It’s Week Five of the One Room Challenge™ and the pressure is on! More happened behind the scenes than in front of the camera this week, but the great news is that everything I was waiting for has now arrived, and all systems are go for this coming week! The lone base cabinet I ordered a month ago from Home Depot arrived a week early, though I’m a little nervous about unboxing it and making sure it inserts easily into the space where the wine fridge used to be.
More importantly, I picked up my final paint colors from Lowe’s and actually started painting the upper cabinets and the small sections of wall that won’t be covered by the wallpaper mural I sneak peeked in last week’s post. I always knew the lower cabinets would be green, so after comparing a billion paint chips to the green in the mural - not so much to match, but to complement – I chose the Valspar color “Elf”, but mixed into Lowe’s exclusive Sherwin-Williams HGTV Home base paint instead of Valspar’s.
Prepped and primed with Kilz Adhesion primer for slick surfaces.
For the upper cabinets and walls, I solicited the help of my Instagram followers to help me decide between pink and peach, either of which would complement my wall mural. Though I strongly favored pink, my poll ended up 32% for pink and 68% for peach. After thinking it over and comparing various paint chips to the mural once again in an attempt to further justify pink, I decided to go with peach for several reasons of my own (poll results notwithstanding)!
Walls and upper cabinets getting a coat of “Coral Peach”.
First, the peach also complements the tiny flowers in the tiny tiles that make up the peel and stick tiles I chose for the backsplash. Second, there’s enough pink in the mural to dominate the color scheme already, so now I can justify adding pink accessories without it being overkill in the pink department. Third, with peach isolated to the kitchen, I can then go full tilt toward pink (and green… and purple…) in the adjacent dining/living area, whose kitchen doorway will nicely frame the mural from the outside looking in. Thus, the final result was the Valspar color “Coral Peach”.
Squint to see the tiny peach accents in the tiny peel and stick tiles!
I then set to work prepping and painting the frame of the upper cabinets, first by cleaning thoroughly with Krud Kutter Gloss-Off, which helps degloss the melamine surface for better paint adhesion. Then I primed with two coats of Kilz Adhesion, followed by two coats of peach paint. Even though it was nearing 11pm by the time that was done, I powered through and finished adding a second coat to all the small walls so I could toss the used tray and roller in the trash and never look at it again! Well, at least until tomorrow, when I start on the upper doors….
Ugh, I’m so over you!! Go away and don’t come back - until tomorrow…
Upper cabinet doors are ready to paint - I’m over it before I begin!
Speaking of the doors, the drilling of holes for handles was a success! I was a little nervous about the melamine surface shattering, but as you can see, the outside holes in front ended up perfect, and only the inside holes shattered a tiny bit, which will be easily covered by the handle screws.
Turns out you can drill holes in melamine - but carefully!
Plans for this final week include:
Priming, then painting the upper doors peach (I’ve already lightly sanded and deglossed)
Attaching handles and replacing doors once fully dried
Starting all over with removing, prepping and painting the lower cabinets/drawers green
Painting, installing a trash bin pull-out mechanism, then inserting the new base cabinet
Repairing the tile in front of the new cabinet
Installing the wallpaper mural
Wow, that’s a lot – will I get it all done in time for the final of six blog posts next week? Luckily, given the current pandemic situation and the delays in getting supplies, the ORC team has extended the final deadline to November 29th, but I want to be done well before then. We shall see….