A small monumental change

I haven’t gotten around to showing this side of the kitchen, but here, come have a look at the black wall. It’s been like this for a little while and I still think it makes the room.

This wall previously had a couple of cheap shelves and a fearsome old heater installed on it, which we removed and patched over. We painted the rest of the kitchen walls in Dulux ‘Grand Piano’ quarter, same as the hallway, but I went with black for this one. Well, charcoal actually, because pure black felt too intense. But I still refer to this wall as black.

(Yup, the vinyl floor is still here and it’s more gnarly than ever. I feel no shame whatsoever about the current state of our kitchen floor, it looks like hot garbage regardless.)

The colour is Colorbond Monument, using Taubmans paint. I like it because it’s a true graphite grey. Yeah, the Colorbond family is designed for the associated steel products outdoors, like roofing or garden sheds, so that earned me some weird looks at the paint desk at Bunnings. The thing is though, after looking at lots of purple-grey, greeny-grey and beigey-grey paint chips, I love how this one is dark. grey. and no more. I find it difficult to pick up a nice grey that doesn’t transform into some other colour once it’s on the wall.

The inside of the archway is the same aqua in the living room, Dulux ‘White Box’. I felt I’d rather have a splash-of-colour turquoise archway in the kitchen than an out-of-place black archway in the living room.

Once the floor gets redone, all the architraves are getting painted over – white for the light walls, and black on this one. I also half-considered painting over the stainless part of the trash bin to match the wall, but I felt it’d be going overboard. Maybe I’ll do that once I’ve completed every other task inside our house and out and brushed the cat’s teeth and arranged my record collection in alphabetical order. Maybe.

The wall has got a few black things that hopefully blend in. The power outlet and light switch got changed to black ones to match, and I also hung up this handy messageboard thingy from IKEA. It’s a magnetic chalkboard that holds letters and keys, which is useful since we often enter and exit through the kitchen door. It’s also black all over, just like my heart and soul.

Jamie likes making silly little drawings, and I like drawing more silly things in response. He’s all right, that boy.

The rest of the wall is a big blank spot right now, but that’ll change. I’m thinking about a couple of thick shelves or a long sideboard, someplace to store drinks. Jamie likes the thick shelves idea, since we still have some sassafras boards on hand, but I’d prefer hidden storage. I’ll just keep hoping I can stumble across a great retro sideboard for the taking.

Again: imagine ebony floorboards and the skirting board painted black to match. It’ll be great.

Sooooo yeah I’m pretty pleased with how that black wall has jazzed up the kitchen. Here you can get a better idea of how it looks against everything else. With the white cabinets, the woodgrain-contact cabinets, the blue bench top… the elements feel like they’re working so far.