Re-Painting the Kitchen Island

That’s right – we’ve lived in this house for less than a year and I’m already re-painting things.

Surprised? Don’t be. It’s how I roll!

(Get it? Roll? Painting? Ha…ha?)

I added shiplap to our kitchen island and painted it blue back in January – it was one of the very first projects I did in this house, and I knew even when I did it that the color might not last forever. At the time, we hadn’t added anything to the rest of the open living area yet, so it was more of less a blank slate. But, now that we’ve added a lot of darker, moody accents to the space, the brighter blue island just wasn’t really flowing with everything quite as well as I would have liked.

When I mentioned that I was re-painting it on Instagram, many of you were quick to note that you love the color and I want to be clear – I do too! I think it’s a great color and I still love it…I just didn’t love how it felt with everything else in the space.

After much contemplation, I decided I wanted to go with something a little more on the neutral side – a huge open living area like this can quickly start to feel visually cluttered if you aren’t careful, and I want the island to help ground the space without distracting from everything else that’s going on in here.

I chose a couple of colors to test from my Behr fan deck (they’re not in stock right now, but if you ever catch it when it is, I promise it’s worth buying one! They’re so nice to have around!). If you have a large space like this, my best recommendation for choosing an accent color like this is to grab a bunch of swatches in the general color family you like and hold them up to various things in the room.

I used the rug and the paneling in the entry as my anchor points – I wanted to be sure anything I chose for the island flowed with those two things, because I feel like they’re what most define the space. I narrowed all of my options down to two, and then got samples of those two.

Another important thing to consider is that if you’re painting over another color, you should always test a separate swatch to get a true picture of what to expect. I love to use these SureSwatch clear films – it’s a great way to get an idea of how the color will look in various lights.

I started by testing my two colors on the island, and I knew right away that the lighter one wouldn’t work. I thought the darker one was good, but it was hard to get a true read on the color next to the blue. Once I tested on a swatch, though, I could bring it over next to the rug and see that it was really the perfect color!

The color we ended up going with is Carbon Copy by Behr. It’s the perfect deep gray – in some lights it has blue undertones and sometimes it leans a little more green. I love how it looks in the kitchen and it feels like a really dramatic statement without being distracting or too busy.

Painting shiplap is pretty simple, and this only took me about 20 minutes per coat (I did two coats). I used an angled paintbrush to paint all of the gaps in the shiplap, along with the edges, then I used a small foam paintbrush to get the rest.

While I was re-painting the island, I also wanted to do something about the outlets – the two white outlets have always stuck out like a sore thumb, and I knew giving them a little attention would go a long way.

I decided to try out these paintable outlet covers – I love that they cover the entire outlet and not just the outlet plate part. I’m a little picky about painted outlet covers, because leaving the outlet itself white while painting just the plate makes it stick out even more in my mind. So, these were the perfect solution, and I love how they look! I’ll, of course, keep you updated on how they hold up over time but I feel good about it so far!

Kitchen Sources

• Bar Stools
• Pendant Lights
• Cabinet Hardware
• Learning Tower