Spring Spruce Up: De "greening" my kitchen

Maybe I do have some crazy disorder because I change my mind so much it is ridiculous.  Like when I am at a Cheesecake Factory where it takes me forever to order.   Sometimes, it is painful for me to make a decision.

A few years ago, the catalog pages of Ballard Designs and Pottery Barn were full of the bright green and black trend and I thought it was SO cool.

Source:  Be colorful.

Source:  Apartment Therapy

So, I painted my kitchen bright green (Aubusson vine - Dutch Boy paint) and accented with black and white harlequin and damask patterns.  Don't get me wrong, I loved it!    But about ten minutes after it was all done - you know that moment when you sit back and look at what you have done and you are SO happy to have the project complete - I looked at my sister and said, "How pretty would this be painted blue".  Seriously, I did.  I am a "BLUE PERSON".  For my sister and Mom, they love green.  Here is the kitchen as it is now.

I hate the white ceramic floor but for now - due to financial constraints - it needs to stay.  I think I will paint the table completely black and get rid of the brown wood surfaces.  Maybe some chair covers for the stools - stenciled for a fresher look for the summer.

Fast forward a few years and I am going to try to spend the next week painting my kitchen blue.  I am looking for a very light and airy grey-blue, sky blue, a very soft blue color.  I do love my kitchen but it seems so well, black and white.  I need some grey areas in my life,  and I crave a softness.  Here are my inspiration photos (sources can be found on my Pinterest boards):

I love the oversized lantern light!  

Such a pretty space - reminiscent of the Something's Gotta Give kitchen.

I want to paint my patio doors and window sill black!  I love this look!

I like this wall color.

I am in LOVE with this backsplash!

Such a pretty room!

Hooked On Houses.net- SO PRETTY!  

I have this exhaust soffit in the middle of the room.  I think I am going to repaint the ceiling inside it and trim the rest of it out in bead board like the picture below.

I am excited about the change - especially for Spring!  I know it will probably take a little more than a week but hopefully it will be one of my quicker projects.  As long as it doesn't take me a week to pick out a paint color.  :-)    But I so know it will.  LOL!

Deciding on Kitchen Paint - Like Coloring Easter Eggs!

Now that Spring is just around the corner, I am getting the itch to paint the kitchen.  I am not sure why because I really like my kitchen but I think I am a little bit tired of such a bright green.

So I decided to upload the above picture to the Better Homes and Gardens My Color Finder.  It can be found here.  It is really fun to play with and easy to use!  I love that fact that they Benjamin Moore paint colors so you can really try almost any color you can imagine.  So here are some of the results:

Purple - WHOA!  I would never do this but it is fun to see how different the room would look.   Cool!

Dark grey - again not something I would actually do but look how dramatic the space becomes.  I like it!

Here is a lighter grey - nice for a bedroom but not for my kitchen.  

I was looking for a light ice blue color but I really like the deeper color saturation of this paint.  I thought it would be too much but in actuality it looks pretty good.  Maybe a few shades lighter.  

Yuck!  Besides, my foyer paint is Baby Bee Yellow so it would be TOO much yellow!  :-O

Couldn't leave out tangerine tango - the "it" color for 2012!  Um....no.

PINK!

RED - very dramatic!

A coastal teal green - nice but maybe too much green.

This is the color I am thinking of painting - a light blue with a hint of grey.  I think I would add a glass and stone backsplash for some bling.  :-)

Which color do you think looked the best?   GO play with this tool - it is so much fun!

I'm an orange juice snob! Things I never knew about my juice...

Source:  eddieross.com

Orange Juice!  Yum!  There is something so wonderful about starting my day with a small glass of QUALITY orange juice.  And just like I used to sit and read the cereal boxes at breakfast, I started paying attention to the orange juice cartons.  :-)

I used to be a TROPICANA addict.  Never Minute Maid - only Tropicana.  For me, there was no other orange juice on the planet.  Then came along Florida's Natural and I tried it at a friends house and I loved it.  So even though I didn't abandon Tropicana, there was now room for two OJ options in my life.

Then came Simply Orange - good stuff!  (Followed by Simply Apple (SO GOOD!), Simply Lemonade, etc.  I love the Simply line of drinks!)

Whilst on vacation in Florida last summer, we were greeted with an overwhelming number of orange juice selections.  I mean here we are in Florida and there were so many independent farms that produce their own juice.  Each time we go, we try a different local product and keep a log of reviews of our favorites.  (Just a silly thing we do.)

But when back home in Chicago, there aren't that many options.  So when I started reading the Florida's Natural carton, I was very impressed.  Florida's Natural is squeezed from fresh oranges, never concentrate. They never import its orange juice!  100% FLORIDA!  INGREDIENTS?  Pasteurized orange juice.  That's it!  No water, no sugar, etc.  Just orange juice - how great is that?

So I decided to compare and did you know that Tropicana started to import oranges from Brazil?  I mean our economy is in the dumper and we are importing oranges when we don't need to be?  I was a little taken aback.  Then I decided to check out Simply Orange.  SAME THING!  They use both US and Brazilian oranges and they actually note on the container if the juice is just US oranges or an combination of US/BRAZIL.  Seriously?

When I was a huge fan of Tropicana, they did not import oranges.   And to make matters worse, Tropicana just announced on January 25th that they have stopped using oranges from Brazil because in South America they use a pesticide illegal in the United States?  WHAT????   I am so disappointed.

Even Santa Claus agrees that orange juice should only come from FLORIDA!  :-)

So now I guess Tropicana is going to launch this huge ad campaign about how they only use Florida oranges.  Sorry - too late!  My loyalty is now to Florida's Natural - they even have an American flag on their carton - AWESOME!

An very interesting anecdote, when PepsiCo who owns Tropicana decided to change the carton, it was a disaster and sales dropped 20% in one month!  I guess we just don't like change but when you look at the picture of the new carton vs. the old, it was a no-brainer.  Thankfully, they actually went back to the old design.  Don't we love the striped straw?  :-)

And remember the Orange Bird and Anita Bryant and how they used to sing about Florida orange juice?  Did you know that the Walt Disney Productions Company created the Orange Bird for the Florida Citrus Council.

Knock! Knock!  Who's there?  Orange.  Orange who?  Orange you glad you read my post today?  :-)