Yesterday I painted the countertop for the Rosedale. I created green “granite” by smearing green, beige, white, and black paint around with a toothbrush.

I really liked the end result… until I put it in the house. It just didn’t look like I’d envisioned it. The green was competing with the neutral colors in the room and didn’t look good with the wallpaper border. I started wishing I’d done something more neutral… beiges with a hint of autumn red, maybe.

I was all set to start over today, but figured it I was going to paint over it anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to futz with the green a little bit first. I watered down some purplish gray paint and spread it on. What a difference!

(What, can’t you see the difference?!)

Maybe the wash is exactly what it needed or maybe it’s a placebo effect, but either way, I’m liking it better now. After putting in all the furniture and staring at it for a while, I’ve decided to stick with the green. I still need to add gloss finish and a faucet, and might also tone down the sink a bit with the same purple/gray wash, but for now here’s how the kitchen looks with everything in place.

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Over the summer I bought a bunch of kitchen cabinet kits from Bonnie Lavish. The first set went into the Fairfield. (And they turned out pretty nice, if I do say so myself!) At the beginning of December I finally got around to starting on the Rosedale’s cabinets and appliances (also Bonnie’s kits), but I didn’t make much progress until this week.

Here’s the layout I came up with. I really didn’t want the stove and fridge right next to each other but due to space constraints, it was the only way to do it.

Since the Rosedale is a modern house, I figured I’d jump on the bandwagon with stainless steel appliances. I bought some Krylon spray paint that claimed to be stainless steel colored. (It even has a picture of a fridge on the bottle!)

Concerned that the small kit pieces would blow away, I attached them to a piece of paper with putty.

Then I sprayed them. Um, yuck. The paint came out dark and very speckled. It looks more like asphalt than stainless steel.

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