White Paint

We had no idea that buying a quart of white glossy paint for kitchen trim would be so complicated.  But I’m getting ahead of myself….

In January of 2023 Mikey and I (mostly Mikey) began remodeling our kitchen after years of living with damaged laminate counters, a terribly stained sink, and a dishwasher holding on by a thread.  The ideas were hatched and we were ready to launch.  Mikey hired a guy to come in to help with the counter top installation, new sink, garbage disposal, and dishwasher. His name was Ed and he was a grizzled old man who appeared to have had a hard life of drinking and sitting in the sun. He had long grey hair and a smattering of whiskers, and a general unkempt look.  I have no idea were he found this guy?  He told us he had a girlfriend in Russia that he was “bringing over soon”    The first day this guy came to work it went ok.  The counter was cut and installed, buy he didn’t come back after a lunch break. The next day the smell of weed was hanging around him like a cloud that got worse each time he went to his truck for “tools”.  He was “installing” a new dishwasher that we discovered was done incorrectly that evening.  The third day when he arrived I think I got a contact high. When he started in on his political agenda we knew it was time to be done with old Ed.

Mikey completed the kitchen himself, starting with fixing the mistakes made by Ed. He  installed new cabinets  and cabinet doors. New lights went in and Mikey learned how to ceramic tile a floor.  We had painted it red a couple of years earlier. The kitchen looked great and it was 97.2% complete. There were a number of cabinet doors that still needed replacing and the white trim needed painting.

17 months later I suggested that it was time to complete the kitchen. No new big projects in the house could start before this!  So we ordered the rest of the doors and hardware. We lightly sanded the trim and went off to Home Depot for white gloss trim paint. 

At the paint counter there was a elderly gentleman would said we had to “pick  a color”. We explained that we were simply looking for white trim paint.  He responded by gesturing to the wall of paint chips. “Choose a color” he repeated.  There was silver feather, cows milk, vanilla milkshake, white dove, and paper white.  These were fine colors , but there were not white. I found one that was “close enough” and brought melodic white to the counter to be mixed.  Only then did the paint man announce, “paint mixer is broken”. Seriously?  Well I  didn’t event want any of those colors. We wanted standard white gloss trim paint. 

We left empty handed, a bit irritated, a bit confused. What just happened in there?

On the way home we stooped at a small pain store chain. We we asked for white gloss trim paint. Again we were directed to choose a color and then were told a quart would be $46 but we could return the next day for the 10% off sale.  No thank you.

Mikey figured that we must be asking for the wrong thing. We went home with brushes and rollers, but no paint.  Searching the inner-webs he finally found a quart of Gloss White Paint for trim.  At Lowes. We picked it up and 2 days later the kitchen was painted and all the new cabinet doors were installed. It looks great and

I am very happy with our kitchen.   The only thing missing are the kick boards around the floor.  I wonder how many months that will take….