Breakfast Room Progress, Cabinet Paint Color Decision & More…

I feel like I’m moving at a snail’s pace on the breakfast room this month. It’s already the 9th, and I’m still not even finished with the trim. But that’s okay. I’m trying not to be so hard on myself, and just be glad about the fact that there IS actually some progress.

The first thing on my list for this month was to finish the baseboards, the trim around the windows and doors, and the crown moulding.

Well, I’ve decided to let my guys do the crown moulding. I’m done with crown moulding. I installed it in the bathroom, the music room, the living room, the entryway, and around the tops of my kitchen cabinets. I can do crown moulding. I’ve proven that to myself. But I absolutely abhor doing it. So from now on, I’m hiring it out. They’re going to charge me $160 (not including materials) to do the breakfast room and the hallway, and I’m more than happy to pay that.

But as for the rest, well…that’s on me to get done. It’s super simple stuff, and I actually enjoy doing it. So far, I’ve gotten the pantry door, pantry window, and garage door trimmed out.

I shared details of my door and window trim, as well as seven different variations, in this post…

Fancy But Easy DIY Door Trim Design (Plus Seven Design Variations And How To Create Them)

Obviously, it’s not painted yet. In fact, I just installed it, wood filled all of the nail holes, and sanded the nail holes. I still need to caulk and paint.

So today, I hope to finish installing the baseboards, and at least get all of the trim primed, if not painted. But before I can install the baseboards on the front wall of the breakfast room, I’m going to have to finish trimming out the bottom of the peninsula on the breakfast room side.

I’ve had a floating peninsula in the breakfast room for two years now (those cabinets are installed on the half wall that goes down the center of the peninsula between the kitchen and the breakfast room, which is why they don’t touch the floor), so it’s going to really transform the look when I finally get it trimmed out and it actually looks like it’s sitting on the floor. Anyway, I need that finished before I install the baseboard under the windows since the baseboard will butt up against the peninsula.

I love the trim stage of the room. That’s when it magically transforms from “under construction” to “almost finished.” And of course, paint will do wonders. I want to pick out a color that’s very light, but has just enough contrast so that the trim will show up. Which brings me back to paint color.

Many of you yesterday suggested that I finish the breakfast room and then choose a kitchen cabinet color, but my mind works just the opposite way. Since I know I don’t want white cabinets, and I also don’t want any kind of neutral color, I really need to know what color those cabinets will be so that this room can complement the cabinets.

Well, y’all nudged me in the right direction yesterday. I lost count of the number of people who said, “What about the condo kitchen cabinet color?” That color is Behr Hallowed Hush. It’s one of their old colors, so they no longer have it on a paint card, but they do have it in their computer system. I no longer have any of that paint left over, but the cabinets in Matt’s room are leftovers from my original attempt at installing cabinets in the condo living room, and they are painted that color. So I brought a drawer in to see how that color looked.

Yeah. It’s pretty much perfect. But I had already purchased a gallon of this color, because at some point about two weeks ago, I was certain this was the color. Then I started second guessing myself.

Well, Benjamin Moore Advance paint isn’t cheap, so I wanted to salvage that paint if I could. And those two colors aren’t that different — one is just more green and the other more blue. So I decided to just add some of the Gentleman’s Gray to the green color and see if I could blue it up a bit and make it close to the condo kitchen color.

Yep. It’s perfect. I mean, it’s not an exact match, but it doesn’t need to be. And it complements the living room drapery fabric beautifully. So, meet my new cabinet color, same as the old cabinet color. And you know what? I’m perfectly fine with it. It’s a gorgeous color, and it perfectly suits my taste and my need for blue-greens in my house.

So now that that’s decided, I can hopefully find a wall color for my breakfast room today and get that room painted. You probably noticed that I already tried two colors. Both of those are a definite NO, but check this out. The walls in the room have already been painted Polar Bear, which is the white color I paint all of my trim. I chose that white many years ago to go with the white subway tile in the condo kitchen, and I chose it because, like the tile, it wasn’t a stark white. It was a warm white.

Anyway, of the two colors, the one on the right (next to the door trim) is Revere Pewter. Check out how dark it looks, and how much it contrasts with the white wall.

Is that not crazy? That paint swatch is just a few feet away from the kitchen cabinets that looked completely washed out and dull painted in the exact same color.

I chose it specifically because it looked like a medium toned khaki color, and I loved the contrast with the white. But somehow, all of that got lost when I painted it on the cabinets. It really is so strange to me. These areas are right next to each other. The kitchen has no windows and just gets sunlight from neighboring rooms, whereas the breakfast room has windows and gets loads of sunlight during the day. And yet, Revere Pewter barely shows up on my kitchen cabinets, while it looks quite dark on the breakfast room wall. I don’t understand it.

Anyway, that’s behind me, and I’m moving on to blue-green cabinets. As far as the breakfast room walls, I have no idea what I’ll do in there. I want something with just enough contrast so that my trim stands out, but not enough color to steal the show. I so desperately want to find a neutral that I like, whether it’s a super light gray or taupe or something like that, but I feel like I’ve been down that road so many times that I have little hope I’ll find something I like. I do know that I want white curtains in this room. I know that sounds a bit boring for me, and I might try to dress them up with some trim, but I want white. I’ve had my heart set on that for weeks now, mainly inspired by Michael’s lovely dining room over at Inspired By Charm.

And one more thing, I finally got all of my woven shades ordered! I went with the one on the bottom right.

The top left was too busy and detailed for me. The top right is lovely on a small swatch, but do you see that one dark spot? Yeah, that scares me. I’ve seen woven shades that have those dark areas all over, and I don’t like the way that looks. I prefer a more uniform color. So I was actually going to order the one on the bottom left, but between the time I ordered the samples and yesterday, that one has been discontinued. So that left me with the bottom right. It’ll be 3-4 weeks before they arrive, so I already know that’s one thing on this month’s “to do” list that I won’t be able to check off, but at least they’re ordered. That’s progress.