A VERY PEAR-Y KITCHEN.
You might recall waaay back when that Jamie and I did a little kitchen cabinetry deconstruction.
After some adjustments, we had a much neater, more presentable wall o’ cabinets; however, portions of the wall and ceiling now exposed were a dingey tan color (from lack of paint + primer over the years) and riddled with holes to spackle. Jamie’s favorite…not.
And that’s how things remained…FOR A YEAR. Initially it didn’t bother me so badly (hence the procrastination) but after an entire year went by? Yeah, I’d had enough of that mess so we decided to paint the kitchen already. Sometimes it takes a year, ya know?
Over the course of that year, I was all over the place when it came to choosing a paint color. First I was dead set on Martha Stewart blue, which is like a robin’s egg-y, tuquoise-y blue. It’s kind of an ideal color — I mean, Martha would know, right? But with the adjoining dining room in Inch Worm green and living room in Pear yellow, I feared choosing blue for the kitchen would make the place look like an Easter egg. Or worse: a circus house. Few things are more terrifying than living in a circus house.
So out went the Martha Stewart blue and I began considering more neutral options, like a warm gray. We’ve used warm grays in the hall bathroom and master bedroom so it wouldn’t be as random of a choice and, since we plan to paint the cabinets eventually, gray would contrast nicely with some clean, white cabinetry. For awhile I was sure gray was the answer, but one thing I couldn’t get around was this wall (seen in the background of this old photo) that extends from the kitchen out into the main living area:
Painting this wall a different color than the adjacent walls just seemed…wrong. For the sake of flow, I chose to go with a color I know and love: the same Pear yellow (by Eddie Bauer Home for Valspar) we used in the living room/foyer. It’s warm, it’s happy, it’s fun — and I already had a fresh, unopened can o’ Pear paint on hand. So duh, we got started spackling, sanding, and priming:
A bisquillion times better already! Then came the first coat of Pear and a whole lotta cutting in. Here’s an in-progress shot that night:
After a second coat and more cutting in the next morning, we had ourselves a much more cheerful kitchen.
I’m so, so glad we went with the Pear color in the end. And if it had to take a year to realize it was the right choice, then that’s cool by me because now I love my yellow kitchen! Plus this color doesn’t hinder any of the kitchen plans we already had. Actually, here’s an image of a kitchen I pinned a year ago that includes many of the details we’d like to incorporate:
I love the two-toned cabinets, light gray marble-y countertops, open shelving, and copper accents. And please note the wall color is nearly identical to our Pear walls. The pretty corbels installed underneath the upper cabinets are super cute but impractical for any tall-ish items you might want to store on your countertop. I expect we’ll go with some sort of tile backsplash instead.
The portion of the ceiling above the wall o’ cabinets that we spackled + sanded remains primed only for now until it’s time to paint the cabinets. My thought was either to paint the ceiling the same shade of white as the upper cabinets, or paint it Pear to match the walls/create contrast with the white upper cabinets. What do you think? I’m open to suggestions! Let’s hope it doesn’t take another year to figure this out.
[Kitchen inspiration image from here.]
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The kitchen looks great! It is amazing how a few coats of paint pull everything together. It is definitely the right color too!!
Nice job! Now on to the next project!