Kitchen blues

On our recent discussion on kitchens at The Skirted Roundtable, I mentioned a terrible kitchen that I'd once seen. And part of my problem with it was the blue cabinetry. Well, that seems to have surprised some listeners, so I dug out the file to show what I was talking about. To briefly recap, this antique 18th century New England home was being renovated by some builders who had bought it on foreclosure. They clearly had dollar signs in their eyes and thought if they threw in some glossy bells and whistles (circular cobblestone driveway, multi-car carriage house style garage and top of the line kitchen) they'd sell it for big bucks. The problem was that the original house was a charming small house with original brick work, ancient pine floors and low beamed ceilings. Over the years, the house had been added on to - badly. Instead of bringing back the charm, these builders basically gilded the lily. And lost, big time. I believe they paid around $500K and added another $500K. The house was put on the market for $1.8 Million. It ultimately sold for a little over $1Million - 2-3 years later. Between carrying costs, etc - well, they didn't exactly come out too far ahead. (I won't even go into the fact that they'd put vinyl shutters on the exterior and had cheap lighting throughout!).

There were so many problems with their decision making on this property, the biggest being that they spent so much money on this huge, out of scale kitchen with blue cabinets. A high end kitchen is meant to be a selling feature - but the blue cabinetry was only going to appeal to a small group of buyers. This high end "flip" had immediately cut down its potential. A gray blue, gray or cream/off white would have been a much smarter choice. Let's face it, if you are looking to buy a nearly $2Million dollar property, you don't want to have to plan on repainting or replacing the cabinetry right at the get-go.

Meanwhile, I do have to say that blue cabinets can be very charming, if done well, as they were in The Holiday cottage house. How adorable was that kitchen? (Plus, the idea of repainting these small cabinets doesn't seem so daunting!)

What do you think of blue painted cabinetry?