kitchen paint

ohhhhh myyyyy gosh! finally finally finally!  we got one of the projects done that i have been itching to do since we first bought this house.  the kitchen was painted an interesting green color with an accent wall covered in a flesh colored stripey wallpaper and to top it off, literally-----a wallpaper border.  ugh!  just, no.  not my style, and very dated.  and every time i walked into the kitchen a little piece of me died.  so not too long after we got ourselves settled in the house i slapped up a few paint samples.  i wasn't really excited about any of them, so i put them in a few other spots in the kitchen to let it marinate for awhile.  and then some time went by and i slapped up a couple different color samples and wasn't too crazy about any of them.  and then recently (about 3 years into living here), i just decided to paint it the same light, breezy blue that we painted the powder room downstairs.  i had a sample of that on the wall and i liked it the best out of all of them.  but just like with almost all the other rooms, i wavered back and forth between this light blue, or a beautiful gray that i painted ava's nursery.  and over the last couple of months i thought about painting the walls white because i have a feeling i would actually like a white kitchen.  however, we plan on painting the oak cabinets in the summer, and i'd like to do a two toned look with white uppers and gray lowers.  and so i thought maybe it would be too much gray if i painted the walls gray as well, even though it would be very subtle.  and if i painted the walls white, that might actually be too much white since the upper cabinets will be painted white and the countertops are pure white.  so i went with the light blue.

first we had to get rid of the damn wallpaper.  i had researched different methods, including a solution of 50/50 water and fabric softener, a solution of water and vinegar and steam.  so at first we tried spraying it with the vinegar solution, and that didn't work very well, then we tried the fabric softener solution and that didn't work very well.  then we realized that the wallpaper had an almost plastic like coating that the liquid wasn't penetrating.  so i remembered that our floor steam cleaner can come apart to be used as a hand steamer.  we whipped that out and were able to peel the wallpaper off so easily.  the top layer came off nicely and then we would go over the backing that was still stuck to the wall, and that peeled off easily.  whew!  i was hoping it wouldn't be very difficult.

then hubby started painting the ceiling white, so we have a nice, crisp and clean ceiling.  and then my father in law and i painted the walls.  there was a lot of cutting in to do and small space to try to squeeze the paint brush into, but we did it.  and it's soooooo much better than the green and the wallpaper!  the color actually changes color a lot based on what kind of lighting is hitting the walls.  so sometimes it is a more vibrant blue and other times, like in the evening it is a soft, calming blue.  i really like the color.  i mostly like it all over the walls of the kitchen.  sometimes i wonder if i will still like it when we paint the cabinets, and i wouldn't rather prefer the walls to be white, but we will see.  i think it will work out fine.  we have been batting around the idea of doing something different with the far wall that was a wallpaper accent wall.  like maybe ship-lap or wainscoting or something. not sure yet.  but, to me, the kitchen looks so much fresher and cleaner.  yay!  next on the list is to replace the boob light in the nook area, and then of course paint the cabinets in the summer.  eventually we want to replace the crazy vinyl flooring with the hardwood that is in the rest of the downstairs.  little by little!  but man, what a difference paint makes!

before:

and after: