How to paint a farmhouse kitchen

I woke up on Good Friday and had the sudden impulse to paint the kitchen. We had two full days to get it done before Easter Sunday, when better than 30 people would be filling the house for lunch. I didn’t see the problem. The Farmer groaned, rolled over and went back to sleep. I went downstairs and started taking things off the kitchen walls.

My husband, a child of the 60’s, loves old knickknacks and especially things that remind him of his youth. I think the collection of pastel-coloured plates we have on the wall above our china cabinet once belonged to June Cleaver. I carefully removed them, along with my collection of brightly coloured and patterned olive oil, cookie and cigar tins. I’m not crazy about having an array of dusty old duck decoys on display in our dining area but I do live with a hunter. I also got the screwdriver out and took down the wooden sign that says “Welcome to the Farmhouse Kitchen – meals served with love – always open.”

Next I had to take some spray cleaner to the top of the cupboards, where grease collects. The Farmer, God love him, cooks a bit like the Swedish Chef - with enthusiasm, and the occasional fling of sauce, flour and spices. It’s messy work. I found spaghetti on the ceiling and dried peas behind the fridge. He doesn’t even like peas. I have no idea how they got there.

Soon I realized why the Farmer had groaned about the prospect of painting the kitchen. When he finally gave in and joined me in my project we took down two lights, a ceiling fan, curtain rods, a smoke detector and a pot rack. Once the ceiling and walls were bare, I started taping the edge of every wall, door and cabinet. Then I went to the basement to get the bag of old dropsheets that used to belong to my father, the family painter. I remember being enlisted to help paint my own bedroom in the house we built on Johnston Road. It was 1980 and Patsy Gallant was singing “From New York to L.A.” on the radio. If I look carefully, I can still find the rose-beige paint on the striped pink sheets.

The last thing to be painted over was the growth chart that had been etched into the wall between the kitchen and living room. One after one, each child and foster child that had lived here had stood against the wall and endured the measuring of height with a pencil tick over their tousled heads. The Farmer was silent as he read each name, height and date before erasing them with a few brushstrokes.

Painting is an opportunity to rearrange and redecorate. But when the final coat dried, just in time to set up for Easter dinner, we put everything back exactly as it was. For another twenty years, God willing.

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