Selecting Countertops and Painting

I had Friday off so I went to visit the showroom of FineLine Pacific countertops and check out their options. Their Costco's local service provider for custom countertops.

I was considering Uba Tuba, Tunas Green, and Verde Florence, but I wanted to see them in person. As much as I love to browse this stuff on line, a computer screen is just can't accurately depict colors well enough to make a selection and purchase of countertops I hope to live with.

So I checked out the stone samples and headed out. I consulted the Hamptons Saturday morning. I needed confirmation that my color choice was okay. We looked at the samples in their kitchen, I brought a chunk of my flooring, and their cabinets match my cabinets--and theirs are not wrapped in cardboard. We had two for the Verde Florence and one for the Uba Tuba, so we decided to take 'em outside for a look in the full "sunlight" or natural light anyway, we didn't see much of the sun last weekend. At that we all agreed that the Verde Florence was good, less yellow than the others, more neutral.

Then I went up to Lowe's, and called Lara on my way. Lara and Kimmo were home, so I decided to go over for a visit and a quick consult with them too. I presented it a little differently there, as my decision had more or less been made. Kimmo had work to do in the afternoon and Lara offered to join me to shop for paint. YIPPIE! We went to Home Depot first, for which I have a gift certificate. We went through all the motions looking at color chips and I reread some stock literature on color theory. When I finally had a set of 6 to 9 colors to try, we took them to the paint guy to get samples. The smallest sample they had was a quart. He said I could get smaller samples from the manufacturer if I wanted to special order it. Gr. Lara got a quizzical look on her face. She said she swore that they'd done it for her last time. Then she realized that that might have been Lowe's not Home Depot. So, off we went. Though I wasn't able to use my gift certificate, I did save upwards of fifty bucks and several quarts of paint. I dropped Lara at home, or rather she dropped me back at her house--she with the SUV was doing the driving in the SNOW. It wasn't so bad though, it was fine for me to drive home.

We went to Leslie and Arece's for dinner and a movie. I was going to leave the color tests until Sunday, but Lara offered to come over and paint with me before going to The Hamptons'. I tried to get some pictures, but like I said, it's hard to do justice to colors on a computer screen. But I'm using that grayish slate green kinda color--called "Grandma's Linen" or something like that, but there's the exact same color in the Martha Stewart line of the same brand called "Potting Shed" or something like that--on the left for the walls. I may use the other on the right as an accent, we'll see.

Oh yeah! And I called Dave today. I plan to finish painting this week (I've been a little generous with myself on time, but holiday season is coming up and the festivities have already begun!), I'm done with the ceiling as of this evening, tomorrow I can start the walls, um, after volleyball? Anyway, Dave starts Monday on installing the cabinets.