High on Fumes

Tonight my blog post comes from my kitchen. I am sitting at the kitchen table typing as I look around at my lovely new white bricks. And breathing in the nasty remnants of spray cans. What on earth is she talking about you may ask - well when we bought this house almost 4 years ago, it came with some - um - interesting brownish/pinkish tinged faux bricks in the kitchen. The previous owner was so enamored with them that she thought they were a selling point and proudly showed them off as she explained how her husband had installed them in the early 80's. We politely nodded but secretly thought they were the ugliest things we'd ever seen! They don't look too bad in these 'before' pics, but trust me, they were bad. When you touched them they felt like a bumpy solid polystyrene and if you knocked on them they sounded hollow. And I can't forget to tell you about the thick, fake, uneven, black mortar. Uugh I'm shuddering just thinking about it all!


But you know how things go - you live with something long enough and you tend to not notice it as much, as was the case with the bricks. Then today I 'noticed' those ugly faux bricks again. I immediately pulled out the painter's tape and went to work. A paintbrush was useless with these things - it was impossible to get in all the nooks and crannies, so spray paint it was! And it worked great. First I did a coat of spray primer followed by a couple coats of a semi-gloss white spray.


I am SO much happier! The room looks bigger, and if I squint hard enough I can almost pretend that there are actually beautiful white subway tiles on my backsplash!

Next up will be the 'lovely' cupboards. I'm still deciding on a color. I was planning on painting them white as well, but now I think there might be too much white, plus it's not really that practical with 3 kids running around. I already have some nice silver drawer pulls and handles. The bricks had a pink hue while the cupboards have a definitely orange hue. I may love pink and orange in my quilts but not in faux bricks and cupboards! I've started filling in the dings and holes in them as the photos show. Slowly this house is getting whipped into shape. Roll on Spring!