Making a House a Home - Painting

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This October will be exactly two years since we moved to Idaho. Two years to learn how to decorate, paint, knock down walls and make small renovations and attempt yard work and actually have a lawn to mow and TONS of weeds to pull. We have been really blessed to be able to stay in my Mother in laws home for a few years before she moves up here. Because we're not "regular" renters, we got the green light to do anything we wanted...

First thing we did was paint. No offense to the previous renter but the colors in the entire front living areas were CAAARRAAAZZZYY. I know everyone has their own taste and I know she loved them but I couldn't hang. Here are some before pictures. They are not the best quality but you get the idea. Ignore the dirty house. They were plain white walls with a painted brown chair rail and a blue on the bottom.

Gotta love all the different swatches everywhere.

I spent a long time thinking about colors and bringing home swatches and every time I went to Home Depot or Lowes, I always stopped in the paint section. I knew I wanted either yellow, beige...maybe green. Oh but I like grey too. I had tons of swatches lying around and even bought some sample pots to paint on the walls. Even though we were given free reign, I still worried what my Mother in law would think and constantly changed my mind. Besides my Mother in law (Molly), I also have a Brother in Law and his wife (Chris & Clara) living right across the street. I worry waaaaaayyy to much what people think so it took me forever. Finally, after three or more swatches were up on the walls I gave up and decided not to think of what Molly would want and went with what I have always wanted...beige for the front room. Here are the only pictures I took, It's hard to remember to take photos along the way! As you can see, we have vaulted ceilings so the ladder was used a lot. Pain! Looking so much better though and the nice thing about wanting wainscoting is not having to go all the way down the walls. ;)



The color I chose was Water Chestnut by Glidden. I love it! It's a light sandy color and looks awesome! I really like Glidden paint, the only thing I would do differently is get the paint+primer in one which I heard Wal-Mart now carries. I was able to get away with one coat of primer and 2 coats of paint but if you could skip a step, all the better.

The living room and kitchen were almost as fun. I used Behr paint, Provence Cream...so pretty. I was so worried about getting something too bright but this turned out so good. It's amazing how many different shades of each color are out there. No wonder it took me so long to pick. Again, I didn't get any good before pictures so here's the best look of what it looked like before.

The living room, gotta love the sponge effect. It was like a putty color. So weird...next era please.

The kitchen was a little darker but still had the same sponged technique.

This lovely sponged color was on one entire wall and the rest was the darkest color you see in there. Ew. And not the best choice for the back of the house where there isn't a lot of natural light. Okay so back to the living room where I first started. This room was a nightmare! I've never really painted before so I had no ideas what I was doing and HGTV makes it look so easy. They just roll it on right? Wrong. Here's what happened first. We have a couple of missionaries that wanted to do some service work and they volunteered to help out. Despite my initial control freak thoughts, I told them yes. Besides Paul sleeps most of the day and with these guys helping out, it'll get it done in no time right?

Well...these guys are like 19 and 20 and have NO experience whatsoever in DIY as I came to find out. First thing we did was paint the ceiling because everything I read about painting said to work your way down. I picked up a huge bucket labeled "Ceiling Paint" at Home Depot and went to town. Now because the ceiling was already white it didn't even occur to me to put primer first. Yeah so three coats later it still looks like crap. The walls went a tad smoother cause these lovely young men were helping out but one broke the extension rod and I had to go back over everything a third time anyway because when they rinsed out their roller it was waaaayyyy to wet and basically "washed" the walls. Our neighbor girl was begging to "help" too but there was no way! This was turning out to be a nightmare. Are some things just easier to just do yourself?

Even Rylee got in on the action. It was definitely a learning experience!! The kitchen went smoother because I basically did it by myself over a few days time. I knew we wanted to add crown molding so it did make it a little faster not having to cut in along the ceiling. And the windows will all be framed in so I skipped those too.

When we pulled out the stove to paint back there, this huge gap was behind the counter. Talk about a waste of space. If we had more money, I would definitely put in some new cabinets. But a fresh coat of paint will make them look good at least.