Painting the Town Red (or the kitchen Wheat Bread)

We finished the final coat of primer so we were finally able to paint (the order goes: drywall, clean, mud, tape, mud, sand, clean, prime, texture, sand, clean, prime, paint!). I also went ahead and painted a test area in the soffit Wheat Bread. I like the effect so I'll just go ahead and finish the other edges and do touch ups. Take a peek.

We're really pleased with the progress. The texture paint turned out so much better than we expected. Can you detect any of the seams?

Our Soffit Spot

I'm thinking about adding some interest to our soffit with color. The paint colors in our open floor plan consist of Wheat Bread (a light gray) and Mochachino (a light olive-sage green). All our ceilings in the house are pure white.

Goals:

• Make kitchen as large as possible
  
• Make soffit simulate skylight window
• Hide the fact that the kitchen ceiling is lower than the rest

Possible cons by painting soffit:

• Make overall kitchen ceiling feel lower and room feel smaller, darker
  
• Call too much attention to low ceiling

Possible pros by painting soffit:

• Soffit creates frame for kitchen (it is an 8' x 8' square)
• Make the highest point of the soffit appear higher (like a skylight)
• Create visual interest via attention to detail (like the effect from crown molding)
• Unifies kitchen with rest of open area
  

There seems to be more pros than cons (although the first 'con' is a major one). Here are various color experiments, done digitally (I love technology). Any preference?

Let there be (better) light

We purchased our house with the intention of doing a kitchen remodel (DIY of course). Most everything in this small U-shaped kitchen appeared to be original to the house from 1973. It also has a low ceiling due to the soffit, which houses 2 dated, yellowing acrylic panels over 3 fluorescent lights.

We loathed that sterile lighting, so we inverted the soffit, and installed recessed lights with dimmers. While we were at it, we added 3 more lights in the outer soffit area to go over the bar counter that we are planning. We ran into some snafus but we documented the process here.