Why you should never paint your kitchen yellow

[updated: with photos]

Because it's quite near impossible to find just the right shade of yellow, that's why.

Prior to the saga of repainting our kitchen (which, for the record, was already yellow to begin with), I felt pretty confident with my gifts in choosing color for my walls.

Not so anymore.

What I feel now is pretty confident that I should hire an interior decorator next time. (Which will never happen, by the way.) So I am through with painting for a very long time.

What happened was that on a whim (Ahem. Never a good start.) I decided that I wanted a fresh coat of paint in our kitchen, and I wanted blue this time! So I chose a pretty shade of blue. It truly was lovely, but on my kitchen walls, I hated it.

It made our kitchen look so cold I practically shivered each time I entered the room. Mark didn't really get all of my inquiries to the tune of: "But doesn't it feel COLD in here, now? As in, a little icy?"

He says he's never felt warm or cold about any color before, ever in his life.

I think he just didn't want to paint it all over again.

But, being the best husband in the world, and not wanting me to hate my kitchen, since I do spend an awful lot of time in there, he said we should change it.

So I went back to the paint store to find something to cover the lovely shade of blue that did not belong on our kitchen walls. I came back with several yellow swatches-- I wanted a warm, sunny yellow--but none really stood out to me. So Mark stopped at another paint store and cleaned out all of their yellow paint swatches. Didn't like those either. So he went to another store and brought back several more. Who knew there were so many shades of yellow? And so few warm, sunny yellows, to boot?

We finally settled on one. It looked warm and sunny on the little card. However. On our walls? It looked yellow/gold. Imagine with me, if you will, the yellow hue of McDonalds' golden arches? Mmm hmm. Pretty much.

All over my kitchen.

Not so much the "warm and sunny" shade of yellow I was looking for.

Too bad that as we were painting it on I kept saying to Mark, "I am so thankful to cover up this blue. Thank you for doing this all over again. I promise that no matter what this looks like, I'll keep it up for two years, honey." When all was said and done I nearly had to put on sunglasses to walk into my kitchen because it was so glaringly bright (what were we thinking, choosing that horrific color?!). And, honestly, there were a few tears on my part (I felt terrible that I couldn't get it right and we were basically pouring time and money down the drain.) I despised it so much that Mark took pity on me and said we could paint- again.

Back to all the little paint cards. No need to head to any more stores; we already had every single yellow paint card in town. But alas, there were no warm, sunny yellows.

And so. Back to the original store. Found an entirely new paint card with a paint color called Sunglow, which sounds perfect as far as the "warm and sunny" stipulation, and it looked about two shades lighter and less gold in tone than the paint currently on our walls [cringe], so we hoped to get it right on the third try.

We did.

Newly painted kitchen in a warm and sunny yellow?

Check.

[Although Mark tells me he's pretty sure we're back where we started. He thinks it looks awfully similar to the yellow we'd had on our walls prior to my whim. But I think it's quite different. And since he's such a champ he's humoring me.]

And. In my defense, and this is what I was trying to impress to Mark at the time of painting the primer for paint choice #2, I really am very easy to please. I had the original yellow on my walls for 8 years. And while many women want entire remodels and new cabinets and fixtures, I, on the other hand, am entirely happy with a $30 can of paint (or three) and rearranging the furniture we already own.

As for the blogging break, I think I'm done. I missed you! How are you? And while you're answering that, do tell me some of your own painting disasters, why don't you? It will make me feel so much better.

Okay. Here are a few pictures:
(with flash)


(without flash)


And. As I was uploading those, I found proof of our horrific paint color #2, right here:


So now you see. (Although the photo really does not do it's ickyness justice.)