Product Description

In The Painted Kitchen, Henny Donovan demonstrates how with some paint and basic tools anyone can transform a drab, dated kitchen to the most welcoming room in the house. Add new doorknobs, maybe some gold leaf or colored wax for embellishment, and the heart of the home is once again stylish and a pleasure to use.

Organized by color -- naturals and off-whites, yellows, reds, blues, greens, black and gray -- and complete with comprehensive step-by-step instructions and photographs, The Painted Kitchen offers the principles of color, choosing color, and working with man-made finishes. Full of inspiration and eminently practical, this book shows how to:

• prepare old or damaged natural and manmade surfaces for painting
• work with laminates, raw and painted wood, melamine, and fiberboard
• choose colors that work with the room's lighting
• co-ordinating colors to create ambience
• choose the right faux finish for your cupboards
• create the most popular faux effects: colorwashing, distressing, glazing, dragging, combing, stippling, sponging, rag-rolling, spattering, craquelure, crackle glazing, relief stenciling, textured combing, stamping, and decoupage
• use luxurious embellishments: gold leaf, colored waxes, metallic paints, molding and polishing
• work with exciting products: venetian plaster, texture paints, liming wax, graphite varnish.
• mix universal tints

More than 16 innovative projects, each with four variations, offer choices for everyone, including:

• blue-and-white Portuguese-style folk art
• vinegar-glaze fingerprinting
• birch wood graining with faux ebony and ivory inlay
• terra cotta polished plaster with copper squares
• liming over a marquetry-style woodwash
• vine-leaf stipple, gingham checks, duck-egg speckle
• distressed paintwork and hand-painted script.

An extensive list of North American sources rounds out this excellent how-to reference.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #492154 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Monica Stark, January Magazine, januarymagazine.com, October 19, 2000
Offers options to just ripping everything out ... boasts excellent color photographs.

Review
Offers options to just ripping everything out ... boasts excellent color photographs. (Monica Stark January Magazine 20001019)

More than 60 easy and innovative ways to turn boring, ugly, or outdated kitchen cupboards into stylish works of art. (Karen Turner Ottawa Citizen 20001014)

Shows how a simple bucket of paint can transform a dull, drab cooking space into something spectacular... easy-to-follow instructions. (Log House Designs )

About the Author

Henny Donovan has over 18 years of professional experience in art education and interior design. She is the Creative and Business Development Manager for Jocasta Innes's Paint Magic Ltd., for which she writes the curriculum for 22 interior decoration courses. She lives in London, England.

Customer Reviews

The Good, Bad & Not-So Ugly
It wasn't what I was expecting but maybe what I want doesn't exist. With that explanation out of the way - I must say it's really one of the better kitchen cabinet idea books out there. It has great photos, a large quantity of ideas and is very informative about various products, equipment and necessary prepartion. It's chapters are broken down by color which makes it easy to skim through the book and find what you're interested in without having to read every chapter to learn what you need to know. The "bad" part is that the technique directions are sometimes not too specific or clear so it's best to just use the book for ideas and refer to a book on painting techniques for more explicit directions if you're very dependent on step by step directions. Other than that, I'd really recommend this book to anyone who is looking for cabinet update ideas without the expense of buying all new ones.