Adventures in paint samples, part three

So, my grand celery lime green plans turned out to be DOA in the kitchen. It was certainly unexpected to have a *perfect* color turn out to be totally *imperfect* for the project in mind. I blogged, I reflected, I day-dreamed longingly at Celery Sticks, wondering what went wrong while sitting in my yet to be painted craft room / office......

Wait..... [holds paint sample chip up against wall.... against funky turquoise lamp I knew I wanted to include...]

Hello, new craft room / office color! So nice to meet you!

Of course, it wasn't that easy. There were other hues in consideration and one paint sample purchase, Glidden's Peach A La Mode. Light, airy, would look great with turquoise, not super girly, yet still fun. After all it wasn't *pink*, right? Until it went on the wall.

Um, yeah, it looked pink. I knew deep down it was a light peach, but still...

I wasn't about to buy a gallon, spend two days putting it up on the walls, and spend the next however many years convincing myself it was "Peach, silly, not pink. Why would a grown woman's office be pink?" I wasn't going to risk it. Again, best $3 mistake I could have made.

For some inspiration, here was what I was originally thinking:


This is Heather Bailey's studio. Still totally love it and thinks what she has done is dreamy. Just can't pull the "light peach" bullet.

Another craft room inspiration I've seen floating all around the 'net that I absolutely love:


Looks very Marta Stewart / Pottery Barn -ish, but I've never seen citation info. Too close to the kitchen color, so I knew I didn't want to do this color for my room too. Love, love, love it though.

Hopefully, in a week or so I will have a somewhat put together craft room / office... So I can move back to the kitchen :)

Adventures in paint samples, part two

Yeah, the *perfect* green turned out to be not so perfect for the kitchen / family room. And here I was thinking green all the way, forever.... well at least for the last two months. I was totally stumped if green was out.

I ask hubby for input. I show him all my spreads (man, I love those paint sample books they hand out at paint stores. Not quite official enough to have fancy paint fan decks, but I can spend hours daydreaming over those itty bitty samples.)

He picks a dark grey blue from the Martha Stewart Collection called Shale. I look at it. I love it. I totally agree. The search for the *perfect* green has now become a search for the *perfect* blue grey. Martha Stewart certainly has some dreamy greys with all sorts of undertones. Here are some of her blue-ish greys:


A close-up of the Shale:


Some searching around revealed this amazing kitchen in what looks to be pretty darn close to the Shale and the exact feel I wanted all along with my kitchen too. This is by seasideinteriors on Rate My Space.


Here's her living room. To.die.for. Am I right?

She used Benjamin Moore's Pike Peak Grey for the walls and Cloud White for the panelling.

As much as I love the white cabinets and as much as I know my cabinets are the fabulous shade of early-1990s oak, I am going to resist the total urge to paint them. I would hate for all this white cabinetry hotness to look oh-so early 2010s in just a few years, you know? Like how dark cherry now scream 2004.

So off to the paint department for some blue grey hunting. I managed to walk out of there (I'm sure an hour later) with just three sample bottles, but gathered quite a collection of sample chips, just in case, just for comparison. So here they all are in their glory on my turquoise countertops....


On the bottom right is my short list from top to bottom: Martha's Shale, Glidden's Dusty Miller (which has some green undertones as well) and Behr's Disney Collection Space Dust (the bottom half). Here they are up on the wall:


Top to bottom: Shale, Space Dust, Dusty Miller, Celery Sticks (from paint sample round 1), more Shale.

The winner is...Glidden's Dusty Miller.

I still love, love, love the Shale, but am worried it would be too dark without white cabinets, the Space Dust was too light blue not enough grey. For some comparison, the Dusty Miller is very similar to Martha's Winter's Day, which gives you a good idea of how it stacks up to similar shades.


Now that I am BFFs with the Home Depot paint department, they let me know a rebate offer is coming this weekend on paint gallons so to wait a few days.

Being that crazy, million paint sample girl is starting to have its perks...

Adventures in paint samples

Our eat-in kitchen and family room are open to each other and yet also separated off from the formal living and dining rooms, so I want to use the layout as an opportunity to create a space that was fun and a little bold in color. I was envisioning a celery green (wall), navy blue (couch), sandy tan (countertops), and pop of turquoise and orange (throw pillows) color palette. Very much like this inspiration board from The Craft Begins:


I searched high and low for some inspiration:

Design*Sponge

Kathycolorado from Rate My Space

Country Living

I couldn't find the exact color scheme I had in mind but I still was totally digging the inspiration board. So, I chewed on it and thought over it for weeks before coming down to two yellow-y celery-y greens that definitely weren't mint-y or sage-y. I arrived at Glidden's Spring Cactus and Celery Sticks:

Of course, though, they look totally sage-y in these photos :)

I originally thought I was going to paint the entire house in Behr colors. I love the variety of colors, the cost is a solid mid-range price point, and Consumer Reports rates them quite high. But the ease of pre-mixed sample bottles drew me to Glidden. And I love their shades: very muted, cool tones. Though I must say they have far fewer number of colors readily accessible with sample cards and bottles. But in some way that makes choosing actually easier- the Behr selection is pretty overwhelming, I will admit. I loved Glidden's Navajo Sand so much I bought a 5-gallon bucket for our formal living room, dining room, hallway, and stairwell, and was quite impressed with its coverage and color.

However, the second I put both the greens up on the wall in our kitchen and family room, I was not won over. And still wasn't after it dried. And still wasn't after I put it in a few different places around the space. Some how it just.didn't.go. You know? I asked the hubby what he thought, and he totally agreed.


They just looked wrong for the look we are trying to create. So it was back to square one. Best $6 mistake I think I ever made. I *big, pink, puffy heart* those little sample paint bottles.

Strawberry Shortcake

Nothing says summer like shortcake. Strawberry in May, June. Peach in July, August.

Heaven.

I really like crumbly, flaky, fresh from the oven shortcake; none of this Twinkie crap they sell at the grocery store. Here's my super easy, favorite recipe:

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup milk

Mix dry ingredients, then add butter, then add milk until dough forms coarse crumbles. Drop onto greased baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes about 8 shortcakes.

While baking, rinse, hull, and slice several strawberries. Place in bowl, sprinkle with turbinado sugar (brand name: Sugar in the Raw), and let sit (even mush together a little bit). I swear, any baked good sprinkled with turbinado sugar is like ten times fancier. Letting the sugar mingle with the fruit for a few minutes does *magic* to the dish.

Take shortcakes from straight from oven, break open slightly on dish, top with berries and whipping cream. Best summer barbecue dessert ever.

A Pedestal Table to Call My Own

I love, love, love pedestal kitchen tables. Big hot pink puffy heart them. Our new house has a formal dining room right next to the casual eat-in kitchen, meaning all the more that I wanted a pedestal table to differentiate from the regular four-legged rectangle table next door.

Immediately upon moving in, I was on the hunt for one to make my next DIY project. A few reasons why I knew I wanted to DIY it:

1. They're such a classic shape that they've been around for ages... translation- the perfect one would appear at a thrift store, estate sale, or Craigslist, I just had to wait for it

2. Solid wood especially with *curves* could get spendy quick and I wanted a good one that would last, like a kitchen table needs to

3. Lastly, refinishing wood furniture is about the easiest home project there is

So let's take a moment to oooohhh and awww at some glamorous pedestal tables.

Photos courtesy of Country Living.

The funny thing is that our house's previous owner did leave us a kitchen table and seating. It served us quite well for the first few days before we had any other furniture. Our first meal (Chinese take-out) was eaten here. We even asked for it- our realtor talked it up like we really liked it. Who wouldn't?


Especially since they not only came with cushions, but also...


All the extra storage a girl could want.... okay, okay not really. The real reason is because I figure this bad boy has got to be worth something on Craigslist, right? A little something to put towards my dream pedestal table and criss-cross chairs.

So finally, here's the pedestal I can call my own. I found this beauty at a local thrift store for (get this) $35. I know, right? A few character scratches even. Love it. Woke up early Memorial Day to run some errands (okay, okay go shopping for house stuff) and a quick swing through the thirft store (yes, shamelessly, I have a mental shopping list for DIY projects at all times and also know that holidays = 30% funiture). I had the sold ticket in my hand in seconds, thinking everyone else would want to fight me for it. A quick trip back to get the sleepy hubby and the SUV and she came home.


My inspiration is textbook Pottery Barn. I know, I know. Pottery Barn is so cliche, but darn it, it's so freaking classic and home-y.

So here is their Harvest table and Aaron chairs for a whooping grand total of $2,350. Um, right. But I had to have those chairs.


So I found them exactly as hoped at JC Penneys for around $60 each. JC Penneys does great PB *inspired* furniture. I ordered them in antiqued white, but they also come in antiqued black and walnut. While I love dark wood stain, I forced myself to go different for the kitchen.

When the chairs come in, I will color match and paint the table, so for now I am sanding and priming to my heart's content.

Grilled Artichokes with Pesto

There are some truths in life, not many, but certainly a few. Anything with pesto is better is definitely one of them. Another- patience adds so much pleasure to life.

It's artichoke season. Like strawberries, artichokes are absolutely delicious, but I restrain myself from buying the crazy-priced, shipped from Mexico or where ever, off-season versions. So May and June I buy the heck out of them and savor their in-season glorious-ness. I'm a firm believer that they ARE better because I have waited for them.

Anyway, on with the recipe.

Halve artichokes, cut off stem and tops of leaves. Boil for 15 minutes.

Rub with pesto (optional: add some lemon juice, salt and pepper). Place on grill for another 15 minutes or so.

The Game Changer

So.... I was planning on doing a subtle beach-y, light colored home (something a little less modern than Young House Love and a little less cottage-y than The Lettered Cottage, but using both their homes for mad inspiration).

Then my mysterious, never-met-in-my-life great-uncle died and left my parents with a wealth of family heirlooms. As a huge history buff, I think the boxes of letters, photos, and artifacts spanning the last century that my parents received are simply amazing. A letter from a son to his father arguing his worth to the family's name, WWI-era Paris honeymoon photos from a nurse and a soldier madly in love. A Yale entrance exam with French and Latin translations as included requirements. My direct ancestors. History, but nothing like from the books.

My parents also were shipped two paintings. One medium-sized, turn-of-the-century, very Andrew Carnegie, grayed man of distinguishment.

And this...

My great-great-great grandfather George. His middle name comes from a famous general of the War of 1812; he was born in 1813. This portrait was painted in the 1830s. Like Henry Clay, canals and turnpikes, territorial expansion 1830s.

It is also a whopping four feet tall. My mother had no clue where she would put this. I not-so-subtly suggested I might have a bare wall or two, not to mention a sense of crazy cool-ness by displaying and owning something like this.

It barely fit into the back seat of the SUV, but it slide it snuggly bubble-wrapped and boxed. My husband humors me and my crazy ideas quite well, but this took the cake. He didn't get to even see it until 3 hours later when we arrived back home- there was no returning it.

For now, it hangs proudly in our formal living room, competing only with bare white walls and a lonely couch. He owns that space. Owns it.

Designers talk about highlighting a centerpiece in a room , a fireplace, a canopy bed. Um, yeah.... I think I'm good. Sorry bay windows, you've been demoted to a secondary role.

Now the new question is: How will I ever make the room worthy of Grandpa George?

Quickly followed up with: How I will get Grandpa George and his gilded frame to mesh with my beach-y, airy vibe?

I have no idea.