Future Kitchen Updates

Hey guys, hope you had a nice Thanksgiving! 

Ours was very nice. And I even got the kitchen back to working order with a pinch of time to spare. The only hiccup being that randomly our kitchen faucet sprung a leak and the attempt to fix it was foiled by a crazy original installation which left us using our bathroom sink on Thanksgiving itself. It was not ideal but we managed to have a great day anyway. The next day Blake took a saw to the faucet and got it off, so that we could install a fancy $17 faucet and have running water in the kitchen sink again. Ha! I've never loved a bad faucet so much!

The fact that the faucet debacle happened, sped up our decision to just do the countertops now since we plan to do an undermount sink with them. (For a day we thought we'd be sibkless until that was in. But even once it was solved we still were ready to go forward with our nice finishes.)

So the plan is a 32x18" single bowl, stainless undermount sink. With this faucet. 

We debated a bridge faucet for a while but ultimately I didn't want form over function, the two handle temperature adjustment isn't for me (I've lived with two handles before.) But I've been enamored with this faucet for at least a year. It's got a vintage feel and modern sensibility. Plus great reviews.

I went with chrome because I honestly really love chrome. And while it shows water marks, a quick wipe takes it right off. We have a chrome faucet in one bathroom, and it shines so easy. We also have a moen spot resistant brushed Nickel   faucet which always looks clean so that's awesome. But then we have an American Standard brushed nickel faucet and it's NOT spot resistant and it looks terrible and is very hard to shine up. So I figured chrome is something predictable in behavior but brushed nickel  is not. Chrome is also the finish that's been around the longest, so I feel it adds to the vintage appeal. Plus it's bling-y. 

My kitchen needs a pinch of bling because I choose painted knobs for my hardware. They often say that's the jewelery of the kitchen, but  I went a different direction. We left our original visible hinges on the cabinet doors. (It didn't seem to be an viable option to add inset hidden hinges, and I decided it does give me a happy vintage feeling.) So I didn't want anymore metal on the cabinets. 

I'm hoping to achieve a sorta timeless, vintage English country vibe, with a hint of luxury, and  a whiff of modern to bring it to current times.

I'm thinking that the backsplash will be smaller scale subway tile. I've read that the smaller scale is good in a smaller space to give the illusion of more space. And somehow the regular size does look off in here. 

I'm thinking of wrapping the backsplash around the open wall over the wood counter, and extending to the ceiling. And adding 2 or 3 open shelves there.

The countertops will be a quartz in a pattern  reminiscent of marble, with a pretty flat edge. 

I LOVE marble but am not willing to care for them (or hover over people making them care for them) properly since they are easily stained and can chip.

Originally I thought I'd like an ogee edge, but after shopping and thinking I liked the clean line better.

We ordered through Menards, who by far had the most affordable quartz. And no one had a pattern I liked any better, so it was an easy choice.

Initially we thought of going with a very nice laminate (they've come a long way and you can get them without that laminate backsplash on the backside and doing that really adds the classy look to the kitchen.) But we couldn't find the right combo of print, surface texture and edge shape for us. We started doing the math and decided that since we only have 31 square feet of countertop space

(We are not doing our pass-through wood countertops in quartz. We plan to someday upgrade form pine to real butcherblock.) So at 31 sq feet it wasn't an unmanageable prince upgrade to get the real thing. That way there was every part of our wishlist (look, feel and edged finish) was checked off for our money, because while laminate is more affordable is is not free, so we decided it made sense to put more in to get more out. For resale the quartz would appeal much more in our area. We don't plan to sell anytime soon, but just assessing the investment.

So those are ordered, as well as the faucet and sink. A few more weeks till they arrive.

Next we need to knock out the old backsplash to get ready for all the installation.

But I'm not thinking we'll do much until the semester break, since Blake's in the crunch time of the year. Which is fine, I don't mind a lull in kitchen disturbances.

When we get all the knobs on the doors I'll show you a middle-after/progress photo.

16 Weeks Pregnant (with #3) And some house thoughts too

I don’t really know what to say about this last week.
I had two days where I got stuff done.
I’ve been itching to get back to working on the house SO BAD. But haven’t been up to much of anything. And that’s been starting to really get my down. I just miss being my normal self. I kinda feel like an invalid. And what’s crazy about it is, last pregnancy was NOTHING like this one. It’s hard not to feel bad about myself, as if I did something wrong to be so wimpy this time since I was so strong last time. (Strong meaning: ate like a health nut and worked out 5 days a week.) (Wimpy meaning: Eat whatever doesn’t sound horrible and puke-like, which isn’t health food. And workouts ruin my entire day by making me non-mobile and even more queasy.) (It’s hard to believe I am the same person.)

Anyway, that said, I did have two days this week where I was able to get some stuff done. One of the days I made my kitchen pretty. By doing dishes, clearing countertops, and adding a couple decorations so the room feels more “pinterest.”

Sorry, not the best pic, but it’s all I have right now.

And the other day I think I just did normal stuff like TONS of laundry and cleaning.
So those days were encouraging.
But then rest of the week I was kinda back to non-doing.

     I was thinking last night about how each of my pregnancies (and births, and mothering those different children) has made me into more of a whole person.

     My first pregnancy felt hard because I didn’t know how to be pregnant, and I didn’t know how to handle it all. You may have noticed my entrance into motherhood changed me quite a bit. And after I had my baby I felt like I did everything I ever said I wouldn’t.
     I had decided beforehand my baby would never sleep in bed with me. I felt very sure about it for lots of reasons. I think that lasted about a month. My baby started co-sleeping as soon as I admitted to myself I wasn’t able to handle how much not being in the same bed as taking away everyone’s sleep. As soon as I said it out loud to Blake (worried he would hate the idea) he was 100% “Yeah let’s do it.” I was still worried it would ruin our marriage. Turns out, it was so good for all of us. And I was actually able to sleep. Jasmine has always been (and still is at 4 years old) a person who needs to be by people all the time. (She begged for her and her sister to share a room this past year because she claimed she was too lonely at night and she wouldn’t sleep. And she was proving her case true till we moved them together.) So anyway, once baby Jasmine was in our bed she stayed asleep WAY longer once she was next to us, and I had a WAY easier time going back to sleep if I nursed her in bed. It was a win for us. And Blake LOVED being next to her.  (Take away co-sleeping judgmentalness.)
     I also had to give her baby formula, which I didn’t want to do. But had to for 2 different medical reasons within our first month together. (Take away breast feeding judgmentalness.)
     I also followed all sorts of good sleep advice correctly, and could not get my baby to sleep “right” for close to two years. And she had actually moved into her own bed by like 5 months or so, because she changed her mind from sleeping well in our bed to wanting to play all night. (Take away “I know how to make a baby sleep” judgmentalness.) (Also take away baby in own crib judgmentalness.)
    I was nothing like I thought I would be as a mom once I was actually a mom.
    Oh and did I tell you I was never going to have a c-section OR get thrush? I mean I just knew I wasn’t that person. (Yeah, both of those I checked off my list that year too.) (Take away a lot of general "I’m better than you”judgmentalness.)

     My second pregnancy taught me how to be tough, I learned to eat awesome before and during. I learned how to get fit and worked out like my life depended on it. (Because I thought it did.) I learned more about birth than normal non-birth working people ever care to. I learned to believe in a lot of different things I never even knew about. And my labor and delivery and first few months of motherhood went so well. (This all took away a lot of “I’m a totally failure” judgmentalness I had towards myself.) But I was honestly glad that wasn’t my first experience with motherhood because I would have been a butt-hole to anyone who had a harder time with birth and newborns and breastfeeding because everything went so great.
   Then at about 5 months my perfect sleeper stopped sleeping. Why? She learned to pull up in her bed. And after that she swore that standing was entirely more preferable than sleep and chose to forgo it.  No sleep advice worked. None. I read it all. Tired it all. For long enough that it should have worked. But Ruby, is sweet and fun and happy, but when she makes up her mind, she has a will of steel. (This could prove interesting as we age together.) So from the age of 5 months on I said goodbye to “perfect life” of good sleep and easy mothering. And said hello to “Zombie life” because if one kid wasn’t crying at night the other one was (usually due to the other one waking them up.) I kinda hated life for half a year. I was so tired I couldn’t think, I just felt -- and I felt angry. I didn’t want to feel that way, but when you literally don’t sleep you basically have no control over your brain anymore. I didn’t take it out on my family (I don’t think) I just sat there feeling crabby all day, until the kids were in bed and I could vaguely feel my mind for a little while. And I had no babysitters, and no friends, family a full day’s car ride away...and oh yeah we had just found out we had tons of food allergies and pet allergies which made everything harder.
   (All this took away judgmentalness for mom’s who didn’t revel in every moment of motherhood -- because I really did the first time through with one baby... despite all the challenges we had I just kinda floated in glitter of “wow life is so beautiful and I have a beautiful little life here in my hands." But the second time around I was just too tired to see anything lead alone glitter. I was just surviving. And hence I stopped judging mommas who had to do that.)
 
    After we moved, I was tired a lot because my second child also took 2 years to sleep through the night. (I never judge a momma who’s kid won’t sleep.. and well I secretly laugh when mommas claim they can control the world through sleep this or sleep that, because if the had enough kids, some day one of those kids would teach them their high horse can throw them whenever they want.)
     AND I really didn’t sleep because I was painting while she was asleep -- meaning I never slept. But at least now they were older and would let me rest during the day. AND I was getting to do what I enjoy -- house decorating, painting, planning… So I was starting to feel like myself. The older they got the more I was feeling like myself, because they were giving me more introvert time to get my brain in place. And I was getting more and more done on the house. I was really starting to get into a groove. (Not a rut, because we weren’t anywhere near done yet.) But I felt like it was time to say yes to another baby. We all wanted another baby. Everyone else had been ready for months and months (maybe years?) but I needed time to get to a better stage. I felt like it was time to say, “I’m not really ready, but oh well, who’s ever really ready?” (Take away judgmentalness towards mommas who waver on having kids.)

    And now this pregnancy is basically just incapacitating me. Which like I mentioned is hard for me to understand because I’ve been so capable for so long.

     Anyway…all these experiences have taught me how I am not my good intentions. I am just what I do with what actually happens to me. And I can’t really judge anyone. Because I’ve been thrown off pretty much every high horse I’ve ever bought.

     So in that way, I’m kinda grateful to this baby for kicking me off another horse I didn’t know I bought. I was pretty sure I’d be able to just conquer any pregnancy will a strong will and following good advice. But I know all the advice (don’t eat sugar, work out bla bla bla) and my body won’t agree with me. I used to think people just weren’t trying hard enough, if they said that. But this baby is teaching me not to judge again. And as un-fun as the experience is. I’m kinda glad I didn’t get to keep that high horse -- he was annoying anyway.
(If I get back in gear I will eat right and I will exercise -- but my heart won’t be a nut case over it.)

     I think that’s just what kids do, teach you repeatedly over and over (kinda like getting hit in the head) not to judge stuff, because you don’t actually know what you are talking about when you are doing that.

She’s taking the picture ;)

And that’s what I have to say this week.
I don’t feel great. But oh well.

Belly Comparisons:

 

 It’s cute to see Ruby acting just like Jasmine did (totally coincidentally) this week!

Baby #1

Blake and I started tossing out baby names this week, and I think that really helped me feel better emotionally. Before that I had been feeling super down. But talking names reminded me “Oh yeah I have a baby in there.” I forget sometimes and just think I’m super sick for no reason. But baby names were a nice reminder. (Whatever we pick is a surprise….so I can’t tell you what we talked about. ;) )

And in random other news…

Blake and I think we’ve finally landed on our “look” for the living room. As you saw in my last post my brain has been just hurting over what on earth to do with it. But I think we finally both fell in love with a look!
I’ll hold off on sharing the idea with you -- just in case we jinx it. I want to let us simmer on it a little longer first. But figuring that out (I think) brings me soo much emotional rest and joy. We both really like it, and really feel like it’s what the house would like too (I pretend houses are alive -- because they have personalities.) So that feels great.
(If it’s true, and IS the right look, it’s not a quick fix look. It might be a post baby kinda project to complete. But once I know that’s where we are headed, I can rest in the waiting because I know what we are waiting to do.)

I will share (With pictures!) one more house revelation I had this week though.

When we walked through the house, I pulled open this closet in the family room and laughed out loud.

I thought I’d be finding a normal closet behind the door...but instead I found this:

A flat weird space with shelves.

I’m guessing it’s where they used to store VHS tapes? But I really don’t know. It’s a very crazy space.

Initially I thought the only thing I could do with it is pull the shelves out (paint it) and hang up brooms and mops inside. I just couldn’t think of a single useful thing to do with the space other than that. 

But suddenly this week (after a whole year of thinking any minute now we’d hang up some mops) I had a light bulb just go off. 

An itsy-bitsy mudroom!

 It’d be great because our stuff ends up over our kitchen chairs all the time, and this spot is right next to our garage door where we come in most the time. It’d be way more useful than a mop closet.

And pinterest to the rescue... yep -- it could look good -- great even! 

Via

Ours probably won’t be the spitting image of this, but the general idea is perfect.

It does run the risk of getting cluttered. But I think it will be really nice. I’m thinking it will mostly be for Blake’s coat (since he’s the one who leaves the house regularly.) It’d be nice for guests at times. And we’ll keep most our stuff in the real coat closet. (Which also needs a makeover eventually.)

Anyway. I was so pumped to think of something useful to do to this goofy spot.

Stuff WE DID GET DONE this week:

Finally got the girls pink beds done. Remember way back when the grass was alive, green, and not underneath snow, when I painted one of them pink outside?

Well, we wanted the beds to have side rails so the girls didn’t roll off. Me being pregnant (and sick) and Blake being busy making up for me not moving (like doing all the dishes, and cooking, and grocery shopping for me -- I know, isn’t he awesome?) while working, didn’t give us a lot of time to make those rails. So it took us till now.

But Blake built them and then he let the girls help him paint them. :)

I don’t want to talk about how fun it was washing pink paint out of the hair of girls who HATE washing their hair! 

But they are so happy with their new beds!

 They are making hearts on their heads.

Some day when we move Jasmine’s old toddler bed out of the room and I get the space clean, I’ll take better pics of the room for a before and after kinda thing. (I hope anyway.)

And a couple other cute pics just because…

Jasmine HAS to wave goodbye to anyone who is leaving our house. Especially Daddy on his way to work.

The other day she lined up all her friends to say goodbye too. 

So cute.

And this week we started playing Candy Land -- she is IN LOVE with that!

:)

Why Isn’t Nate Berkus My Friend?

I feel like I need to call in the big guns for my living room, guys!

WHAT COLOR SHOULD I BE? I’m too boring right now.

I mean, seriously, why can’t Nate Berkus and I be real life friends, and I could just call him up like every 15 mins while I work out my mental insanity of “What the heck do I do with this living room!?!?” (Because who wouldn’t love me doing that to them? I’m sure he has time for me. It’s not like he’s possibly too busy for that.) I mean this whole thing is worse than just  "I don’t know what I want the living room to look like." I need a designer friend who I can call up and just talk about what color is, and how it makes me feel. I need a friend who therapizes with me over what stuff looks like.
It’s a near sickness how much I ponder this stuff --- I need some people around me who will just talk with me for a couple hours about it --- Come over for coffee and just play with paint chips with me, like a scrabble board of color. Because it’s fun for us.

I think I am 3 mins from really getting on Blake’s nerves. (Not cause he’s acting that way -- I just think I over do this stuff.) He listens to me. BUT he doesn’t know how little I tell him of my mental steam of continuousness. I may sound like I bring it up a lot, but compared to the talks I have in my head, I’m not even showing him the tip of the iceberg.

I spend approximately 80% of my day(s) being boggled by the shape, size and color of this space. Completely fixated on it, like my life depends on it. And I’m getting no where.

I need designer friends.

Where do I find them.

I don’t think I’m looking for free designs I can scam off a friend. I actually want someone I can call up all the time and be like “Woah, lets disscuss brass. Or NAVY!! Or wait, no I think DARK FOREST GREEN! No, no lets talk about how the way sunlight coming off snow is gonna change how much I love this color now, but I might not like it when summer sun is flowing in. "

I only like this wall color when it’s snowy outside,
which happens to be when I chose the color.
I like it right now, but had been hating it for months.
How do I resolve this?

And this person will enjoy and reciprocate. Where do I find you, design obsessed friend?


I think I need to go to design school.
Only I don’t think they have that around here -- and well I’m a mom -- I’m not going somewhere far away.
What to do, what to do?

Current color leaning for living room, but then I get captured by every pretty thing I see,
and think, “Wait no, is that a better idea?"

Right now the best I have is to follow a couple blogs, and a couple interior designers on Pinterest, and I just pretend we converse via pictures.

Right now I am reading (a non birth related book, say what!?!) “All About Colour” by Janice Lindsay and it just seriously stoking my fire to know EVERYTHING about design. Can I do design school via correspondence somewhere -- like on my own mom-avaible-time-scheduale -- somehow?

Sigh.

Ok End Rant.

(Enter Design Friend???)

See my little four year old, peering out from behind the piano?
 She might just grow up to be my design friend…she’s got a great eye already.
But right now her advice is to paint the living room pink.
And while, I have seen some pretty fantastic pink rooms, so she might not be wrong…
I would like to have some grown up input as well.

I mean, it CAN be GOOD!
Just don’t think Blake would be into it.
But I’m not revoking it’s “yeah that’s awesome” card.
via

Ok blog readers, seriously, feel free to become my design friends. READ: Comments SO Welcome! Offer up any and all design thoughts. I am CRAVING it worse than pickles and icecream. :) (That sounds so nasty!)
I’m pretty sure nesting has set in, and set in hard, in the form of design and the need for the house to get it’s booty into shape. I think my energy is coming back this week, please oh please oh pretty please be true! So I think I am gonna be up to doing some of this stuff.

If you want to know, my current super stuck designer’s block issues are these:
(If you don’t care, you can be done with this post now, AFTER you call up Nate for me, and get him to hang out with me.)

1) Kitchen color. Like I said. I chose this paint color when we bought the house and it was snowy. I was looking for something that wouldn’t fight the pinky-beige tile backsplash. This color won out of many. (It was pretty and it didn’t make the tile more pink, nor did this color look blue next to the pink -- which strangely every color somehow did -- which only made the room look like a horrible baby nursery kitchen.) But then I still hated the backsplash anyway, and painted it white. Which made the color on the wall rather unrelated to anything.
I’ve been pinning kitchens that make me want to cook when I look at them. They are pretty much white. But I don’t know if that makes the walls need to be white.
     If they were white I think they would make the wall I don’t like (plan to take out in the 10 year plan) seem a bit less obtrusive. 

Ignore messy desk…it’s not staying there.

I also think it would make the soffits over the cabinets, that I don’t like, less obvious (especially once I get around to painting the cabinets white -- not sure when that will happen, but someday before the big over haul gets here, I’d like to paint them.)
     But will white walls look boring like a rental? Should I pick second white, so the trim and the walls aren’t the same color? (How hard is it to pick two different whites that play nice?) Or is it good if they are the same color -- people like to design with trim and walls all painted one color- color (not white)?
   You guys this isn’t easy for me. It actually is my love language. To myself. I really never worry what someone else is gonna think of me when they come over, or see the blog. I just need my house to feel really, stinking good to me. My personality needs that. (Why don’t I immediately know what I like?... I’m complicated.)

2) Kitchen workspace: Since we aren’t in a hurry to tear apart our kitchen for a major makeover, I want to make it function as best as it can for now. This includes making a workspace in the unused areas. I want Blake to build me a sort of rustic-island-esque countertop thing,

General Vibe

 that will be in the shape of an “L” running under the wall window hole, and down the touching wall (where the big wood cabinet is now.)

We can put the microwave on it, and use it as more prep space. With open shelves underneath for dry storage.

And on the other side of the window, we want to have kinda a breakfast bar countertop comming through the window with stools underneath it.

If you follow that at all?
My current question is should we paint it white, or stain it wood?

White would make the space feel more open. Stain would feel more rustic and butcher-block like.
Current plans in my mind for the room is  a “white kitchen” -- at least the upper cabinets to be white, lowers TBD -- maybe a cute color, maybe black, or maybe just white? So would white, white and white feel blah? Does it need that pop of woodtone? Or would the woodtone make the space feel too tight and cramped?

3) Living Room color: I change my mind on this about every other day. I’m currently thinking that “lake michigan blue” color still.

Which does look good on Downton Abby:

But then I got swayed towards this dark forest vaugely-teal green while accidentally getting sucked into watching The Bachelor. (He’s from Iowa guys! I lived there once. I mean, how could I turn away?... Seriously I didn’t mean to... It all happened so fast.)

Via
But I mean, look at that color on the walls…so pretty.

And I had also been looking at this….

Via

So pretty in the right spaces. 

Every color is pretty in the right space.

But what does my space need? And what do I need from my space?

(Keep in mind, I need a color that works with our floors too. Most do, but not all.)

We want the room to be pretty. I lean towards English antique, "let’s have some tea in this room” kinda cozy. My favorite place in the world is our cottage and Lake Michigan -- so I just always lean towards cooler colors, blues and greens, as opposed to reds and such, because it reminds me of being there.

We also want the room to be fun and it’s gonna be a musical space -- guitars on the wall.

It’s not a small order to fill. But I’m determined to do it, and do it well.

4) Living Room Layout: I am killed by the size of this room. It’s big. But it’s long and narrow. The Fireplace is in the center. Which sounds right, but since it’s narrow, there isn’t really a way to center the stuff around the fireplace. It would leave the ends out, and make it hard to get through the room.

Also we have a piano that should stay across from the fireplace (for tuning issues, they should be on an interior wall -- that’s the only interior wall in this room.)

So far the couches feel wrong. No matter how I try them.

So I’m wondering if a sectional is better? Like an “L” under the front window and up next to the fireplace.

The only thing I’m attached to in this room is the piano. The rest of the furniture is just hanging out for now to see what happens. And its constantly being moved around by the girls.

But I still have no clue what to do with the other 2/3 of the room. 

Rugs must happen at some point. But no point yet -- before more is understood.

WHAT DO I PUT IN THIS ROOM!?

It’s a hanging out room. Full of music stuff, hopefully full of music itself. It’s at the very front of our house. You see it as soon as you open the door. 

Front door is on left -- is that little bump out thing is it’s trim. I’m standing on the stairs in the entryway.

Technically it’s the formal living room. But we aren’t formal. (P.S. I’ve never in my whole life had a formal living room, the concept is totally foreign to me. And I’ve never had a living room void of a TV, so the concept of the space needing to center around entertainment you bring in yourself is also totally new. This whole room is so totally challenging to me.)

5) Living Room Lighting: I’ve been pinning away ideas for the overhead lights we will one day add to the space. But the ceilings are only 8 ft tall. So they need to be less awesome than chandeliers. (Sad.) I’ve saved a ton of stuff. Many of them are too expensive. But I like to do that for inspiration towards a goal. My favorite right now is this one. Because it’s classy, classic and visually unobtrusive -- which leaves the room more open and bright feeling.

Via

But it’s still kinda pricey.

I kinda like this one. Maybe more-so if I painted it silver, or maybe silver leaf them. (Because silver is less visually interruptive.) But it’s entirely more affordable.

via

I have lots of time to figure this one out. And it might be easier once the rest makes more sense. These lights are something I am willing to splurge a bit on, since they can make or break the room. So we will see.

I do know it would be a lot easier if I could go through with chandeliers instead of flush/semi-flush mounts.

Ok so that’s the main things I’m stuck on these days. (There’s more, but I’ll spare you till later on.) 

If you have ANY input at ALL (you don’t need to have thoughts on all of it, just a teeny tiny thought will make me happy), comment and help me out! 

Seriously. I’m going crazy.

Pick a Color, Any Color

While on Pinterest I discovered (here) that Martha Stewart Living's paint colors at Home Depot are designed to help you create a cohesive color pallet for your ENTIRE house.

You had me at "Hello."

I am obsessed with color.

I can't get enough of them, and their nuances.

When I was pregnant with Jasmine and getting her room ready, I literally went to every paint place in town to get every single swatch of blue there was, because I had to fine the right one.

(The paint guy in one place was baffled that I'd pick blue for a girl. But It made sense to me. It was what I called Cinderella blue, and the room was decked in vintage flowers.)

That may have been slightly hormonally driven, but honestly that's basically just me and color on a normal basis.

So given that we are trying to get a lot of this new house done before we move in (well not done-done, but livable-done) I knew we'd be painting right away.

You see the carpets have all been utterly ruined by gross renter's dogs. So we have to pull all the carpets and start fresh. (Except the family room which was replaced after the dogs left.)

I figure we might as well use those carpets as a paint drop cloths before they go!

So because of the time crunch I was leaning towards just painting everything upstairs white. So it would be clean and fresh and I wouldn't have to think. (Because get me thinking and my brain goes wild and doesn't stop until I think its perfect. Which I wasn't sure I had time for.)

And while I still am leaning towards a lot of white up there, this concept of whole house color pallet is opening up new things to me on my time crunch.

Forgive the ipad for ruining these paint chips -- they look much better in person.

They have it figured out where there are 4 different symbols at the top. If you grab any color with a matching symbol, your house won't feel like it has fighting colors.

See that matching asterisk in the upper right hand corner? These all flow well together.

The home depot by us is 30 mins away -- everything seems to be. 

So I had to ask Blake to watch the girls and I ran down today.

I wasn't sure what I was gonna do, take one of everything?

But I got there and just started in the grays.

I (like everyone else) am really feeling the grays.

Call me a lemming. But I just really do think grays are a wonderful neutral. I'm soo done with cream. Our rental here is ALL cream. And I've never liked cream. I'd much rather do white.

So grey feels so decadent when my eyes rest on it.

Martha's stuff in the grays all seems to have either the star symbol or the asterisk symbol.

Since I've only been in our soon to be house like 10mins combined I don't know for sure what will work. So I grabbed one of each of the colors with those two symbols.

It was a fatty pile, but I was excited about it.

After I got home, I started holding up the swatches in front of photos I have of the house, while sitting by bright windows.

I started with the trickiest room. The family room with the red/brown brick fireplace.

For now we are gonna leave the fireplace as is.

I have no idea what I want to do with it long term, and the house has a painted white fireplace in the living room -- so I'm not going straight for the paint here. (Plus Blake is a guy and they always wanna try and keep brick and wood original....we'll see.) (But I WILL be fixing that brass fireplace cover. Brass is back, but not like that. And I'm still figuring out that mantel.)

So I'm looking for a color that makes me happy next to brick.

I went through both piles and found the ones that work for me.

Next I moved on to the entry way/ upstairs hallway. Because I feel like that is the most fundamental color of them all. I picked out the good ones for that spot out of both symbols.

After looking around for a few more rooms it became clear I was leaning towards the asterisks.

The stars have more of a blue dominance, and the asterisks have more of a green. Its hard to really explain because they both have each color -- and all colors. But the stars are more of a real blue, and the asterisks are more of a soft blue often with hints of green.

I wasn't sure I wanted to commit,

but eventually I basically did.

I did rescue out the grays from the stars, because a grey is a neutral. And I get that they have under tones, but I just had to save them just in case I need them.

I can't really share with you all the stuff I'm leaning towards, because its still vague.

But here's some I'm thinking of for the Family Room.

Once again, they look MUCH better in real life.

I'm just being lazy with the ipad tonight.

Sorry.

I have a bunch of best guesses written out. But tons of back ups for each space because you have to be in the spot to know what works.

I might be deviating big time and choosing a star for the entry/upstairs hall way.

GASP!

But I think I can do it.

(Heck, this is the first time I'm even attempting to have a whole house cohesiveness. I've not cared before.)

 

Crappy photo verbal massage: Its kinda a fleshy, ever so slightly purple, brown-gray called Cavern.

Strangely enough, it sorta looks like the wallpaper there already.

Hmm.

Now I'm second guessing it. I may have to rethink. lol.

Who knows.

I gotta see it all in person.

When I have a color palette figured out I'll show ya. (With nicer photos.)

We are set to close Thursday at 3pm!

I am so excited.

I plan to get in there and take photos of EVERYTHING, in case I need them for before photos.

And then we plan to paint, paint, paint.

Then rip up that carpet!

Can't wait!!