A Shady Situation

Since when does the color white come in so many shades? I have realized that I have grown up in a generation that chooses to pick apart the basics with the goal to make them as complicated as possible. Not even black is safe. We now have charcoal, graphite and ebony, all of which have different twinges of blues and grays that play games with the eyes, driving even ROY. G. BIV himself crazy.

My first run-in with the complexities of basic colors was when I began shopping for my wedding dress. I realized that I would prefer to walk down the aisle in “soft white” opposed to stark white, opposed to ivory, opposed to cream, opposed to antique white, opposed to off white, opposed to pearl, opposed to just plain ole white itself. And the best was that one manufacturer’s antique white was another’s off white and ivory in one store was considered yellow in another. It’s like every shop I went to I had to learn a new language and embrace a new color spectrum just to get what I thought would be a simple white dress.

This shady dilemma has reared its ugly head once again, but this time on our home. Looking to add a kitchen island, the hubs and I wanted to match our already existing white cabinets. Trust me, they are white. Plain white. Standard white. Nothing fancy white.

Upon cabinet shopping we were blinded by the sample of what they called a “white” finish and opted to choose the more subtle, but still VERY white, “antique white” finish. Had enough “white” yet? Well, there is more.

We just got the delivery and in the box, the cabinets looked like the perfect shade of white, but when putting them in the kitchen, our new addition looked like a dirty gym sock. How in the heck can one white be so different from another? Our new cabinets look like they have a permanent shadow cast upon them… a shadow of stupidity that is, because we should have never have trusted our color instincts.

In all reality, and you know how I like to distort it, the cabinets aren’t THAT bad… its not like they are cream or off white… whatever that means. They will soon be dressed up with a new counter top and hardware, hopefully washing some brightness into the gym sock hue creating more of a “just bleached pair of tighty whiteys” shade.

Lesson of the day? Not all colors are created equal, not even the basics. What’s one person’s white, is another one’s ivory. And if life hands you an off shade, just embrace the differences AND your kitchen's dimmer switch.