Lets Try That Again

We've been at it again! We got that itch to do some painting around here again, and we are all loving the results. When we originally decided to paint our living room blue, we were more than a little nervous. We were afraid that it would look overwhelming, or like you just walked into a big blue ice box. So we played it safe and only painted three walls. We left the entryway and the half wall white to try and balance it out.

We had so much trouble adding some color and personality to that wall, and what you cant see from this picture is that to the left of this wall is the full white bead board wall of our dining room, which you can see here. So if you were sitting in the living room, all you saw was white. Boring!!

While I masked off the space, Ryan starting ripping off the old ugly trim.

Then I got to work painting the entryway and half wall.

 Not only did we paint the walls but we added a fresh coat of white paint to the back of the doors, and we added the new trim.

 Isn't it beautiful?!

It adds so much more personality to that area now that its not just white, and we may or may not be adding some kind of wainscoting to that wall in the future ;)

On on a side note, we also continued down that wall and painted the hallway! Since we recently had a computer switch I don't have a before picture for you :( But just picture a creamy yellow-ish tan color = not cute. We decided to keep it simple and go for a soft white. I looked on one of my favorite blogs Perfectly Imperfect, where she had listed all of her paint colors in her house. She used the color White Diamond quite a bit, so we knew we were getting a color that was tried and true.

 It brightened up the hallway and even made the light look less "orangey" colored. We had to replace the old thermostat, because next to the new white paint it looked yellowed and ugly. We just cant have that now can we? :) This hallway is a bit of a decorating difficulty. On the largest wall is the doorbell box and the thermostat which doesn't leave much room for hanging things. Any ideas? 

Master Bedroom Update

Its amazing to me how fast that feeling of "I never want to mask and paint another wall again" goes away. After painting our living room, guest bathroom and kitchen I never wanted to see another paint tray again. It wasnt too long, however, until those feelings were replaced by that desire to drastically change our room, and add our own personality to it. 

I knew I wanted it to be a bright yet soft blue. I loved the look I had seen in so many magazines, with the dusty blue walls and contrasting white furniture. So I started looking at paint colors and even bought a few samples. I painted the samples on cardboard like they told me and put it up against the white trim in the bedroom to see how it would look with the lighting we have etc.  

My camera doesn't take the best pictures so you may not even be able to see much of a difference. So ill try and explain (with my limited color lingo) what they looked like. The top color was called Ice Flower and was a really pretty blue but it definitely had shades of aqua in it which wasn't what I was wanting for our room. The bottom color was Lovely Blue. It ended up being a little more "washed out" I guess than what I wanted. So I ended up choosing the middle color called "Serene Sky." (You would think that I would have learned by now, that blue paint can be very deceiving. It can look very subtle and calm in a sample, but when you paint a whole room blue, it can very easily become overwhelming. But we will get to that later.)

So the BIL and I decided we would split up, he would paint the guest room, and I would paint my room. So off to Home Depot we went. We had decided weeks ago that we would paint the guest room the same grey as our kitchen so that was a piece of cake. And I, now sweating profusely, sick to my stomach and breathing out of what felt like a straw, asked the helpful lady to give my two gallons of a paint I wasn't totally confident in. That should have been my red flag right there. But I chalked it up to the fact that I would have a mini heart attack buying that much paint of even my favorite color.

So we got home and I started pushing everything to the center of the room. My wonderful BIL came in and masked everything, without me even asking! So I got to work.

Again another awful quality picture, but you get the gist of the progress. Oh, and I promise that is clean laundry in those baskets, but come on people, priorities! :) The whole time I was painting the room I had this internal struggle going on. Part of me was totally freaked out that it wasn't turning out the color I had pictured in my mind, the other part of me was determined to like it because I wasn't about to go out and buy two new gallons of paint. Even now, I still have that struggle. But I'm hoping that once I finish decorating it how I want it, Ill learn to love it even more. Don't get me wrong I still think it looks better than it was, its just not as "dusty" as I had planned it to be. Looking back now I see that I should have gotten a blue that had more grey undertones, but hindsight is always 20/20 right?!

So here it is today, nothing on the walls yet but that is my next project. And I'm still on the search for the perfect nightstand, but until then I'm using an old table we had sitting in the garage. So that's all for now, Ill be back soon to share with you the Sunburst mirror I made for our bedroom.

 

Ryans Room

This last weekend Ryan finally had time to work on his room. It was an awful shade of tan, that made it look so much smaller than it was.

He knew he wanted it be "masculine" and he had seen these shades of green/grey that he liked. So he put them against the wall with some art he planned on using. He finally decided on the color on the left called "Thunderhead"

He knew it would be too dark to do all four walls so he chose the lighter accent color too. Im not sure its name but it ended up being almost a grey white. I think it turned out great, and he seems to really love it!

 Ah, you can see here a perfect example of how guys are easily satisfied. He has neon green sheets, and no bed skirt. But hey all you do is sleep in it right? boys.

Ryans Bathroom

I have come to learn that when a man sets out to do a project, he doesn't pace himself, or go one step at a time. When his mind is made up to do something, he will do whatever it takes to get ALL of it done. Last weekend Ryan was home and decided he would do some work on his bathroom which also happens to be the guest bathroom. The bathroom was a not-so-cute brown on the bottom half, and a pale yellow on the top half. I figured he would slap some paint up and call it good. Oh no. I was wrong. He started out by ripping out all the trim and base around the whole bathroom.



Under the trim was this interesting layer of blue with what looked like blue smears on it?



He then added bead board which already made a drastic difference. He sprayed the bead board white, and since he already had the sprayer out, why not go ahead and do the cabinet to?  He picked out a dark blue paint that could have looked good in another room... in another house. But in this room, and in this house it just didnt work.



Maybe it was because he was distracted?



So the next time he decided it was a good idea to start out with the sample sizes. On the second go around he picked out an amazing dusty grayish/blue to go above the bead board. And while he was at Home Depot, he just so happened to see some vinyl wood flooring on clearance. So hey why not slap down some flooring while your at it.




The floor before the vinyl was laid



So after a three day weekend and staying up until two in the morning, the bathroom was done. Well almost done.

Painting the Kitchen

Several days after we had been in the house we starting talking about painting the kitchen. The color that was in there was somewhere between a yellow and tan. We picked the color out with the intention to "someday" paint the kitchen. Well I couldnt stand knowing that this project was just waiting to be done. It felt like a big cloud hanging over my head. So late one sunday evening  I decided that "someday" was right now. So we stopped by and got a gallon of Behr Ultra paint - French Silver. I am so happy with the color that we picked. It makes our kitchen look so much more up-to-date and clean. What do you think?

The Kitchen Cabinets

The cabinets in the kitchen started out oak. They were nice cabinets but again it just wasnt "us". So we decided to paint them all white. This ended up being quite the project. The boys cleaned them, sanded, primed and painted. But we started noticing that after each coat of paint started to dry, this yellow stain would start appearing. So after two coats of primer and probably 6 coats of paint we decided to call it good. We will need to go back and touch up where the yellow is still barely visable but we are still happy with the overall look. Note to self: go ahead and splurge on the more expensive sealer/primer. It will be worth it in the end. :)

The RED wall

When we did one of our first walk-thru's the dining room wall caught my eye. It was covered in bead board (which I love!!) but it was also bright red. It wasnt a bad color, it just wasnt "me." It also had a lot of dings and holes so it was in desperate need of a little TLC. It didnt take long for us to decide that the bead board needed to go back to its original color. White.

We arent sure if we are going to keep it white, but for now it works. It has brightened up the dining room considerably, which is always a good thing.

Step 1: Living room

There were a few projects we decided to do before we moved everything in:

• Paint the ceilings
• Paint the living room
• Paint the kitchen cabinets

All of these projects would have otherwise meant a lot of furniture moving and a lot more masking. The boys sprayed the ceilings while I was at the other house finishing some last minute packing. But my mother in law and I painted the living room, and what a difference it made! We tried a few samples but as soon as we started painting this color on the walls I was in love!

You better believe that in a house with two boys, I had to fight for that color, but it was so worth it. The color is amazing, during the day with the sun it looks so bright and cheery. But during the evening it looks so much more grey, which is why I think the boys are starting to like it.

The color is Behr Plus Ozone from Home Depot.