in that right corner where all the crap is.

We'll see how that works out.

The sunshine pours in through the French doors on winter mornings.

While the cats sunbathe, you'll find me here...painting.

Counters and Colors

The stone place surprised me with a call about four days after the

templates were made.  They would be ready to do the install on the

MLK holiday.  I was off work so it was perfect timing.  

Here's a peek at the counter tops.  I couldn't wait to set my faucet

in to place.  It's the Rohl Perrin & Rowe bridge faucet in polished nickel.

I looked at as many faucets as I did light fixtures and I think this is the 

most beautiful one by far.  

The installation was just as interesting as the templating.  The installation

team cam in and measured each section again and made tweaks to the

stone outside before bringing it in and setting it in to place. 

On two of the sections, they even made new templates and took them

outside before grinding here and there to make sure everything was perfect.

They were really impressive.

Shortly before the install, the cabinet doors were finished up and

installed.  The detail on the doors was replicated from the panels on

the front of the store counter.  The base moldings still need to go in.

You can see my predicament with the wood color here.  The doors

are made of the wood from the antique store counter but they needed

to be planed down to made the rails and stiles of the doors.  And then

the drawers were made out of fir when we ran out of wood.

After considering the Farrow & Ball colors, I just couldn't find a

gray in the right shade and value so I picked a Benjamin Moore

color I thought would look nice.  It's Cape May Cobblestone which

is on the same strip in the fan deck as my exterior house color.

It goes really well with everything:  the floor, the marble, the stainless,

but I'm having two problems with it.  Don't get me wrong, I think it

looks beautiful but I think it's maybe too safe.  More importantly, I'm

feeling like it's wrong for the architecture of the piece.  The hefty carvings

somehow don't feel right in this misty, modern color.  It's kind of like the

Dowager Countess wearing a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress.

Okay, maybe not that silly but it's a good way to describe

how I feel about it.  I'm not going to rush a decision.

Of course, the cabinet color also affects the window casings

and sashes so I can't wait too long.

Counters and Storage

Having to decide what one wants to do with their life at the age of 16 is

one of life's cruelest jokes.  If it weren't for earning a scholarship to attend

nursing school, I might have taken a much different path.

If I'd known I could build forms with balsa wood, cut things with

X-acto knives, use a hot glue gun, smell magic markers,

and see the inside of a million different houses, surely I would

have wanted to become a counter templater.

I've never seen this done before and I thought for sure they

would have arrived with laser instruments to ensure a perfect

fit right down to the micron.  But, no, it's still a very old-school

process.  Simple square of wood are made to outline each section of

counter. Smaller squares of balsa wood are lined up tightly against

the wall to follow any small curves in the wall.

And each template is marked with instructions such

as the size of the radius cuts in the inside and outside curves

of the sink and notes where the counter is to be placed.

This is the template that shows a tricky portion

of the counter next to the fridge.  The "No BS" means

no backsplash as well as the one place in the kitchen

where I needed to have a seam in the counter.

This area will end up a built-in for a small microwave,

a small TV, some cookbooks, and other doo-dads. 

Just under the counter, you'll see a gap next to the fridge.

There was a little four-inch gap there so instead of filling

it with a panel...

...the little bit of mahogany countertop that could be reclaimed

from the store counter got cut up to become little shelves

for a wine rack.  With a little sanding and about seven coats

of tung oil, they're almost too beautiful to hide.

My desire to have no upper cabinets in the kitchen

required a solution for adding some good storage.

That proved to more difficult than I expected.

This beautiful piece from Darby Road was too wide

as were many I found over the past several months.

This one was too tall as were most that I liked.  Also

from the Darby Road warehouse. 

I've also been on the lookout for some cool old doors

or window to do a custom built-in piece between the 

dining room and kitchen, but, after a year, nothing. 

I finally found a piece over the weekend that seems

just right to hold many of my dishes and serving pieces at

European Country Antiques right here in Cambridge.

(Sorry for the blurry iPhone photo.)  It's a great place to

check out if you're in the Huron Village neighborhood.

It's just packed with rustic European pieces.

It's nice and deep with really sturdy shelves to hold the

weight of dishes.  I was hoping for something with a little

hidden storage but I could put baskets in the bottom to

hide some of the less pretty stuff.  

I look forward to the day I can have it delivered and

start putting things on their forever shelves.

Kitchen Ceiling and Cabinet Paint Tests

There hasn't been a lot of progress on the kitchen the last few weeks but

the holidays gave me some time off that I was able to step right in and get

some things done without getting in the way.  The walls are now all primed

and ready for paint but most of my time was spent on the ceiling.

The wood planks took quite a lot of prep work, filling and sanding before a coat of primer went

on.  And then I walked around and marked trouble spots with blue tape.  There were quite a few

rough spots, nail holes and dents that needed to be filled and sanded down before touching up

with a second coat of primer.  If you ever decide to put in a planked ceiling, let me suggest doing

as much of this work before installing the wood.  It's neck- and shoulder-breaking work.

And finally on Sunday I put on the first coat of semi-gloss.  It's Benjamin

Moore Decorator's White in Aura.

It's really brightened up the whole room.  This is one of the things about the

old bakery from my hometown that I loved so much.  It seems so clean.

I really want to lighten these cabinets so paint seems pretty certain.

I've been playing with some paint to see what it might look like on the cabinets.

I bought some rosettes at Home Depot--the little things that would go in the top

corners of door or window casings--to experiment with.

I would put a lot more effort in the final finish but these are good

"sketches," if you will, of layering a few different colors.  

I used colors #2 and #5 from the Farrow & Ball paint samples

I made up which are Lamp Room Gray and Mole's Breath.

This is Lamp Room with a wash-n-wipe of burnt umber

acrylic paint that was thinned down juxtaposed against

the Carrara marble counter in my bathroom.

I think it's a little dirty looking.

This is Lamp Room with a little Mole's Breath

brushed in the recessed and then rubbed down to

almost bare wood in a few spots.

I like this one.

This one is Mole's Breath undercoat with a dry brushing

of Lamp Room over the top.  The effect is just a little

bit darker than the previous one.

I also like it.

I want to try a darker gray glaze on these to really highlight

the details.

Here's the three of them next to the stainless.

Excuse the fingerprints.

This is a little section of the cabinets that's had the finish sanded

off a bit.  Ideally, I'd like some of this grain to show through so it

might take a delicate dance of brushing paint on and caressing it off.

I only get one chance to get it right so I'll do some more samples

and perhaps look for a piece of furniture I can buy and experiment on.

Stay warm!

Happy New Year

My sincere wishes for a happy, healthy New Year!