Paint help! Can't decide where to start/stop

madtown_2006_gw

10 years ago

We are painting our kitchen and family room and I can't figure out where to end one color and begin another. I suppose the easy answer would have been to stick with one color, but where's the fun in that? Also, the kitchen will be remodeled eventually, so the soffit is staying for now. We took down the cabinets between the kitchen and breakfast area, but don't plan on doing anything with the soffit until we re-do it all in a few years. Anyway, there are two areas I need help with:

1. The family room (through that opening on the left, you can see some art on the wall) will be blue, the walls coming down from upstairs are beige, and the kitchen/breakfast area is brown. Should we continue the beige down the small stairway into the family room? Or should that be blue? Or brown? What about the small portion of the wall that forms the pass-through, where the wooden ledge is? I guess blue there, too? In the 2nd pic you can see the pass-through and down into the family room. Actually, you can see the blue swatch down there, too. And on the far right of the 2nd pic, you can barely see that the little stair wall turns a corner at the bottom of the steps, so that is where I would end the beige or brown, if we went with one of those those.

2. Ok, and the second question is whether we should paint the underside of the old soffit. I'm thinking we should but I'm a little afraid it might be weird or too heavy (visually) or something. Omg excuse the mess. Ha ha obviously things are in disarray due to the painting. The microwave is not usually there, and a pot rack usually hangs from those hooks I the soffit. It's hard to tell but the backsplash is tiled, so that won't be painted.

Thanks so much for your input!

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Comments (7)

golddust
10 years ago
I think you are on a fine path. Trust yourself and keep going. It looks beautiful. You are thinking outside of the box and that is a good thing.
Annie Deighnaugh
10 years ago
As long as all the colors work together nicely, you can start and stop anywhere that feels right to you...typically though you want to break colors at inside corners. Unless you are really good, outside corners can be tricky to paint.

I would paint the wall with the stairs the beige and do the rest of the family room in the blue. I would not paint the bottom of the soffit dark...I think it should match the ceiling.

One way to think about it is, am I in the room. If you are in the room then the color can be the same. If you are not in the room, the color can be different. So the brown wall on the kitchen side is in the kitchen. The wall in the pass through is in the family room so should be blue. The stairwell is the stairwell so should be beige.

But you are inspiring me to create a thread on color blocking...there seems to be a lot of questions around how to do it....
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madtown_2006_gw
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks for the feedback! We got quite a bit painted today but still have the family room left to do.
geokid
10 years ago
Have you considered painting the entire soffit the ceiling color? I think it would help make it disappear up into the ceiling. Right now it seems a little oppressive with the dark brown sides.
madtown_2006_gw
Original Author
10 years ago
geokid, I think that would work well for the part over the peninsula, but then I don't know where to stop/start on the other side, in the kitchen. (Not sure if that makes sense or not.) I kind of like having the part of the soffit over the cabinets painted because it almost makes the cabinets blend in to the wall, which is a good thing since they are so ugly. ha ha I think we'll live with it like this for awhile, and we can repaint if we need to. I guess it's not a huge deal since eventually the soffit will come down. We probably should just go ahead and take it down now, because I'm sure it would be easy.
geokid
10 years ago
I see what you mean. Hmmm.

Your kitchen reminds me a lot of the one from Young House Love. Scroll down in the link to the kitchen before and after photos.

Here is a link that might be useful: Young House Love house
madtown_2006_gw
Original Author
10 years ago
Yeah, seems to be a common layout, with the peninsula and breakfast area. I like that they are going lighter, and we probably will eventually, too. We don't plan to paint the cabinets in the interim. Hopefully I can live with them for 4-ish years.....let the countdown begin :)