i bought the paint for the kitchen

But first, I want to address everyone’s suggestions.

Grey (1 vote) (well, 2 actually, if you count Mr. N’s!)
I held up the swatches I still had from the office painting project, and I simply was not wowed.

Tile the Backsplash (2 votes)
I agree, it would look really nice. I haven’t totally ruled that out, but I don’t know if I want to do it myself and I have no idea what color tile I’d use (something light, for sure). The kitchen is so many colors already, I’d definitely want to go neutral. Maybe a mosaic tan combo? But, it’s just not going to happen right now. Also, would it look cheap to have tile on my walls but linoleum on my floor? Not sure. I am fine with my floor, not planning to replace it…so I don’t want to make it look like I upgraded everything but the floor (that floor is the only linoleum in the whole house; I wonder why they laid it, honestly. What was there before? We may never know).

Pinky-beige/light coral (2 votes)
I think this would look really nice, but I do live with a man who probably does not want a pink kitchen. ;) Also am worried about ‘rainbow syndrome’–a pinkish color butted up against teal and green seems very ‘florida funky’ to me. Nice, but not for us in our house.

Bronze or yellow (2 votes)
Don’t like yellow. As far as colors go, these are probably very fitting for this space. But I’m not gotta do it, neener neener neener.

White or cream (3 votes)
The problems with white: our doorframes and ceiling are not white. They’re offwhite. Painting a room white means our ceilings look dirty. I could certainly paint the room the same color as the ceilings, but I fear making the appliances look yellowed (since they are ivory/cream-colored). I am concerned about the room being too dark though, so I did get some cream colored swatches. I held them up against the appliances. Was not impressed.

Pale green/blue/teal (4 votes)
I was at first on board with this, but then reminded myself of a very important experiment I did a year or so ago (yes, I’ve been pondering the paint for this room for a long time). I work in an old building and they offered to paint my office last year. The wood trim and my desk in my office are similar in color to the cabinets in our kitchen. I picked a perfect pale green/light teal that is the lighter shade of the Eucalyptus color that is in our dining room. Do not like, at all. It sounded good in theory, but is NOT my thing in practice. I like it less than I like the grey with the red. Just clash-o-rama.

Tan (9 votes)
It’s nice when people vote for what you want, isn’t it? Haha. Actually, I painted a bit of the tan color from our living room (Churchhill Hotel Wheat) on one of the walls in the kitchen and it seemed really.. off. I remembered that one of you told me a tan with grey undertones would be better than a tan with yellow undertones. The Wheat color is definitely yellowish. With our countertops, appliances, floor, fixtures, and cabinets all being different tones, I really did not want to bring more colors in to the room. So, I got some swatches and laid them out on the counter. I picked:

Valspar Upper Eastside (ar217)
(I was going to link to the swatch online but it looks nothing like real life, so I’ll skip it.)

It is a light tan with grey undertones. I hope it will look nice. I bought the paint today…depending on how my weekend goes, I might even paint it this weekend!