Kitchen Wall Paint is Done!

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Honestly, it’s almost kind of weird to have the pantry door back on.

But it’s a nice way to remind myself that the kitchen walls are DONE. Wallpaper removed. Walls skim coated and sanded. Primed. Bubbles removed. And Painted.

Which used to look a lot more like this:

Not half bad, don’t ya think? Sure, there’s still more to do… as always. I still need to add window treatments, crown, molding to the tops of the cabinets, cabinet hardware, and decorate for Christmas. But after spending a couple weeks snarling at my walls for being so persnickety, they are smooth (!), and I feel pretty satisfied with the results.

For those wondering, the paint color is called Cold Steel by Olympic (mixed at 50% tint to make it lighter). I knew that you could ask for tint percentages at the pricier specialty paint stores, but was really pleased when Lowes and Home Depot said I could do the same (the more you know, right?)!

I first picked out the color back when I was looking for one in the dining room as part of a partnership with Olympic paint. Jacque & Matt from the DIY Village used the same (100% tint) color in their bathroom, but there’s enough blue/green in the paint that it looks a bit different depending the light in the room. I wound up going with Olympic again (not just the color, but the paint) because they impressed me with the finish; that may seem like an insignificant detail, but I get curious about paint brands a lot. So, here’s why I’m rambling about this:

In terms of painting over a fresh skim coat or a patch job on normal drywall, there’s a thing commonly called flashing. This is basically the term used for a lack uniformity on the sheen because some of the joint compound (thicker spots?) will absorb the sheen and appear dull. I’ve been using a Glidden primer, then paint to resolve this, but since I knew I’d be doing two coats anyway, I gambled with seeing how much flashing would happen with the first coat. To my surprise, while there was some flashing, the second coat covered it and a lot nicer than I usually expect of any paint and appeared perfectly uniform without additional primer.

(I do realize that most people are never supposed to care this much about paint, but part of this blog has often been about testing products for curiosity’s sake, and I was experimenting. I’ve recently seen some brands, like Behr’s Marquee line, claim to cover things like this in one coat, which I found hard to believe. So I thought I’d figure out if it was true and was disappointed with the quality of those claims. … That’s pretty much answering a question you probably never asked, and this isn’t sponsored or anything, so I thought I’d pass on the comparison shopping results for the next time you’re picking new paint.)

Now, it’s just a matter of getting all the finishing touches… you know, finished. Like painting the baseboards, touching up areas I had to caulk, switching out the nasty old outlets, raising the curtain rod for the sliding glass door, etc.

It also involved putting in a new light fixture, but here’s the thing: I bought it a long time ago assuming I’d get this project done a long time ago (because things only seem to take this long for me), and I’m not thrilled about the light anymore.

I considered taking the bottom (silver) part off as a way to fix the main thing I disliked, but I’m now considering a whole different look (damn you, internets, for making window shopping so easy!). More to share on that search and some more plans coming to the kitchen soon!