Enjoy It While It Lasts
Because I don’t think it’ll be around much longer. I’m talking about the freshly painted walls in the butler’s pantry. I made a last second, hasty decision and went with Butternut. Like I said yesterday, it’s a bit bold, and I normally don’t do bold. I would think that if I were going to get accustomed to it and enjoy it, it would have happened by now. It ain’t calling to me.
As it turns out I’m going to have a little extra time on my hands. It seems I didn’t order enough of the filler for the tin ceiling. Grrrr! I made a little diagram and plotted everything out, but I did not add up the panels correctly. When it came to the filler I counted two long sides but only one of the short sides. I need 3 measly little panels to finish up. 
So far its coming out OK, I guess. I must admit I’m not completely enamoured with it at this point. True, its not finished, but it’s a little more crude that I thought it would be. The seams show more than I thought. I still have some nailing to do so maybe it will look better when its all done. I think it might look more “finished” if I went with bare tin panels and then painted. I could caulk the seams and it would have a more uniform look. I will not be painting this, though. I spent too much on the antique silver powder coat to now cover it with paint. Besides, that would just be way too much work.
Installation went quicker than I thought. I was going to put up plywood but I didn’t have enough of my salvage ¼-inch plywood to cover the entire area. Not only that, but putting the plywood up by myself would be a bitch. I would either need to cut it up in to manageable pieces or go rent a drywall lift. Neither seemed appealing.
As it turns out, I still have a garage full of lumber from the now dismantled two story addition. This lumber, while being all beautiful old-growth redwood, is all sort of bottom of the barrel stuff. It is not suitable for finish work and I don’t have any great use for construction grade material at this point. I ripped down a bunch of 1X6 stuff and used it as furring strips.
Once the strips were up the panels went up quickly. The instructions said that for a nail-up job I could use a brad nailer at 25-30 PSI. Well, at 30 PSI my brad nailer won’t even operate. With a little trial and error I found that my 18-guage brad nailer shooting 5/8th-inch brads at 50 PSI was perfect for installing the panels.
The other thing that surprised me was how not sharp the edges were. I seemed to read this a lot about how installing tin ceiling panels was so perilous because the edges were sharp and I would cut myself. These were anything but sharp. Maybe it was a byproduct of the powder coating, but it would have taken a real effort to cut myself with these.
13 comments:
Yellow is difficult. Find something that looks really light on the chip, like butter and it will probably be right. I made Aaron repaint on superbowl sunday once when we ended up with school bus walls- that was the last time he selected a color.
I don't know, for a room with no windows to the outside...come February, that cheery ol' Butternut might be alright.
Or, put a big ol' daisy rug on the floor and call it your bake room.
I agree with you on the color. Sorta. It's not really traffic-line yellow on my monitor, but then I'm not standing in your pantry saying, "Jeez, what have I done?!" It reflects in the ceiling, too, which kinda sets my teeth on edge. I like the ceiling a lot.
I'm with Amanda, yellow is difficult (see our Pee Wee Playhouse laundry room). A subdued, creamy butter would probably look pretty good.
I like the butternut. I think if you left it for a while, you still might grow to like it. I also think that when people come over, you'll be surprised at their take on it. We've done some radical colors in our house, and often get "I love it. I wish I had been a little more bold when I was painting." But, you live there and you have to put up with it everyday. Cheers.
I'd rag a lighter colored wash over it - I think that would actually make it look very appealing.
I agree with Mick, a color wash in a darker pumpkin perhaps washed over that yellow will give you a rich color. Especially over REAL plasters walls. The best yellows have black in the base to tone done wattage. Yellow is a tricky color.
Besides you have white trim so any color you pick will pop out.
the ceiling is gorgeous and suggests a color for the walls --- a really luminescent pale pearl grey???
For me I think it's the contrast with the trim. I like the trim color and I even like the wall color. I do not like them together. Have you thought about a lavender? I know, it's not a very manly color. But I think it would go nicely with the silver of the ceiling if you didn't go too gray with the paint color, and not be a competition with the creamyness of the woodwork. Just my 2c.
I have a bright yellow room (but not quite a bright as your pantry). The guy who did the painting looked at my first choice -- lemon yellow -- and told me to get something several shades lighter. I didn't think it would work. However now that the walls are reflecting off one another the room does look lemon yellow. The painter was right.
I like the idea of yellow in the pantry.
Have you snugged the seams down with a block of wood and a hammer? I seem to remember reading that you should do that after you have nailed the panels up.
Alter color with a wood stain. You may have several on hand already. Put stain in a spray or squirt bottle. Spray with one hand and wipe with the other. Use a dry cloth every once in a while to lift off stain. The yellow will turn a golden wheat color.
I think that with all those doors AND the wainscoting you need a three color theme. Pick a color for the doors/cupboard as you would pick a color for pillows on a couch. Two colors doesn't tie the whole look together--whatever yellow you choose. If the doors are going to be white, then the beadboard can't also be white.
That yellow would work better with a honey or terra cotta brown accent and cream, maybe antiqued or faux-woodgrained (with laquer) trim.
Of course, I know you will do whatever the hell you want.
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