Glass-fronted wall cabinet – coming to my kitchenette soon! I like being able to see where things are without having to open numerous cupboard doors.
I’ve loved the BespOak NZ kitchen cabinets since I first saw them. However, with wooden floors, walls, and ceilings in my church this natural white oak product may have been a wood too far. I was delighted to discover that they also had a painted product using acacia wood for the external panels, and white oak for the internal panels and shelves.
Being the mildly OCD person that I am, I decided to order the cabinets in September which was a couple of months in advance of when I anticipated the kitchen and bathroom would be put together. (Little did I know then what I know now.) I duly went online to get the product numbers only to discover that the painted versions were no longer listed.
Inquiries to BespOak NZ revealed that the manufacturer had discontinued the product line due to a lack of demand. However, I could purchase the oak cabinets and have them treated and painted so that I would achieve a similar effect. And so commenced my next mission.
Products ordered, BespOak NZ put me in touch with a spray-painter who had already worked with their products, but not my preferred paint products. The Natural Paint Company had supplied their products to another client for painting BespOak NZ products. They were awesome at liaising with the spray-painter and talking through their products, how best to use them, and paint options.
Meanwhile, I had worked out my colour scheme for the bathroom and kitchen, and ordered a colour chart from The Natural Paint Company. Rather than printing their colours on glossy cards they actually paint them onto cardboard so you get a ‘real’ sample. They have an awesome service which gives you your first 10 colour chips free.
Colour ‘chart’ in hand, I’d tested the colours in the natural light of the vestry earlier in the month and narrowed it down to white and three shades of grey. The second part of The Natural Paint Company’s awesome service is that they will send you four 85ml test pots and a brush for under $20.
I’d managed to scavenge some unused plasterboard from my sister so painted three of them up with a base coat and two top coats of the greys. I figured white is white, right? I couldn’t choose between the three colours so it was time to test them in-situ.
That called for another road trip, this time with one of my sisters and a niece in tow. My sister is renovating her 1930’s ‘railway cottage’ and kindly lent me some of her DIY tools in the demo phase. (I may have ‘killed’ her girly-drill in the process.) My niece has been keen on interior design for a few years now so I’ve enlisted her help in choosing fixtures and fittings for the bathroom and kitchen, and choosing the bedroom decor.
I’d arranged to meet with the person doing the detailed drawings council need to support my change of use and building consent application. It was a good opportunity for my sister and niece to look around whilst I talked my plans over with the designer.
Choosing the colour for the cabinets was much harder than I thought. I wanted to have the same colour in the bathroom and kitchen which will have different light sources. The bathroom window faces south-east, whilst the kitchen will be lit by a roof window and artificial light.
I’d recently seen the Grand Designs NZ episode where they renovated a historic building in Christchurch and used dark colours with the original native wood. Whilst I’m not a fan of black or blue, I was struck by how rich the dark colours and native wood looked together. I was very tempted to paint the cabinets a dark grey, but decided that I needed something lighter.
My final choice was between two light greys – one cool in tone whilst the other was a bit warmer. They both looked fine in the bathroom area, but the warmer tone looked better in the kitchen area. Job done.
Back in Wellington, it was time to order the paint for delivery to the spray-painter in Mt Maunganui, only to discover that there was going to be a delay in the cabinets arriving in the country. Ah well, it’s not like I’ve got building consent to be able to install them before the new year!
Next time: Everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much
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