Orange peels, pumpkins, and eggplants

Every time I think Kate Beaton's Hark, A Vagrant can't get any better, it somehow does. AMAZING. But Benny Franks is also a personal favorite, so perhaps it just hits close to home. I want it on a t-shirt!

In other news, I finally dug out my other lens and took some pictures of the new kitchen paint! Of course, by the time I get home from work the light in that part of the house is fading so they're a mite dark, but the paint colors are fairly accurate.

Before:

I am so in love with all the built-ins it is not even funny. The glass cabinets, however, are only going to encourage my purchasing of useless clutter that glitters like so much magpie treasure.


The previous owners had slightly more sedate taste in paint and such; these photos were from our home inspection.

I have never outgrown the Crayola bold marker set. Things with names like marigold, eggplant, or in this case Orange Peel, make me squeal like a childlike joy.

When I began cutting in the room I started to get nervous over the general loudness of the yellow-orange paint, glanced out my kitchen window and beheld the construction equipment parked in my neighbor's yard. I had half a panic attack that Orange Peel was also known in more outdoorsy circles as Caterpillar yellow, and that I might very well be on my way to Bob the Builder territory.

We hit the Home Depot and picked up the eggplant color to soften the blow, and while I love the combination all my worrying was for nothing; as soon as the color was up on a full wall instead of just ragged stripes around the edges of the room, I was madly in love with it again. I do think having the darker color near the stove will help hide some of that unavoidable stove grease spatter (god knows it showed very well on the pale yellow I painted over, but thank you Behr Primer and paint in one! The nice gentleman at the HD did the cost-benefit analysis with us and it works out cheaper than buying separate primer and paint and I was well satistied with the coverage in two coats. It went on evenly over old paint, new patch, stove grease, and also our linoleum floors--they are in crappy condition anyway, so we did not bother being careful).

While I am advocating on behalf of paint, here are a few things I have learned so far that might be of assistance to people trying to remodel on a budget:

--Testers, testers, testers! The HD offers mini-jars mixed to any color you wish; you can buy a few ounces, enough to cover a fair-sized section of wall and think on it for only like $3 apiece (This also applies to many wood stains!). They do only come in a flat finish, so take that into account when evaluating your color choices.

--Ooops paint! Essentially, these are 'bad mixes' or things that someone decided they did not want. There is typically a shelf or rack in the paint section with an assortment of cans and it takes some diligence, but chances are good that if you're remodeling a house you are already making frequent trips to the store so why not stop to look? Kelly and I hit Lowes to get duct tape for a DIY tailor's dummy project and I found two small cans of oops paint; one was fifty cents and the other $3, but around the same size as HD's tester jars. The colors looked close to what I am thinking of painting my craft room so I picked them up.

My father informs me that HD 'can match just about any color, so just bring in a swatch of color and they will turn it into paint,' and while I have not tested it just yet, it seems sound in theory. Assuming this is accurate information, one could conceivably get additional paint to match for an entire room, or just use what you find for an appropriate sized room. I personally have a small bathroom I am planning to use one of my testers to redo; there is so little wall space in there that a few ounces should be just enough.

--Buy what you need. Color mixing is down to such a science that the paint guy persuaded me not to buy two gallons of paint because I could always go back and get more if I needed it, but they will not accept returns on custom-mixed colors. It turns out that a gallon would have been exactly enough if my painter's tape had not pulled a few chunks of paint off with it, so I'm going to get the smallest unit of paint just for touch-ups.


That is my learning on paint so far. I'm going to go break down cardboard recycling, putter with my gardening and listen to 80s new wave some more! My pie pumpkin seedlings are getting mutinous!


Once I figure out what room is next on the list I will take some awesome before pictures to share.