I'm Dreaming of a White Ceiling

Hello to all - I hope you are enjoying your holiday season and hopefully many days off from work or school.  My husband is home all week which means any project that is half finished will be pointed out to me on a daily basis...sometimes multiple times a day.  It is time for me to kick it into gear and finish a few projects that I have been too lazy to get to.  I am vowing to complete 1 "almost finished" project a day until new years.

Day one - Finish painting the ceiling in our Bedroom!

When we decided to stain the floors we moved everything to the Kitchen/Family room (as seen here) we also decided since everything was out of the bedroom it was time to purchase our much longed for (and currently on sale!!) PAX wardrobes.  This pic does not show our doors as they are now discontinued but more on those in a future post.

Hello, Lovaa!

Once we bought them we realized they would have to be built in our bedroom or they would never fit through our crazy 6 doored hallway. I put them together in the room and called E to help me stand them up - you need 2 people for this task or they will break!!  I am a true DIY'er and I never want any help but TRUST ME on this one.  Of course, once they were up I realized if I didn't paint behind them now I would never do it.  I realize no one would ever see the wall but I also knew I would not be able to sleep knowing what dirty little secret hid behind our wardrobe.  So the painting began.  Oh - and why put together the wardrobes and THEN paint?  That is a question we will never be able to answer but we vow to NEVER do it again!

I started with the trim, top and bottom in Freshaire (which is NO VOC) semi gloss available at Home Depot. and quickly realized how dingy the ceiling looked next to my freshly painted trim.  The good news is I already had bought the ceiling paint, also Freshaire from HD, as it was on sale for $8/gallon!  The bad news is - when you are painting a ceiling with 2 huge wardrobes in the room and a ceiling fan still attached you are bound to have a few problems maneuvering.  I decided I would put the wardrobes in the middle of the room and then paint the rest once I moved them to the wall.  By the time I finished painting everything (as seen here)  it was too dark to even see the ceiling so I decided to wait until morning.  By morning I was so sore from painting the ceiling - anyone who has painted a ceiling knows exactly what I am talking about - so I decided to wait till the next day. Then the next day came and I was too lazy to get all the paint stuff out again...then the next day and the next.  It is now over a month later and I still haven't painted the leftover patch on the ceiling...until today!

Before - Dingy Beige :(

After - Nice and White!

I realize the pictures came out a little dark but with the flash on it was a mess so this is the closest I could get to the true color tone.  I am so delighted to tell you that all it took was 5 minutes of prep mainly to cover the bed with plastic, 5 minutes of painting, and 5 minutes of clean up to finish the long awaited completion of this project!  15 minutes and $0.  I am checking this off the list and off to hunt out tomorrows project...

Bianca

PS - Any ideas of what type of lighting I should put in the bedroom?  We had a fan there but it was loud so we never used it.  Also, E is VERY sensitive to drafts (kind of like an old lady :) ) so we were thinking of skipping the fan all together.  Let me know what you think!!

Bedroom Paint Color...the friendly confines of an Olive Branch...in the Afternoon Shade?

When deciding to paint the bedroom I consulted my all time go to guide - The Pottery Barn Catalog  - which is where I stumbled across the photo to the left and the Benjamin Moore paint called Olive Branch. I fell in love. It was a beaut! I put all types of swatches up on the wall but kept coming back to that color...not on a swatch but on my computer screen. It was the ONLY color I didn't have an actual swatch for. I did a little research and found a coupon for 30% off at Sherwin Williams which just happened to be right down the street in our new hood. Off I went with my top 3 color swatches and Olive Branch still stuck in my head. It had taken me the better part of the day to pick a color in my house and once I was there I pondered for another hour. Yes, an hour. I finally decided, sans swatch, to go for it! Olive Branch was my match meant to be. My mate, my partner in crime, the Clyde to my Bonnie.

I know, I know. I could have had the guy make me a little tiny tester color. I know I could have gotten off my arse and made it to Benjamin Moore a mere 20 minutes away. I know I could have done a lot of things including considering the nice rich Olive Branch color in a small room with a lot of furnishings. I did none of those things, my friends. Instead I went all out and grabbed myself a gallon of expensive (though not too expensive with 30% off) No Voc paint in Olive Branch which they specially mixed for me. Ho Ho Home I went...is it too late for a Santa reference?

Welllll...as most can imagine things did not turn out as planned. The paint was too dark in our little room - especially at the end of the day since I took so much time to decide. I finger painted it up on the wall straight from the gallon and tried out every wall with a little dabble. Yes - I am too cheap to use a brush for just a tester spot. My fingers are available - I have 10! - and easy to clean. They are also FREEE! So finger painting works goood for me. I am a professional people! Once it was up I quickly realized this was not the way to go. It was like an army barracks in there. It did not look as warm and inviting as the nice Pottery Barn bedroom above. I am VERY grateful I did not waste the whole gallon of paint to figure this one out! So back to Sherwin Williams I go...to get paint choice number 2 - Afternoon Shade. I cant find a swatch online but it is available at Home Depot or you can have another paint store mix it which is what I did...I had another 30% off coupon people!!

Back with paint color #2 I can say I have now found the Peanut Butter to my Jelly! She is gorgeous and spa like. Just the right tint of blue with the right mix of green. Here is a pic of it quite literally in the afternoon shade...

Though that isn't the best quality or lighting for a really good shot it was the best I could do at the time since I had no lighting in there...we can talk about that in the next post! Looks pretty good with our newly stained floors!

Lessons learned....

-Everything looks better in a Pottery Barn catalog!!

-When you have a small room or even if you have too much furniture in a big room you should always choose a lighter color.

-Spring for the little test colors if you can afford them. It will save you time and money if you decide the gallon you just bought is not going to work for the space! The only way to REALLY tell is when it is on YOUR wall and on EVERY wall in the room. Colors change with lighting and when you have windows on some walls and not others it will make a difference from every angle.

Ta ta for now - off to work on the office...still...

Bianca


Top photo courtesy of Pottery Barn Catalog - the rest are mine, I swear!