I am LOVING this spring weather! It is awesome. Right now Blake is raking the leaves (that are left over from before we moved here) and the girls are playing away in the back yard, signing and running and throwing “magic sparkles” aka dirt up in the air. Its great. I figured I could squeeze in a blogging session while they play.
So, this week I got our guest room painted.
I ALWAYS think i’m gonna just knock a room out in a day. You’d think I’d have learned by now, but nope, every time I think I have skills beyond my physical capacity. I guess it wasn’t too bad -- it took me two days, but I still am always surprised when It takes me hours to do the edging. And that I’ll need to do that edging twice! sigh. I’ve been doing my edges free hand with a Purdy brush. I have been getting better results than with painters tape. I haven’t really tried different brands of tape (I haven’t stuck to one kind either -- I just have grabbed whatever when I’ve been at the store), but I’ve been having trouble with it leaking paint under, and then with it pulling the dried paint underneath it back off. So I gave up and started trusting myself to edge. (There are a few spots where I still tape -- but not many.) I guess I am still slow at it.
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In here there was a challenge of figuring out how to handle the tiny trim of the paneling. This is how I worked it out. The top matches the celing in semi gloss. And then I just free-hand cut the wall line across for the walls. Looks great -- from far off you might not even notice the funny corner wall-trim. (See previous picture.)
Color choice:
This was a happy accident.
My initial plan for this room was that I was gonna leave it a mostly bare room, paint it white, and use it for taking pictures. But when I was planning this I forgot that this room was the only bedroom with paneling. (I think I was planning this while we were in Iowa.) So when I realized the walls wouldn’t make the backdrop I was envisioning, I had already bought the paint. Then recently I found out my uncle wants to give us a bedroom set that would be perfect for a guest room (awesome), so the room was even less of my original plan. But I had already bought the paint. I thought! When it was time to paint, I looked and looked through our paint stash and realized that we actually didn’t buy that gallon in the midst of all the gallons we did buy. But I did over buy the paint for our family room. (Martha Steward’s Bedford Gray (in Valspar paint.))
In the spirit of "waste not want not" (Which is NOT my usual way with paint colors. I’m very picky.) I decided that I should go ahead and use up that gallon otherwise it would be a total waste. Initially I freaked out a little bit because I didn’t get to do my normal color picking routine. But I told myself, just do this, you can always paint it again later, but lets just knock this room out. I was worried about having two rooms with the same color. Just didn’t want to get bored by it.
But once it was up (and I mean all the way up…through the painting process I remained concerned it was gonna look bad, but when it was done) I loved it. And I think the color looks very much it’s own up there. Downstairs, in the family room with the brick, it looks like a quite-green gray. Upstairs in it’s own light and no reds, it reads straight gray. It feels very relaxing and comforting in there. Just the right amount of coziness without it being too tight, if that makes sense. I like it being a color much more than white, like I thought it was gonna be. And I think this color also made the room look bigger again (like it did downstairs.) Must be a magic color that way.
I spread the work out, on painting this room, so it felt like it was a long haul. The ceiling I did probably a month ago. (When I did the family room ceiling.) And the trim about two weeks ago. But to be honest I didn’t really do the windows, I just got the edges so I wouldn’t have to worry about edging them with the paint on the walls. So I need to go back and do the whole window. And to be even more honest, I haven’t done the moving parts of any windows, because I wanted to be in spring so I could open them and not worry about painting them closed. (I’ve never painted windows before, I don’t wanna mess these up.)
I also didn’t paint the closet doors -- I think I may leave these as sliding doors. It’s the smallest of the rooms, so I think it may make sense for the furniture layout if the doors don’t open out. But I’m holding out to see --- I just really dislike sliding closet doors.
Anyway. So, that room is painted. (Mostly.) But it’s not done --not really a working guest room. If you come over now, you get to stay on our air mattress. :)
Getting that room painted bolstered my spirits in regards to getting this house done someday. I had been feeling bogged down by the house. But just getting something done really helped with perspective. I feel freshly inspired to bare down and get this done.
Oh! Look! Here are some of my fancy faceplates I got off ebay!
I got these in a “lot" of a bunch or random things. I bid on the set based on these silver ones (and a couple more silver ones I’m gonna put in our master bath) because I’ve never seen anything like them. I think they are pretty snazzy.
This weekend Blake also got lots more (if not all?) our light switches changed out to fresh white ones. Remember that picture from last week? So much better now!
(Also -- take note. This white light switch is in the Family room. And the sliver one is in the guest room. The paint behind them is the SAME paint. See what I mean about how it looks different in different spaces?)
In other news, I’ve been working on figuring out a good system for our mail and bills. We’ve been both kinda doing this job blind since moving because we are so busy, we aren’t keeping the bills in order or anything. So I’m working on getting a system I can stick to. And part of that system is a cute spot to stick out going mail and our keys. I scoured the internet over and didn’t see anything I was excited about. So off to the thrift store I went. And I found this cute basket like thing to put on the wall and a small mirror to match. (I plan to give them a little paint lovin.) Then I went to Hobby Lobby to find some hooks for our keys.
While I was at Hobby Lobby I also bought some brackets and hooks for the laundry room.
I think (hope!) this week we will get the laundry room all done! I can’t wait for that! I think I’ll feel more orderly with a orderly, nicely functioning laundry room. (Right now I’ve been tripping over the laundry soaps because they are on a cart that doesn’t fit anywhere in there.
That stuff is gonna be in a cabinet soon, and the floor with be clear.)
But the best/biggest news of my week:
I epicly scored on free stuff this week! I mean EPIC. I hadn’t checked craigslist in a while, so I just peeked on there and under the free section I saw a crib alert for all this potentially good stuff in one place. I looked and saw it was posted 18 mins ago. I googled and it was 4 mins away from our house. I told the girls “Get in the car!” (car meaning the van -- I still call it a car) --- we rushed right over.
And I scored us:
A free standing mirror
A side table
A lamp
A picture
A dresser
AND
Patio Furniture!
SERIOUSLY.
FOR FREE!
I am still giddy.
I’ve never gotten so much good stuff off a curb before.
I had to take two trips to get it all. (We’ve left the back row of seats out since moving becasue it works so well for house remodeling etc.)
If you know me, you know I’ll be making over any and all of it.
I don’t know if we have a spot for the dresser or not yet. (A third of our house is still unavailable, so its hard to tell.) But I knew if I came up with a reason for it later on, and I didn’t grab it, I’d be so mad at myself later. So I took it and thought I can always sell it for like $10 or something later if I don’t need it. So for now I stuck it in the nook in our family room, just because there is room.
I’m loving the patio furniture. There are a couple cracks up high on the back rest -- but still -- so nice to have something to sit on outside. (For FREE!)
So yeah. That’s what I’ve been up to.
(And some food stuff too. Hopefully I’ll blog that.)
Here’s hoping next week I can show you a finished laundry room!
:)
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