House Update!

Hey all!!

Ok, here is the highly anticipated house update! Sadly, things are not as far along as I would like, but I am learning that painting is longer, more frustrating, and more expensive than they would like you to believe on GHTV!! The rooms we have painting (master bedroom, master bath, dining room and guest bath) are looking awesome now, but all felt like the never ending craft project during the actual painting process ;) I think that I have been to Home Depot about 50 times since we moved in (I am only slightly exaggerating, the people in the painting department know me on sight!).

So, there is the wonderful house we bought!

It is a two story three bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a living room, breakfast area, kitchen and dining room. Its about 11 years old. Luckly, there are no major renovations that need to take place, mostly just painting. Our first painting project (which we attempted to complete in the two days after closing so we could move-in that weekend, but the ceiling had never been painted and thus required three coats that need to dry for 3 or 4 hours between applications & then Brent and I got sick. So needless to say, the total project time was about a week and we pushed back our move-in date accordingly.) The master bedroom was a pea green, which if you know me, doesn't go with anything I own! In its place is a beautiful light blue (blue reflections from Behr).

Before: Left side of room

Before: Looking from door twards left wall

Before: Unpainted closet = 11 years of scuffs

During: Here is the left side of the room after only one coat of paint!! We used the Behr paint that is a paint and primer in one. It is AWESOME, it covered nearly all the green, which is amazing because the blue is so much lighter than the green was.

During: Right side of room

After: Freshly painted closet. I know, I am so type A that I painted my closet. But the inside was visible from the room with the door open (and it is nearly alway open!) so I figured it would be nice to have it blend with the rest of the room. I love it! It makes me smile!

After: Here is the view from the hallway, though our bedspread looks a lot brighter than in person (I swear the wall and bed don't clash!).

The other painting project that we started before we moved-in (and before we got sick!) was the master bathroom. I was painted a light salmon/peachy pink color that may have gone with the green but looked pretty off with the new light blue.

Before: View from bedroom

Before

Before: Water-spotted, rusting light fixture

During: Deciding what blue to paint the bathroom ended up being quite an ordeal. The paint we bought initally looked light purple on the wall. Then we had it darkened (big splotch on the right side of the door). It was still pretty purple, so the other blues are there because we are trying to decide to darken the paint again or just bite it and buy a new can.

All the paint samples and swatches on the counter

Saldy, life and other projects fell higher on the priority list after we finally moved-in and we had to live with that ugly splotched wall for over a month. Then one day last week I couldn't take it anymore; I finally got the paint darkened to a color that looked blue and not purple so I went for it.

After: Nice blue!

After: View from bedroom. We are SO much happier with the blue now! It actually was still not the color on the card, but their mistake ended up being perfect! I also changed the brassy drawer pulls for blue glass-like nobs and added chocolate accents like the floor rugs and a few baskets.

After: And what about that rusting fixture you may ask? Well, we didn't have the change to splurge on a new one so I spray painted it white. I couldn't believe that the paint made it look like a brand-new fixture! Love it.

The project that ended up taking precedence over painting the salmon pink bathroom was the dark red dining room. I mean DARK. The dining room is small, just 10' x 10' and these pictures are using the flash in the middle of the day. A bright summer day.

Before (Note: the red splotchs are samples of other reds from when i was deciding if I wanted to stay red or go with a taupe.)

Before: View from front door

After: We finally decided that the room was too small for a color as bright as red, so we painted it a nice grayish-taupe color (75% Gallery Taupe by Behr) and repainted the trim a bright white. It feels so much more open now and much larger than before.

After: There was also finally a space for me to hang up the scroll Brent bought me in China.

We liked the color in the dining room so well that we decided to paint the whole house (minus the bedrooms and master & downstairs bath) the same color. The project that took precedence after the dining room and the master bath was the upstairs guest bath. I am kicking myself for not taking a 'before' picture of this bathroom. It was BRIGHT yellow, like 'I-may-have-just-burned-my-retina's' bright and also had a brassy-rusting light fixture (see above). So yesterday I decided it was time; I painted the room and spray painted the fixture. The result is 180' from the other paint job!

After: View from door

After: A better view of the new color

So that is a quick overview of our house projects so far. In the next few weeks I am hoping that we can get the living room, breakfast area and kitchen painted.

Kitchen

Breakfast area

Living room: View from back of house

Living room: View from front door.

Fireplace = My most frustraing decorating problem. This house was built when tube TVs were popular, thus the hole above the fireplace is a large cavern. We tried putting the TV up there but it is too high to watch TV comfortably, it felt like i was in the first row of a movie theater. So I need to do something else with it. It is 36'' x 54'', I have not been able to find a mirror or piece of art that is that large. You can't even buy a blank canvas that large. I thought about covering it for good, but the only cable hook-up is up there. Go figure. So, for now I'm using the space to display pictures (Note: the tallest pictures are 14'' x 11''...it is a Tall space!), which is a good fix for now but I'm not completely satisfied.

So there is our house! We are loving living in our own space. Our neighborhood is very quiet and I love having a yard. I'm sad that its already fall, because I will have to wait until next spring to do any hard-core work on the yard. But hopefully by then I will have the whole inside painted!!!

Love,

J