Kitchen Refresh

When we built our house, I wanted my kitchen painted a nice, bright, primary yellow. To that end, I chose a paint called "rain slicker."

While I loved the bright, cheery color, I had some doubts from the start about whether it was the right choice. For one thing, the color did not quite match the more mustardy hue of our tile. For another, it was only available in a matte finish, which is not idea for either a kitchen or a house with kids, because it does not wash so easily.



I was happy enough with the color to live with it for a good 15 1/2 years, but this summer I decided it was finally time for a refresh—still yellow, but a shade a little more toward the golden end of the spectrum.

C and I spent two Sundays moving furniture, washing dishes, and sanding, washing, and painting walls, which is pretty remarkable considering how much durn stuff was in the way. (That turquoise cabinet up there? It weighs somewhere around a metric ton—and it's never once been moved, as evidenced by the dust and M's drawings from that time, before we had the cabinet, when I left him alone with a pencil and a stack of newsprint when he was one.) Not to mention the sheer volume of dishes that had to be moved, and in many cases washed (it gets dusty up on those shelves).


The color I chose to replace rain slicker is called "butter cream" but I prefer to call it "National Geographic" because it is the exact color of the yellow border around a National Geographic magazine.



It could also be called black-eyed Susan or goldenrod or any of a number of bright, summery flowers that are just now coming into bloom and have that rich, golden, buttery yellow hue.

It's also the exact color of the original Fiestaware yellow (not a coincidence). So I made a special display of most of my vintage yellow Fiesta (plus one modern cake plate because I'm running out of room for standing up my big plates and platters) to celebrate.

Certain people in this house don't see much difference between the old paint and the new, but that's because they lack a sensitive appreciation of that sort of thing (certain other people claim to hate yellow, which is blasphemy). I think it's bright and cheery, not to mention new and clean and eggshell finish, therefore washable. So I'm pleased.