Sweet Mod Kitchen Yo!

Dan wanted a red kitchen. Not a pale sweet pink or a Casablanca meets Studio 54 maroon, but red. Bright red. Now personally, I'm more of a "seriously?! well what about just a red accent wall?" kinda gal, but I thought about it. I got my icy blue bedroom, so Dan can have his red kitchen, if it sucks we change it. He decided on red walls all around, and cream colored cabinets. So off we went to Home Depot for some paint. The older gentleman in the paint department gave me a lecture on red paint. Apparently it is a feat almost impossible to pull off if one does not first prepare their walls with a grey primer. Sold! Load up the primer, load up the red! "Oh, and what is this high gloss cream for?" he asks, and upon hearing we were repainting cabinets, "Cabinets?! Primer is a must!" Now these weren't his exact words, and under any other circumstances I would never consider buying a primer, but neither of us had much experience in dealing with red paint or with cabinetry, so we figured better to spend some extra money and time with the primer than to botch these things up and have to rebuy and redo everything after it all looks like crap. So, we headed home with a trunkful of paint.

The kitchen walls were white, cabinets a dark brown, and the counter a gross kind of yellow.

The walls were bare with the exception of some art that Dan drew (I helped).


So one day we said "bye bye boat!" and primered the kitchen. It wasn't a very difficult task seeing as it was just going to be painted over anyhow thereby cancling out any notion of needing to be precise with the details. A few days later we started in with the real paint, and holy begonias, what a pain. It took three coats of this red to completely cover the white, and it seems to be impossible to get it to cover solidly around the edges, something I've personally come to terms with with the reasoning that it will one day be covered by moulding. It doesn't look bad though. Because the paint is semi-gloss it shows all of the imperfections with the walls (and there are a lot). But I must say, it looks far better than I thought that it would, and the cream cabinets contrast it quite nicely. It all looks very modern, due in part to our new black stove and the fact that we have only hung black and white artwork. The cabinets are still being painted (I hope to finish them today in fact) and after that the kitchen will be finished except for some few minor details and a new counter which is planned for a very distant future.

*Dan painting over the primer. Notice the jar of money on top of the refrigerator? That's our swear jar.

*The kitchen wall leading to the hallway, there is a nook in the wall directly in the center of the picture where there will one day be shelves for our awesome cookbooks.

*Red walls- cream cabinets coming soon.