Modern Country Kitchen Colour Scheme

We chose Farrow & Ball Blue Gray as the main colour for our Modern Country Kitchen colour scheme but knew that, although it was the perfect colour for the room, there just wasn't enough natural light coming in to stop the room looking gloomy if we used that colour alone.

I wanted a paler colour too.

{Mr Modern Country laughed at me choosing between Cream or Ivory or Off White or Alabaster or Chalk or Almond or ..or...a million others.

What a cheek that man has.}

This is what I chose.

Details to follow soon....

Here's a reminder of how oppressive the colour was before.

It makes such an enormous difference using the paler paint as well as the Gray Blue. It gives the impression of a much lighter, airier room.

The remaining pictures were the images that I used to help me narrow down my final colour choice for our kitchen. I think the creamy-white works so beautifully with the gentle sea tones of the soft greys.

Looking at them now, you'd definitely be excused for thinking that these images were all from one kitchen.

But no.

I just scour and search and look and read and devour and scratch about and hunt and rummage and seek out until I see exactly what I love.

I'm completely obsessed with narrowing down what I want to nth degree. I think it's one of the best way of being sure about what you want to achieve in a room.

Some days, ideas come to me out of nowhere. But on the days when they seem to have dried up a bit, returning to pictures that inspire me really helps get me back on track.

I'm betting that you have some pictures that you return to again and again for finding your va-va-voom again.

Am I right?

Or am I right.

Well, I think you know what I'm going to say next.

I want to see your pictures.

Yup, I'm nosy like that.

Which means I'm having a party. Yay!

I've called it an Inspiration Journey Linky Party. It'll be a party where you can link up WHATEVER images have given you inspiration on your quest for the prettification of your home.

And not just for interiors. I have inspiration files for crafts, our house, the garden, my wardrobe.....

Really. Whatever. You. Want.

It's going to be next Friday. And I'd love YOU to be there.

You want a button, you say?

Comin' up....

<a href="http://moderncountrystyle.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Modern Country Style" src="http://i1219.photobucket.com/albums/dd436/Sarplowman/Inspire20me.jpg"/></a>

Or you can get it over on my sidebar if you'd prefer....

{Have a lovely Friday.}

Images: Decodir, Our Kitchen, Our Kitche, Our old kitchen, Our Kitchen, Period House, Kitchen-Paint, Cheverellwood Kitchens

I'm linking to my favourite parties in my sidebar.

Case Study: Farrow and Ball Blue Gray




Our kitchen with the light on...

 

Hello cutie pips,

There's so much loveliness I want to show you at the moment. So, so much. I feel rather excited by it all. 

But first things first.

I'm thinking it's time for another Paint Colour Case Study.





...and with the lights off



So far, I've written features on Farrow and Ball Light Blue and Farrow and Ball Pigeon. Today, it's the turn of Farrow and Ball Blue Gray, which is the main colour that we chose for our kitchen makeover (yup, that's how they spell it: English company, American spelling? Not sure what's going on with that...).




Blue Gray in gentle daylight




When I put together a case study for you, I source as many pictures as I can of the paint colour, from our house, here in the Cotswolds, and from the internet, in lots of different situations and lots of different lights so that you don't just have to rely on a teensy little square of colour on the tester card before you splash out on yet another sample pot.





Farrow and Ball's image of Blue Gray


Basically, I hope these Farrow and Ball Case Study posts can do all the legwork for you so you can see at a glance whether the colour is going to work for you in *your* house with *your* lighting conditions.



Blue Gray outside in sunlight



I've only selected pictures that I think are accurate reflections of what the colour really looks like, discarding those where the image has been tweaked beyond recognition or the flash has distorted the appearance of the colours.

 

Blue Gray in warm artificial light

 

So, the first thing that I need to tell you about Blue Grey is its intensity accumulates more than any other colour I've worked with. Particularly around internal corners and with a lack of natural light.Look at the shadowy internal corner of the picture below. See how much darker and more intense the colour is than on the chimney breast?



Blue Gray in warm daylight



 And the second thing is that it's surprisingly green for a colour called Blue Gray. 



Blue Gray on Woodwork



Really surprisingly green. 



Our kitchen in the sunshine....aah.





...and in the rain.



It's the strongest colour we've chosen for our house so far and that's because it's in the room that gets least natural light. Anything cooler would have made the room look washed out and cold.



Blue gray with light streaming in through the large windows



The more natural light you have in your room, the more of this gorgeous colour you can use.



Blue Gray in filtered daylight



 It's such a lovely colour. Warm and welcoming.

Here's a reminder of our 'before'.....





And here's the after.....






Our kitchen on another overcast day

 

What's that you say?

You've spotted that we've used another colour alongside the Farrow and Ball Blue Gray? You're so very right, you Eagle Eyes, you.

There's a story behind it, wouldn't you know.....but more on that another time.

Now, anyone for another cuppa?

Images: Our kitchen, Our kitchen, unknown, Farrow and Ball, Gumtree, Cheverellwood, unknown, Our kitchen, Our kitchen, Country Living, Homes & Gardens, Country Homes and Interiors, Our kitchen, Our kitchen, Our kitchen.

Shaker Your Thang...

Well, this is our first formal introduction, I do believe.

Without further ado......this is me in the photo below (and before you peek, you must promise to excuse my lack of any make-up...)!

Pleased to meet you. ;-)

I know you've listened to be yabber on but finally you can put a face to the yabbering.

Much nicer to be able to see who you're chatting to, don't you think?

Oh, and these are my first photos with my new camera (eeek!), which I'm slowly getting to grips with.

And I do literally mean getting to grips....it's one heavy puppy.

 

So, anyways....Mr Modern Country and I decided to keep our existing units because, after narrowing down the choices of my inspiration images (remember Step 1 and Step 2?), I noticed that all my photos had Shaker style cupboard doors.

And guess what we had? Yup, Shaker style cabinet doors!

See the border all the way around the outside of each door? That'll be the Shaker style.

It's a style that just doesn't seem to date, which is exactly what I want in a kitchen.

And the sides of the cupboards are styled to look like tongue and groove.

It adds just the gentle country touch that I was after.

I love the plinths too. They finish the cupboards really nicely.

And look, look, look!

This is the cushion that I won at Tami's gorgeous blog High Street Cottage. I pretty much did a little dance when I saw that I'd won.

Okay, there wasn't a pretty much. I actually did a little dance.

On my own.

Yes, I was *that* happy to actually be a winner of a giveaway!

 Thank you so much, Tami. I think of you whenever I see it.

I'm just putting together a post about colour inspiration for the kitchen.  Come back and see....

I'll be linking to my favourite parties in the sidebar....

Modern Country Kitchen Makeover...

I've been (very pleasantly) over-whelmed with the number of emails I've had about our kitchen, after showing its dramatic DIY makeover on my Summary of 2010 at Modern Country Style. Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know what you'd love to see more of.

I whizzed through showing our kitchen makeover briefly in July but I think the time has come to unpack the whole makeover process more slowly in response to your requests.

As a kind of enticement of what's to come in future posts, I'd love you to come with me and let me show you around our old kitchen.

Coming? Great!

Here's the first peep, through the old dining room door....

There, in all its orange glory, is our old kitchen. To be kind to the previous owners (the 'before' photos are from house details pre-purchase), I think the wall colour is more of a sunset gold. But to me, it screams ORANGE!

I'm not an orange fan. Oranges, yummy. Highlighters, maybe. But walls? Oh no, siree. Especially orange walls AND orange and blue tiles.

*shiver of horror*

Can you see it? Do you need a closer look? Would I ever deny you?!! Come on through.....

The problem with this orange kitchen and my orange 'allergy' (call me a drama queen if you will but it may as well be an allergy) is that I so dislike the colour that even the things I *did* like were shrouded in orange-rage mist.

  

Because of the strong wall colour, all the other surfaces seemed to reflect the orange tones.

Like being in a giant egg yolk. Food-related so I suppose topical for a kitchen but not the lovely Modern Country Kitchen I yearned for!

Coming soon to a screen near you.....
How To Makeover Your Kitchen: from drab to fab!

 

I'm linking with my favourite parties in my sidebar.

Kenwood Chef nostalgia.....

When I was a little girl, I can remember standing on a chair next to my mother while she was cooking. She would tell me that her mother had a Kenwood Chef and had bought one for her when she got married, and that when I was a big girl, my mother would buy one for me.


Well, now I am a big girl (!), I do have one of my own. My parents bought one for me (thank you!) when I got married. I felt very grown-up when I unpacked my Kenwood Chef and put it, in pride of place, in my very own kitchen in the first placed we lived.


If I had to rescue one thing out of my whole entire kitchen ('whole entire kitchen'? That makes it sounds as though I have about three acres of kitcheness....! Errrr.....I don't), then it would most certainly be this:



And now, when I'm with my own daughters, I tell them, when we're cooking together, the story of how Grandma's Mummy bought her a Kenwood Chef and my Mummy bought me one and how when they are big girls, I will buy them their very own Kenwood Chef.
And I'm not ashamed to say that it quite often brings a tear to my eye.

Modern Country Kitchen accessories

I'll start off with some Thank Yous, if I may. A rather formal start, I know, but nothing wrong with a bit of formality where formality's due.


First of all, a big thank you to those of you who are taking the time to comment and follow Modern Country Style. I know I always say this but it does mean so much when someone I've never met wants to see what I've been doing and, more to the point, LIKES it and then follows in anticipation of what's coming next!

I'm so happy to see the Followers numbers rising. Thank you especially to the new followers for letting me know that you've followed. It means the whole writing thang takes on new meaning. It's more like writing to friends. Having a good old natter. And there's few things I like more than a good old natter with my pals. Don't you agree? If you do, then please will you Follow too? Just click on that there button to your right.

Thank you very much to Tattertots and Jello for picking out Modern Country Style from the Weekend Wrapup party. I'm over the moon to have my Modern Country Kitchen post up there in BIG. Where else but blogland would you get praise from a (very kind) stranger for how you've painted your kitchen?

And lastly, thank you to Mrs Sutton for tagging me. I will get on with replying...honest!

So now that the formalities are over, let's get back to the kitchen. I said in my last post that I always like to hold back from putting out all the things that complete the room I've done up until the room is One. Hundred. Per. Cent. completed (no cheating, mind...yes, Mrs Modern Country, I'm talking to you.....I am prone to a bit of cheating, it's true).

You might have spotted a few bits and bobs on Friday's kitchen reveal but I wanted to show you close up now we're such firm friends. I've tried to use pops of red throughout the kitchen. I love the combination of the Farrow andBall Blue Grey with red. So Modern Country!!


I hope you've enjoyed this lengthy snoop around my new kitchen. Isn't snooping lovely?! I love a good lazy nose around other people's blogs, don't you?!