Painting Ceilings is Fun!

Oops, I forgot a word in the title. There was supposed to be a "not" there somewhere. It is especially not fun when you have a ton of shit to do in the morning, and you have a leisurely lunch and watch Band of Brothers with your husband, then mow the lawn, then start taping, then realize you're not quite tall enough to tape off the crown molding, then wait for your husband to tape it, then start painting.

Yeah.

It sucked. My neck hurts, my feet hurt, my back really hurts, and I look like this (after two glasses cleaning breaks).



Well, I did. I showered and now I'm no longer paint covered. I always think painting ceilings is not worth it while I'm doing it. Especially tall ceilings. But the finished product is SO worth it. It makes the room so much warmer and cozier than stark white. The crown molding pops against it, and I'm not a fan of white anyway, so I love colored ceilings. I may be crazy, but I think if you're painting a room, it's not that much extra effort to paint the ceiling a coordinated shade.

What we do is choose a color for the ceiling that's one or two shades lighter than the wall color. If the wall color is already super light, we just paint the ceiling that color. It makes the entire room look so pulled together! Every time I paint a ceiling, I start putting the paint on and freak out because it looks so dark/bright/green next to the stark white paint that was there before. But when you get the whole thing done, it looks so amazing. Seriously, I love it. It's a beautiful soft gray with a touch of blue, and I can't wait to see it with our wall color.

No pictures until we're done painting the walls tomorrow. I may even wait until we get our furniture put in on Wednesday. We shall see!

For now, I'll settle on the couch with my turkey sandwich and fall into bed before I do it all again tomorrow with the walls.

Decisions, decisions

Well, my too nice for words mother and father have offered to give me my birthday present early since they said I'll need it before my furniture comes in. It's paint and all the supplies needed to paint our master bedroom! Since our furniture is coming on the 15th, we need to paint next weekend if at all possible. My parents ROCK my socks. They are so awesome, and they (mostly my mom, let's be honest) always know the perfect thing to get me for gifts. And yes, I'm totally fine with the face that my birthday gift involves hours of manual labor, provided by me.

So I took a little trip to one of my very favorite places in the world, Sherwin Williams. I even love the way it smells. And I feel like I'm in some special club when I walk in (the Preferred Customer Club? The club of people gullible enough to pay $45 for a gallon of paint?) and I'm instantly in a good mood. Even when they're super busy and I have to wait a half hour for three sample quarts, I like it. Because I get to talk to other people about colors, and look at all the paint chips, and all that super fun stuff.

I went in to get just paint samples, like I said. But when I mentioned that I was painting next weekend, the guy behind the counter said, "You know today is that last day for 30% off, right?" Yeah, I did know that, but I hadn't decided on a color yet so I couldn't buy the paint. But guess what he told me. You can buy untinted paint at the sales price, and you can come back at any time to have it tinted FOR NO CHARGE!

I've said it many times. I love Sherwin Williams for a lot of reasons. The paint goes on great. It lasts. It's incredibly true to the color swatches. And they have the best colors. But what I love most of all is the customer service. It's something that's lost on a lot of businesses today. But I love having a clerk help me (or my mom) to save 30% on the paint we're going to buy regardless. And they'll sit there for ten minutes helping me figure out how many gallons of paint to buy. I just love them. LOVE them. Even if my husband doesn't understand it.

So I came home with three gallons of untinted, on sale paint, and three quarts of Color to Go, in three very similar colors. After some quick painting, I had six areas of color on two different walls. And it turns out I like one color on one wall, and a different color on the other wall. So we narrowed it down to two. Two colors one shade apart on the same paint strip. So there's no in between for us to go to. I painted another area, between two areas of white molding so I could see it without any of that nasty pinky brown around. And I think I know which one we'll go with. But I'm going to live with it for a few days before I decide.

What do you think? From left to right in the first two, they're Oyster Bay, Comfort Gray, and Contented. In the third picture, it's Oyster Bay on the bottom and Comfort Gray on top. I just can't decide!

Real Live Adults

Did it hit us that we were grown ups when we were no longer financially dependent on mom and dad? When we got our first jobs, post college? When we took the plunge and got married? Or maybe when we bought our first house?

Nope. None of them. That moment came today. When we walked into a real live furniture and told them what they wanted. They were (of course) having a big Fourth of July sale, complete with pre-marked up prices and complimentary hot dogs. So our sweet saleslady Georgeann told us, "Our sale today is 15% off, but that's only if you pay cash. You guys can take the 4 years interest free financing instead." And we said...

"No, we're paying cash." Like we drop $3k in one purchase all the time. That's right bitches. We can afford to buy a (nice!) bedroom set with cash. And I'm so freaking excited that I won't have to look at mismatched furniture anymore. And we have an actual, real, bed. And it has storage drawers underneath for linens or misbehaving cats or whatever. And it has a media chest. If we have to have a TV in the bedroom (thanks, Brett), then I'm glad we'll have a sleek, matching media chest with drawers underneath for clothes storage. I'm sure it will look just as nice as the picture with our 19" CRT tv on there that I've had since I was 13, right?

It's being delivered on the 15th. One week exactly before my birthday! But Brett swears and declares that it's not my birthday present. If it's not, my birthday present needs to be to paint that room before we get our glossy new furniture in there! Thanks to this giant purchase, we're putting off the master bath reno for a little while. And we won't be buying new linens and things until our savings account it back up to snuff, but it just makes sense to paint before you put in new furniture, right? Right?

So here it is. Our beautiful, almost black, shiny, glossy, grown up bedroom set. I can't find a picture of the bed online, but it's a platform bed with a paneled headboard and low footboard and storage drawers on the sides. We got the pictured dresser and mirror, two of the nightstands, and a media chest as well. Just wait until the 15th and there will be pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.

The agony of Paint Colors

I love paint. I love the paint store. I carry my trusty Sherwin Williams fan deck with me almost everywhere I go. I have about 50 paint strips crammed into my purse. I have a collage (on pink paper, much to my husband's horror) of the colors I want to use in the house.

Yes, it's possible I'm overthinking it. No, I don't have a super open floor plan. But dammit, I want the house to flow. Or maybe I just want to feel productive and actually pick something out, since my stupid tires and power steering and family visits and my upcoming birthday (okay, those last two things? awesome, but still) seem to be aligning to ensure that we get NOTHING done on the house. You know what we've done since we changed out the bathroom showerhead (Yes, I said WE Brett, whatcha gonna do about it? I stood there and handed you stuff!) Mowed the lawn. Once. We cleaned a little. But that's it. We've been here three months and one room (and one of the smallest rooms in the house) is painted. At this rate we'll be done painting in 2057. So this is for you Brett: Let's get our asses into gear! Hell, I'll forgo a fancy birthday present for a couple gallons of paint for the bedroom.

Anyway, back to paint. I had a color scheme all picked out. Burlap, Mossy Gold, Halcyon Green, Window Pane. Don't they all sound so beautiful? So I had a little doubt there in the back of my mind. Do you really want the same colors in your house as your mom's (and your aunt's)? Not to mention Brett totally dismissed the Halcyon Green as "too trendy" and told me I'd hate it in six months.

There was a lot of whining and gnashing of teeth. There was the suggestion (the suggester will remain anonymous for his/her own protection) to choose a color kind of close to Halcyon to appease the hubby and just paint it Halcyon and never tell Brett. There was a lot of trying to find other colors that I loved just as much, that were the perfect gray/green/blue and all of them falling short of the gloriousness that is Halcyon.

Then, I went home for Father's Day. And I walked into my brother's room (halcyon, natch). And it was blue. Like, really, really blue. And green. And barely gray at all. And suddenly I didn't like it anymore. Won't like it anymore after six months? Try six minutes. Yeah, it's pretty but it's waaaaay too bright. It's not the calm, serene, chill color we're looking for for the master bedroom. And of course changing that color meant changing every single freaking color in the house. Except the bathroom. We're not repainting the damn bathroom.

So if I've got one bit of paint advice, look at a room actually painted that color first. I should have learned this when my parents were building their house. I picked a nice, bright yellow green called frolic off of the paint swatch. And it turned out to be highlighter yellow. Seriously, the room glowed in the dark. If you don't have the opportunity to see your colors in person, take advantages of those little sample pots all the major brands are offering these days. And paint a big honkin' swatch on your wall. Actually, do this regardless, because colors change with light. You'll never regret the weeks (months? you spend with varying shades of gray on your bedroom walls, trust me.

But now, I think I've decided on the color scheme. This is the one I love so much I made a collage out of. And a little paint graphic. And I gaze at it lovingly almost every day. It's similar to the old one. But the blues are a little bit grayer. The neutrals are a little less green. And the powder room is now my lovely plum. That powder room is mine, baby, and it will be dark purple if I want it to be. Here it is, our new house. Coming in summer 2057.

Bathroom Quick Change

We think our next room to tackle is going to be the master suite. Which is going to be a BIG project if we do what we want in there. It will involve tiling the shower walls, a new vanity and mirror, maybe flooring, new bedroom furniture and linens, art, and maybe (maybe?) a bigger tub.

So we don't want to do a ton of work until we're ready to go in there. But there came a point where we just couldn't deal with the showerhead anymore. It was this huge thing with a triangular part in the middle that came off to be a handheld piece, and it just annoyed the crap out of us. We also couldn't stand the old, worn out drain switch. We were never quite sure if the drain was plugged until the shower started filling up on us.

So with about a half hour of work and a $50 investment, we have made showering a much more pleasant experience! And, we bought brushed nickel fixtures so we can still use them in our bathroom after the big redo!

Cheap and Chic: Dropcloth Curtains

If you're looking for a great way to transform one of your windows without breaking the bank, here's a great window treatment that we did for under $20.

First the inspiration, at Pottery Barn for $108/panel:



And now the result:



To make these curtains, I used a rod we already had in our old apartment. I bought curtain rings at Burlington Coat Factory for $5.99, and two 6x9 canvas dropcloths at the Home Depot for $5 each. I folded the tops of the curtains over until I got to the right length, and clipped on the rings. Then, I used some fusible webbing and an iron to hem them at the top. Hemming these at the top and using clips means there's little pressure on the ironed hem, and it will last. If you're a sewer, you can sew a pocket rod into these, but the fabric is very thick.

The total cost of this project is $18.50, tax included, thanks to some supplies I had on hand. Even if you were starting from scratch, you could do it for under $50, rod included. Not bad for a total window transformation!

A note for the wrinkle nazis: this fabric is VERY thick and holds wrinkles extremely easily. This is after a wash, dry, and iron. I'm hoping gravity will get rid of some of them, but for now they'll do.

Guest Bathroom Redo

From the beginning, we've planned to slowly paint every room in the house. Emphasis on slowly. We hadn't lived in the house even a month when we broke down and bought paint for the upstairs bathroom. It's not the most used room in the house. Not by far. But every time either of us walked in there, we were immediately in a bad mood. The walls were painted a light yellow, but it had such sickly undertones that we took to calling it bile. When we were ready to get started, we gave the room a good cleaning and started removing fixtures, and we noticed a few things we inherited from our previous owners. Thanks guys!

1. They hadn't thought to prime before giving the walls a single coat of light yellow paint. The color before? Dark gray. No wonder the yellow looked sick.
2. They also hadn't thought to paint behind the mirror. Okay, not too bad. Or the toilet. I know it's hard to reach behind a toilet, but it's certainly not hard to SEE back there.
3. When they put quarter round down next to the bathtub, they caulked it to keep water from the bathtub from running down behind the wood and into the subfloor. Nice, right? Well, they just put on a crapload of caulk and smeared it everywhere. We're talking two full inches away from the quarter round, smears of caulk. We got up close and personal with our razor blades, people.

So here's the not so nice before. (with the seller's art and flowers. We hated it so much we only took one picture before we took to the walls with kilz.)



Since then, we primed and painted the walls, painted the ceiling, trim, and door. We've cut and painted new quarter round, to be put down when my husband wakes up from his nap. I put down two pieces this morning and realized I was in a bit over my head. We also replaced the light fixture, got a new, oval beveled mirror to go over the sink. We put in a shower curtain for a decorative element, even though this is just a bathtub. We bought new linens and accessories as well.

Now the bathroom is fresh and inviting. Even the cats love it! Note: bathroom walls are not actually the color of mustard or baby poo. I'm just a crappy photographer.





















Walls: Sherwin Williams Sassy Green
Ceiling: Sherwin Williams Rice Paddy
Trim: Sherwin Williams Muslin

Most decorative pieces are from Target, a couple of pieces are from Wal-Mart.