I just bought a house that is about 40 years old. The previous owners painted over wood paneling in the dining room/kitchen combo. The problem is the color is awful. It is baby poop yellow! The flooring is a black and white checkerboard linoleum with a bit if gray lines running through it. I like the floor but I really need to paint the walls another color. The cabinets are white and are okay. I was thinking about red on the walls to give it a retro diner kind of look. The countertops are formica white with specs…not pretty but not unbearable either. Any suggestions? Also, is there a web site where you can put in your information and see your colors together in a diagram of your room? Thanks! Cat
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Shucks, and it's probably not easy to remove with paint remover, but still worth a try. Sanding would be a nightmare unless you limit it to frames, maybe around the fridge, etc., or you could plane a frame or two for some bas relief.
There are so many wonderful shades of red I'd try it, just not on all the walls - my instinct says to put it on a far wall so it seems even farther away, but who knows, and be sure to do patch tests with the lighting throughout the day or when you are most likely to be using the room.
My tiny kitchen has a lot of "interruptions" around the walls so I could put mirrors and fabrics and anything in many places. Still I've never painted over unpainted wood, just stained it. However, I plan for one or two red walls or frames in my kitchen. Someday. It's long and narrow so I'll probably target the small end walls or some cabinet trim. Some further day I would like to scrape off the paint layers on some of the cabinets, but that is sounding like work.
What are you doing on the ceilings? I'm thinking of helping delineate the space by ceiling treatments, maybe a reflective area over the dining space to allow for lower lighting? I'm just guessing.
I get so many ideas from all you creative types, thanks so much.
Hey thanks for the tips. My kitchen is large... it is probably 20 x 14 from bar area to far wall. Off the bar area is the dinnig room which is pretty much part of the kitchen and is roughly another 8 feet. So, I am thinknig of gray on the dining room walls, the color of the line in the linoleum. I am thinking of red on the wall that has most of the white cabinets. The opposite wall of the kitchen will also be gray and when I open my back door, it is red so that may look like a pretty cool contrast. I still wish I could put the colors together and see it animated, like they do on HGTV.
It is going to be gorgeous, I'm sure. I know there are software programs out there but I don't know them except the really expensive CAD types.
I found 3 sites that have a tool that is kind of what you are looking for. You can't customize your own kitchen but you can get an idea about color combinations.
Go to the Armstrong (http://www.armstrong.com) website and click on "For the home" then click on the "Design a room" link on the lower right part of the page. This site is more about the flooring than the wall paint...but it may give you some good ideas.
Glidden (http://www.glidden.com) has a similar tool called the "Color visualizer."
Benjamin Moore (http://www.benjaminmoore.com) also has a tool that allows you to see paint colors in different rooms. On the home page there is a section called "Paint now online!" Click on "Personal Color Viewer" then click on "Let's paint" (you don't need to register).
Choose the room you want to color and then the paints. I picked a kitchen/dining room area with a black and white checked floor in the kitchen (it was the very last one of the interior photos). For the kitchen walls I chose Moroccan Red and for the dining room walls Cos Cob Stonewall (gray).
Give them a try!
Bennie Moore has a disc you can buy for $15.
Take a picture of your room or whole house and withtheir disc you can change all the colors.
I got one for free from a home show.
Its works pretty well.
Be colored
andy
My life is my passion!
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Lawdy, I wouldn't want to tackle paint stripping! What about ripping out the paneling? You would have to prepare the underlayer, but that would be a lot easier than working with paint solvent, and wouldn't burn up as many brain cells.
(Speaking of which...any chance that there is lead in there?)
Such a spacious kitchen...what about creating an old-world style kitchen, with uneven plaster and a big ol' wooden table?
Janet