Chocolate Kitchen

A few days ago my kitchen was screamin' Spanish yellow, immediately nicknamed "Wowie-shazam" a colour which I had always wanted to splash on a wall and did so about eighteen months ago.

(It's seen here with a wind-chime, currently one of my many Craigslist fund-raising knick-knacks....five bucks...anyone?)

It's a gorgeous colour which shouts out loud. A colour which refuses to be subdues. A vivid wake-up wake-up WAKE-UP colour which greets you in the morning in no uncertain terms.

And when the sun falls on it...mmmm...nice.

Alas, here on the west coast, the sunshine avoids my windows for seeming months at a time, and lately that colour has felt oddly cold and industrial--more "Bob the Builder" than Mediterranean sunshine.

So, no worries, it simply means it's time to paint the walls again.

My mother says I'm like an Auntie Mame, painting the walls a different colour as her mood changed.

I don't know who Auntie Mame might be, but I can fondly identify. It's funny because the lady who lived here before me was also a serial-painter: I saw my potential new kitchen at three different house showings before I bought (over the course of two years), and viewed this room in THREE different colour schemes. Pink--ugh. Blue--slightly less ugh, but I was still mentally changing the colour. Then, the day we sat at her kitchen table signing the real estate forms, I couldn't help but notice that the walls were now coloured like a cantaloupe with a crazy green and white plaid thing going. (Note: I actually lived with it and, perhaps oddly enough, liked it enough to keep it like that for a good long while).

The colour I chose is called Belgian Sweet, a cozy chocolate brown that I am currently enjoying very much, although for a while during the painting process my colour scheme resembled an enormous bumblebee.

It's a delicious earthy colour, and the choice was deeply influenced by a photo of my kitchen that my friend Pol sent me a long while back (back when my kitchen was orange actually). In that photo, she digitally changed all my wall colours to deep dark ones (as well as throwing in new counter-tops and cabinets to boot), and I quite liked the look.

After a lot of deep meditation sessions in the paint sample sections of the local hardware stores, I almost chose a sage green colour but since my living room is red I thought I should probably avoid looking like Christmas all twelve months.

P.S.Here is the infamous Auntie Mame, circa 1958 , played by Rosalind Russell. As well as both liking to change decors, we also both apparently appreciate a good flamboyant hat.