Friday

Oct162009

db gives her kitchen a little botox injection

Fri, 16 10, 09: 9.30 AM

Last week I decided to give my kitchen a little Botox. Why Botox? Well, my plans weren't quite the scale that would warrant the moniker "face-lift" - "face-lift" implies general anesthesia, cutting, pulling stitching and a recovery period {i.e. new cabinets, appliances, permits, general contractors, and not being able to use the kitchen for a while.}

I really just needed to "zhuzh" up the kitchen because it really needed some TLC. So here is the progress in pictures!

SO.... here is what the kitchen looked like when I first purchased the house. Notice the darker ceiling and beams and the brick red/brown flooring....

kitchen (looking to front door)

shoji screens open to kitchen

One of the first things I did once I closed on the house was paint out the ceilings and beams in Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore {Look at this article from Apartment Therapy on the best white paints!}. I chose a pearl lustre finish so that it would kind of glimmer when light from various fixtures hit it. I also painted over the red/brown floor tiles with bright white glossy alkyd/enamel floor paint, also from Benjamin Moore. It immediately brightened everything -- the house already had amazing light, but the white ceilings and floors took it to another level.

before botox -- check out the bright white floor!

: before botox -- note the white beams + ceiling

A few months back I took the sliding doors off the cabinets -- I thought they looked a little cheesy and cheap and I have always liked the look of open shelving in the kitchen. The entire cabinet box was stained mahogany that matched the wood paneling throughout db's abode and it felt really heavy in the small space.

Given my affinity for all things Hermès, it should come as no surprise that I selected an Hermès orange paint for the inside of the upper cabinet boxes. I figured, if I make my kitchen look like an Hermès box, maybe I'll be more inclined to spend time in there. As it stands now, my refrigerator looks the way my refrigerator looked in my NYC days -- lots of condiments, a bottle of champagne, a bottle of Lillet, and some string cheese. The Barefoot Contessa I am not.

Let the fun begin!!

masking the cabinets

definitely my least favorite part of the job

adventures in spray primer

When I decided to start the kitchen botox project, I thought I'd use spray paint -- I thought it would be faster and that I would get a much smoother finish. Let's just say I wouldn't recommend it.... I have no idea how many brain cells I killed in the process, but I'm sure it was a lot. I also underestimated the amount of over-spray from the spray can -- my hair turned grey and there was a fine film of primer on my stove top. Oops.

five cans of primer didn't quite do the trick

: i gave myself brain damage for this?

orange, orange, orange, apple! orange you glad i didn't say orange again?

I cried "Uncle!" after the spray-primer incident and went to Home Depot to get good old fashioned roller-applied primer and paint. Will became my angel in an orange apron when he showed me Behr's primer and paint in one. One problem...the color I had my heart set on was Benjamin Moore's Electric Orange. I used my handy dandy Benjamin Moore Color Capture app for my iPhone {they really do have an app for everything} to get an exact match to my Hermès box, but of course Home Depot has Glidden and Behr {which do not have handy-dandy iPhone apps}. My angel in an orange apron was able to get the right mix when I gave him the Benjamin Moore color number and I was good to go with my bucket of paint and foam rollers.

coat #1 of 3

the other side of the kitchen

It was a late night full of painting and belting out glam rock ballads, but three+ coats later and I was one step closer to my Hermès box of a kitchen!

almost there!

The botox has been injected, now we just have to wait for the swelling to go down....

" "

" "

et voilà!

I am over the moon with the finished product -- I am far from a professional painter, but I'm pretty proud of myself. Now I have a great way of displaying my glassware and it feels like a completely different room and all it took was a bucket of paint, a few lost brain cells and badly sung glam rock!

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Reader Comments (3)

Love the orange!!! I am ready to re-do my kitchen, too.

Fri, 16 10, 09 |

Angela

Oh love it! You did such a great job. And it truly is the perfect hermes box color--I have to get that b.m. app.

Sun, 25 10, 09 |

blair

Oh love it! You did such a great job. And it truly is the perfect hermes box color--I have to get that b.m. app.

Sun, 25 10, 09 |

blair

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