We stopped home to get a look. That’s a lot of tile. The color is aggressively neutral and the temporary red tabs sure throw off the overall effect. I love the texture of the glass under the light of the hood, and look forward to seeing how it looks when we have under cabinet lights everywhere and there is natural sunlight in the room.
I am happy with them, but we’ve got to decorate that room.
Tonight we buy grout.
We picked out our cabinet and drawer handles after several trips to Home Depot and Lowe’s. We brought a few items home and decided on this curved handle since it’s stainless and echoes the curved handles of the fridge, stove and dishwasher. We had thought to go with a steel rod, but this was a little less industrial looking.
Once we got back from Lowe’s and decided we wanted it, the debate began: drive back up to Saugus or look for them online. We were able to find them online for slightly less than the per-handle cost, including delivery, so they’re on their way from California to our house.
A darkhorse has won. We’re going bold.
Watch this space.
Update: We primed with a tinted primer. It’s drying already. Tonight, we paint.
Top row, left to right: Beverly Hills, Marblehead Gold, Desert Tan, all by Benjamin Moore. Single coat photographed this morning after 10 hours of rest.
I couldn’t believe that was the same Desert Tan we saw in D.C. This wasn’t gold; it was, well, tan. I e-mailed to verify that they’d gotten the name of the color right, which was kind of tricky considering these are people we just met who’d kindly hosted us for drinks and dinner and here I was implying they were either dishonest or negligent in telling us their choice of paint. It felt like correcting someone about the pronunciation of his own name. “AHN-drea? Oh, you must mean ‘ANN-drea.’”
Anyway, having seen some photos, I’m pretty certain the only mistake was my expecting that a color would look the same under artificial light in Boston as under late afternoon sunlight in Washington. It goes very well with our hardware and is still the front runner.
I have a coworker with a real knack for choosing colors for interior decoration who recommends Bronze Beige, again by Benjamin Moore. I’m going to try to get a can in the city and bring it home with me on the T.
Well, those of you who’ve been following along know about my desire to put a computer in the kitchen. We call it the “pony” since it would be nice to have a pony, but why do you really need one? Says the man who doesn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I’d use it to handle recipes, shopping lists, browse the internet, manage the A/V system during parties, check email, etc. Anyway, last night I saw a commercial for a new HP computer with a touch-screen interface, and realized it was the perfect solution. No need to build a system from my own components. Here’s the description:
All-in-one multimedia PC with integrated 22-inch touchscreen for living room or kitchen 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5850 processor, 500 GB hard drive, 4 GB RAM (max), dual-layer DVD-R drive, NTSC/ATSC TV tuners, PVR capability, Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS HD graphics (up to 2047 MB total memory) Tri-mode Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, 5 USB, 1 FireWire, 1 ExpressCard, 5-in-1 memory card reader Pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit version); includes wireless keyboard and optical mouse.
It’s not available yet, so I’m not holding my breath, but it does mean it’s on the horizon. It looks really slick, too. Maybe if I’m really good, I’ll be able to get one this fall.
As promised, I got up early and drove to the Benjamin Moore store at the opening to get our testers. Not surprisingly, Monday morning at seven turned out to be rush hour for painters. Not only was the store open earlier than expected, but there was already a small crowd of professionals stocking up for the week when I arrived. I got a quart each of Desert Tan, Beverly Hills (peachier, but highly recommended, and reflective of a color in the countertop), and a “Summer 2008″ color called Marblehead Gold which crosses over into olive but seemed worth a try.
I thought Billy and John were back today, but Greg said we’re not likely to see anyone until Wednesday when the floors are sanded. Greg would like us to prime again before we paint the room. I envision a weekend of painting.
The blog has been quiet these past few days because Greg and I have escaped to Washington, D.C. for a long weekend. He’s swimming at the International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics competition in College Park, Maryland and I’ve been happier than a pig in you-know-what roaming the museums. He’s trying to get another hour of sleep before his final meets today. I am up with the sun.
Last night, we met up with a friend of Greg’s from high school with whom he recently reconnected through Facebook. We walked over to his townhouse for introductions before heading over to his friends’ home for cocktails on the roofdeck. Both homes were beautifully updated and decorated from the walls to the woodwork to artwork. At the second home, I could only hold out for a minute after introductions before I had to ask the name of the paint in the stairwell adjacent to the open kitchen. It’s called Desert Tan by Benjamin Moore and it is at the top of my list for Monday’s shopping trip.
Their kitchen was darker than ours in many ways and primarily painted with a dark terra cotta, but they used this yellow as a unifying element across several floors, so we saw it in different exposures and across large expanses. We both like it and are eager to test it. The experience reassured me of the viability of painting a sizable area in a vivid color, provided the color is grounded enough to work with the cabinets.
I am underwhelmed with the Ralph Lauren test.
Only #1 and #3 are on the path to contention, and the title refers to #3, so let’s say I’m not sold yet. What I am finding is that no element is so neutral that it does not influence what is acceptable elsewhere. Here our floor, unfinished at it is, is uncomfortable alongside all but the palest yellow. But we’ll have molding, presumably painted white…
The Benjamin Moore franchise in Somerville opens at 7:00 AM so I may make a run for more colors on Monday morning.
We’re looking ahead to about 10 days of downtime between the completion of the floor and moulding and the arrival of cabinets and appliances. We’re going to paint, but we’re also hoping to stack three convex glass shelves (118371) over the sink. These will sit next to the windowed cabinets and, directly in the line of sight from the living room.
I’ve been told to keep an eye out for a birthday gift: the first contribution to the Kitchen Tchotchke Fund. Perhaps we’ll find something tasteful on the Cape in July to add some color here.
This morning, we met a friend for brunch in Wellesley at 10:30 AM, and we figured that as long as we’re out there, why not stop at the Expo Center in Burlington with our color book and our countertop and cabinet samples to identify a wall color?
If you are familiar with the geography of Boston, you know how ridiculous this sounds. If you don’t live here:
Note that the label for Somerville is somewhere else. It’s just not on the way. Nonetheless, it needed to be done.
The store was deserted–I guess most fathers don’t want to look at this frou-frou stuff on their special day, or maybe it’s because of our national renovation hangover, your call–and we had plenty of time to play with the tile displays and confirm our taste in yellows for walls, if not our preference for tiles. We shifted away from the grassier tones and toward the purer, lighter yellows, while Greg is reconsidering the neutrals.
After this, we wandered back into the fan area and identified a simple three-bladed ceiling fan that is compact enough for our space and contemporary without feeling alien. I think this is it. We didn’t form a strong attachment but we do now know what we’re looking for. A center light is not essential. We lack the ceiling height and, frankly, the urbanity in our design to go with a visually adventurous centerpiece. We’re going to go to a specialty lighting store soon to look at more fans and a pendant for the sink area before we make a purchase.
Historians are warned to avoid reading consumer displays as an expression of a culture’s aspirations, but it’s fun and David Brooks got a column at the New York Times doing it, so there you go. Greg and I were surprised to see so many fans for sale in a New England store that capture the spirit of the Mandalay Bay hotel. I love that I live in a country where someone designed, and multiple marketing managers green-lighted, the Jetsons’ tennis racquet fan. There’s some serious ugly out there and no doubt some of it has found its way into our brains and will manifest itself in our kitchen. That’s all part of the process.
We went home without making any purchases, primed the walls and ceiling, and ordered testers of all the reasonable shades of yellow Ralph Lauren paints off the web to arrive by mid-week.