The Mushroom Factor

I’ve been doing some painting lately. Just the mention of this puts my husband into eye rolls because he knows paint and me equal stress.

Stress for him, that is.

Here’s the problem: I’m a graphic designer and I work with color every day. My awareness of it is quite defined (my husband would say anal-retentive, with an emphasis on the anal).

But color on the limited environment of paper or a computer screen is an entirely different theory than color on the wall.

Color on a wall is affected by light, both natural and artificial. It’s affected by space and size. It’s also affected by colors of the ceiling, woodwork, furniture, and accessories. And then there’s the warm and cool issue. Like, did you know for beige alone, there are categorically three different shades?

Need I go on? And on, and on?

Well anyway, having all this color knowledge, yet not enough to understand paint, makes me a bit of a monster. I painted our living room one color last weekend. I repainted it another color this weekend. And I would probably repaint it still another color next weekend, except I’m tired and out of paint money.

However, with all this painting, I have come up with some helpful hints to pass along.

The first two are the products pictured above—the Cut ‘N Trim Cup and the Premium XL Tight Spots 2″ Angle Short Handle Brush. I bought the cup at Menards and the brush at Sherwin-Williams, and I spent less than $10 for both of them. (No one’s paying me to say this either.)

I cannot describe how much easier and quicker these two little items make cut-in painting around the trim. This is important, because not only do I get a little over-anal about color choice, I do about application as well (meaning I’m a very slow painter).

Lastly, and most importantly, is Maria Killam’s Colour Me Happy blog. Maria is a designer and color expert. Her blog is an absolute dream—beautiful photography, generous advice, and it’s all-around fun to read. When she offers her color expert workshop here in the Midwest, I plan to be the first to register.

Not only will I be even more colorfully defined as a graphic designer, I’ll be painting my walls only once!

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Big excitement! After more than three years (check out the “before“), we’re actually almost done with the kitchen. Done enough that I feel confident showing off some pictures.

Well, we still have to sand the floor and put down the quarter-round molding. And then there’s the pantry, which right now is completely gutted.

But, overall, the kitchen’s almost done!

Me: I was thinking we should put a few angles in our cabinetry.
Husband: No, that can’t be done.
Me: Well, what if we just do it this way…
Husband: (very deep sigh) Alright…

I confess, I sometimes take advantage of his willingness to please. Just a little.

Red is my favorite! We took our frig into an auto body shop and asked them to paint it to match our red electric can opener. The hardest part was hauling it back home without chipping the paint.

My husband’s a talented man. Anything I ask him to make or fix, he can do. He custom-crafted all the cabinetry from oak trees felled in a 1998 windstorm.

The countertops are concrete—my husband made these too. He’s got horror stories about doing this first one around the sink. But each one he did got better and easier. They’re pretty slick.

My father-in-law made the barstools. I enjoy sitting here while I watch my husband cook.

This room used to be a walk-in closet and sunporch. We combined them into a breakfast nook, which I still like to consider a sunporch.

My father-in-law made this table for us. The bistro chairs are bouncy—it’s fun eating here!

One of my many favorite features: the sunporch ceiling. This wood was taken from our front porch when we redid it years ago. It was painted white so we stripped it and put it in here. It’s stunning, not because of anything we did. It’s fir, and it’s just very pretty wood.

The beam is an old, hand-hewn from one of our barns.

This is the corner where the old sink hung on the wall. That’s the pantry door (still awaiting refinishing). The pantry will now be a real pantry, plus laundry room.

Construction site manager: Clyde. He’s such a camera hound.

Here’s a buffet with concrete countertop. The black area will be a pass-thru into the dining room. Next to it is a chimney, which previously was plastered over. Don’t you just love the contrasting textures between the brick and wood?

Yes, I know I need to do something about those dining room window treatments. I’m really having a problem with that huge triptych of a window. Suggestions?

Dovetails – the man is no sluff.

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We recently took a drive up to Kohler, WI, and toured the Kohler Design Center.

If you’re ever in the area, stop in for a few hours of browsing and dreaming. The designer rooms are so beautiful. Each time we visit, we come away with great ideas for our kitchen and bathroom projects. Best of all, it’s free.

While perusing the faucet displays, we came across the Vinnata K-690, which is the one we bought for our kitchen two years ago. The display model was in a brushed bronze finish with a list price of $842.

My husband cringed, “Is that how much we paid for ours?”

Of the many purchases we made for our kitchen, a sink faucet was something we felt warranted extra investment. Everything we read discouraged scrimping, considering how much a faucet is used on a daily basis.

But $800?

Well, actually, we didn’t spend that much. For one thing, ours is the polished chrome, which automatically runs less. Secondly, we special ordered it from Home Depot for $389 along with the Kohler soap dispenser for $42.

We love the faucet. (The soap dispenser looks really cute, functions so-so.)

When I initially pulled the faucet out of the box, I was a bit hesitant by its size. It’s a high arc and stands 16 inches tall. And because the neck of the faucet houses a pulldown sprayhead hose, it’s about 1-1/4 inches in diameter. It’s really a big, heavy faucet.

But it didn’t take long for me to really appreciate the clearance and reach of this thing.  Not only is the pulldown sprayhead totally handy, it has two spray options—solid stream or aerated low-flow.

My husband liked it because with the single-control faucet, it was easy to install. We also had the choice of putting the hot-cold handle on either the right or left side of the faucet.

So, we’ve been using this faucet now for two years. Functionally, it works super. Form, it looks really cool.

Good choice.

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So, a while ago I wrote about the drawer slides we’re using as we remodel our kitchen. We’re doing a complete re-do and my husband is building the cabinetry. As he completes the project, we’re learning what we like and don’t like, and which products work and don’t work. Some of the drawer slides we chose ended up on the “don’t like” and “don’t work” list.

My husband’s dovetails are just so fine (joinery, that is…as in drawers). So fine is his craftsmanship, I felt it should be showcased with undermount drawer slides. We used the Accuride Extension Center Mount.

Well, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. The slides are fine in quality, however they just don’t allow the drawer to open enough. It’s like you’re losing a third of your drawer space. We used the drawers for about six months and decided we’d had enough.

So now we’ve switched to the Accuride Full-Access Undermount Slide. At $35.99 a drawer, they’re a bit pricier but definitely much nicer. We now have both form and function!

But, hey! I was searching online to link my slides for your easy reference and I found even more. Accuride has come out with its Eclipse Undermount Slide with “easy-close mechanism to prevent drawer slam and tolerance-absorbing design for flawless movement.” So says Rockler. For only a mere $59.99 a drawer.

My husband would probably love these slides since he finds my habit of not fully closing drawers quite irritating. Apparently, others love them as well. They’ve gotten pretty good reviews.

Oh well. Next time.

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Aaaah, the infamous pot filler. It’s one of the most hotly debated appliances on kitchen design forums. Some scoff at its frivolity, others swear by its usefulness. Interestingly, the scoffers are those that haven’t used a pot filler and the proponents are those that have.

Pot filler faucets are one of many commercial kitchen items that have worked their way into today’s family kitchen. Located on the wall or countertop near the cooktop, a pot filler dispenses cold water and saves half the work of hauling it around the kitchen. It has a heavier flow than a conventional faucet and fills large pots considerably faster.

I wanted a pot filler because we do lots of home canning in the summer and I think filling a 33-quart kettle with water and lifting it out of the sink gets rather tedious. My husband wanted a pot filler because he thinks being called in from whatever he’s doing just to carry a kettle a mere seven feet from the sink to the stovetop gets rather tedious.

Turns out we both love our Danze Opulence pot filler. And not just for filling the canning kettle. We use it for cooking pasta, soup, vegetables and for measuring that one cup of water called for in a recipe. You name it, we use it every day. What’s especially nice is that it eliminates traffic jams at the sink when multiple people are cooking together, an activity our whole family does now that we have a large kitchen.

So what’s the debate with pot fillers?

Aside from cost, which varies greatly, the biggest concern people have is that the pot filler might leak—there is no sink beneath the faucet, after all. However, most pot filler faucets on today’s market have a double shut off valve, one at either end, and this serves to minimize damaging drips.

Aesthetics are another concern. People are doing some pretty artistic backsplashes these days and don’t like the idea of a wall-mount faucet interrupting the design. A perfect solution for this is the deck-mount, which also works well for islands and kitchen remodels where a wall-mount is impractical. In my opinion, the articulated extensions in both the wall and deck-mounts are art forms in themselves and look very, very cool.

And for those with technical concerns: there’s always the installation. I’m fortunate to have a handy husband that can do it all. He plumbed the one-half inch water line during our renovation process when the walls were completely gutted. He did the final installation and hook-up after we completed the backsplash. If your plumber or contractor is professional, he or she will certainly be qualified to install a pot filler in a variety of design situations.

Convenience. Safety. Cool factor. And most important: family togetherness.

I say there’s no debate at all!

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