One of the reasons for being so busy lately has been our ongoing remodeling.
After refinishing the floor of the mudroom, we painted it and added some new cabinets. Based on the recommendation from an artist friend, we painted it a very bright and bold yellow.
I’d have to admit that the color was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I like it. We also bought the lower cabinets in the photo at Ikea – they’re the Billy bookcases, with doors on two of them (we couldn’t put them on the third bookcase because of the refrigerator). Now that everything is a very sunny yellow and white, we’ve started calling it the sunroom instead of the mudroom. Larry even replaced the old track lights with recessed LED lights.
Here’s what it looked like when we first started the project:
But of course, then we had to repaint the kitchen. Our friend had suggested painting the right-hand wall the same yellow as the mudroom sunroom for continuity. We did that, and chose a brown color for the remaining walls. (The yellow is the same color as a wood pencil, and the brown is paper-bag color.) Since we were so happy with the new lights in the sunroom, Larry also changed the fluorescent fixtures in the kitchen to recessed LED lights as well. It’s much nicer – the room seems taller, and the lighting is very bright. So bright, in fact, that now I realize how worn the old laminate countertops are. So of course, now we’re planning to (finally!) replace them. One thing’s for sure. The new ones won’t be green.
We drew the line at the cabinets, though. I’d love to replace the 80’s oak, but we can’t really justify the expense. Nor can we justify the cost of replacing the even uglier tile floor. But at least we can admire the new paint and lighting.
CabledSheep 
It looks great – color can certainly change the entire look of a room. We have 2 walls in our kitchen painted a very similar shade of yellow and I really love it.
It does look great! You could consider new faceplates and doors on the cabinets to give a new appearance but still keep the strength of the oak. Rick did that once with a set of “cabinets” that were sunk into a kitchen wall.
I’m sure I won’t be the first, nor the last, to say that you could paint the kitchen cabinets. White would be nice. LOVE the fresh paint! We have a happy yellow room, too — not a color I’d normally choose, but it’s perfect in what we call our “Garden Room” (it’s where many of our plants spend the winter months).
Definitely looks like a sunroom and not a mudroom now! I was going to suggest what Vicki did – paint the cabinets white. Someone did that to my kitchen cabinets before I bought the place, and I really like it – esp compared to how dark the condos look that have the unpainted cabinets.
Wow, it all looks great! Love that sunny yellow. You could paint your kitchen cabinets!! With new hardware, it would change the ENTIRE look of your kitchen and you would feel like you had new cabinets. Perhaps I watch too many DIY shows….?
What a lovely sunroom you built there!
Fabulous! The yellow is perfect! The cabinets would look great painted white.
Woo Hoo!
You’re doing a wonderful job!
That’s so sharp-looking! Love the colors.
Perfect, perfect, Cheryl. And that cheery yellow will take you through the blahs of inversion with nary a furrowed brow!
Yup, Vickie and the others beat me to it…paint the cabinets white…
Any chance you would share the brand and color name of the yellow paint?
We have already discussed painting the cabinets, though probably in a light color rather than in pure white. We have almond appliances, and the room is already very bright, so white might not be the best choice (even though I love white painted cabinets). But that’s something that won’t be done for quite a while since there are more important remodeling/maintenance issues to take care of first.
The yellow paint color is Martha Stewart color “Pencil”, but we had Home Depot color-match it in their Behr Premium Plus Ultra. With such a bright, saturated color, you either need to use a gray primer or use a self-priming paint; otherwise you many coats of paint to get the true color. The Ultra paint is great! No primer needed. I highly recommend it. (I have no affiliation at all with Home Depot or Behr Paint.)
The brown paint color, if anyone is interested, is Behr “Cup of Cocoa”. While deciding what second color to use, it occurred to me that brown might be nice. I taped a brown paper bag up, and really liked it. This paint color turned out to be almost exactly the same color as the paper bag.
It really looks great, Cheryl! I love the cheery brightness of both rooms. I, too, struggle with my 80s oak. I figure. . . if I wait long enough, it’ll come back into style. . .