Weekend Painting Project And ... There's a Hole in My Living Room (Decor)

My kitchen this weekend. The adobe color on the moulding trim (at right) is new and you can see it is similar in color to the new tiles on Stove Island (at left). The blue isn't part of the decor: that is the color of the painting tape.

I've had one more painting project to tackle in the kitchen and I had to get it done before the handyman arrived on Monday. Painting the moulding or trim beneath the kitchen counter tile, and also painting the new moulding that will be installed around Stove Island.

Bo-ring!

It isn't a big job. But first I had to find the right color (it took two trips to the paint store) and then I had to prep the area and then I had to sand it and then paint several coats. In between the coats you have to wait around. Drying you know.

And in between that, one still has to use one's kitchen. Drink of water: that sort of thing. And that sort of thing is what makes this sort of project very un-fun. The mess part.

The original trim color adjacent to the new color on this two-tier moulding.

The original color of the trim was the deep red color of the old Spanish tiles. It looked good. But I used a different (yet, compatible) tile on Stove Island when I put in a new stove. SI needed a piece of trim added around the bottom of the tile to cover the original trim that was removed when the original tile was demolished. There is always one more thing.

This photo shows Stove Island just after the installation of the new Italian tiles. You can't see it but it needs a piece of moulding just where the tiles meet the wood of the island.

I thought the dark red of the trim a few feet away would be too dark for both trims. And I didn't want trim in two different colors. So, first I tried painting the trim a sort of mushroom color. Didn't like that, but that was early Friday. By Saturday, I was sure I needed more of an adobe/Italian tile color and was back at the paint store.

I got it right on the second try. This color is red enough for the red tile, and pink enough for the Italian tile. The trim around the stove is drying outside and will be installed by the handyman (you need a miter box for that) and by the time he gets here the trim around the counter should be dry, so it won't smudge when he bumps into it with his belt buckle, as he inevitably will. I should only have to do a little touch up in the places he cuts and installs the new moulding.

While I've been painting I've been pondering a hole in my living room. Well, in the decor in my living room.



As I look down into the living room from the entry toward the fireplace, I can see the beauty of the room's cathedral ceiling. But I keep thinking I need something dramatic up there in the space over the fireplace. I just can't think what it is. I mean a statement thing like the Rose Window at Chartres. Only this not being a church I don't want an icon--or an Icon--if you will.

So I've been poking around architectural salvage and antique stores looking for just the right gargoyle or whatnot to put there.

This is the other end of the living room. That end of the room isn't having any trouble at all making a statement, what with the hunt board and all those copper kettles I've put up there.

This isn't what you would call a big problem. But I'm open to suggestions. Should it be a chandelier? Antlers? A moose head?

Putting these things in my brain and letting them rattle around until the right thing hits me is how I solve these decor things. For example, take the color I needed for the trim in the kitchen: I knew what it was. I just didn't realize it. You see, it wasn't until I walked across the kitchen and headed to my computer to write this blog post that I saw where I had taken the trim color from:

Trim color in the kitchen.

Chair in kitchen.

I had used the same color two years ago in the background of a needlepoint tapestry I made for an oak chair I've had for two decades. The chair was across the room from the counter and Stove Island. It had been there all along.

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