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mxk3

Need kitchen area paint help please

3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago

All my other houses had walls between rooms, so paint color transitions were a no-brainer -- not this house. I could really use some help figuring out transition points. As I’m fixing up the mess I bought I’m moving the overall vibe of my house towards rustic (log-sided house). No so difficult in terms of furnishings and what not, but the paint is stumping me. I can go two ways -- darker or light. Here’s the problem:

* Light color: I settled on SW Creamy as an acceptable light color -- both DH and I like it as far as an off-white goes. Not without issues, though. The main room I’m working with is the eating area off the kitchen, which is a southern exposure with lots of light, so the Creamy looks a very soft warm inviting off-white, but looks terrible in the foyer and adjacent walls. The foyer and small hallway face north, and the Creamy is a dingy, depressing white there. I could work around that by pulling in some sort of green or darker cream in the foyer and adjacent walls but where is the transition point without it looking choppy? And off-white is so.....boring.....and I question whether it will work okay in terms of being rustic enough (maybe because of the dark, hefty wood furniture it will work?)

* Darker color (actually, it’s a mid-shade): Ok, I LOVE dark walls. This I am not afraid of. Surprisingly, DH also likes the greyed green I settled on -- BM High Park, and I think it looks terrific with my floors and new furniture that’s coming. But, here again, transition points are the issue. I could just paint the whole of it (eating area, stairwell, foyer, halls) this color but I don’t want to live in a big green box, so I think it would be better to have some sort of color break into a neutral of some sort. But where? And what do I do with the big honkin’ stairwell in the middle of the kitchen? (No funds to fully remodel and deal with that issue, so I just have to make the best of what I have for now). I don’t think I want the stairwall a different color because it's so prominent and it would look “stripe-y”. I could paint all that green including the half-wall/wall of it in the hall leading into the kitchen, and the back wall with the barn door a cream color or other neutral (don’t want green wall against green kitchen tile), but would that look weird to walk down that area with two color walls?

AAARGH!!! This is hard! Any suggestions for transition points or opinions on these two colors?

Here are some pics. Few things you should know beyond the obvious fact this is a work in progress:

  • I’m having a new barn door made -- that red barn door will no longer be there. The new one will be reclaimed wood stained in Provincial (same as other furniture).
  • The green granite ledges are also being replaced with reclaimed wood. (re-purposing the granite elsewhere). The clock will no longer be there -- it will be going to consignment and replaced with a more rustic-looking clock (I like a big clock there).
  • My new kitchen table and chairs isn’t in yet, but it is 42 x 60 rectangular with 6 ladder-back chairs in reclaimed wood stained Provincial, so a visually hefty piece. Pretty much the same as the island in the below pics. The stool that the paint boards is sitting on is gives a visual of this wood against the paint samples (the island is in, the table is not)
  • The floors are not as red as they appear in some of these pics. They're stained Provincial, just a neutral mid-brown, but for some reason they're reading reddish in some of these photos.
  • Pics taken on a cloudy winter day. If paint doesn’t look good on a cloudy day, it’s a no-go; we’re overcast much of the time up here, especially in the fall and winter.

---> click pics for better views


SW Creamy:



BM High Park:



View of the dilemma -- where to transition? Foyer is where coat is hanging (ugh I hate that stairwell but it is what it is):



View of kitchen from main eating area:



View of kitchen out into main eating area (lights off, and that is not the kitchen table that will be there):



View walking into kitchen/eating area from hallway, stairwell is the left full and half-wall (L-shaped):



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