Check and check

Goals for this week were to finish painting the living room and hallways and to decide on a color for the trim. Mission accomplished! We ended up giving puppy to her grandparents for the weekend so she could hang with her aunties (her favorite rottweilers) and so we could accomplish more than usual without all of the driving back and forth. Living room, kitchen, dining room, and ALL of the hallways are painted, talk about exhausting. More exciting... not only did we decide on a trim paint color, but we got it all taped and painted too! I could not love it more! We've been color matching and using the Ace Royal collection of paints because they were highly recommended over big box brands and half the cost of Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams paints and we have no complaints so far. Our trim color is called Chalk and is the whitest white offered by Ace.

I think this picture does a good job of showing the trim before and after. Our new bright white is along the horizontal trim and the creamy, kinda dirty looking white up all around the door still. It was dark out by the time we got around to painting trim so we decided that removing our front door from the hinges probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. For now we're dealing with the mismatch and have a new project on our to do list. Hopefully removing, and more importantly reinstalling, the front door won't be too hard. I would love to paint it when we take it down, but B and I haven't come to any sort of consensus on a color. It just seems so unnecessary to do the same thing twice.... we'll see how this one plays out I guess.






















I love how much more crisp the gray looks with the super stark white. We have been using satin finish for the walls because B liked it more than eggshell but went with a high gloss for the trim. As white as it is I want it to be easy to scrub clean if it gets scuffed or otherwise dirtied. We're still trying to figure out the door situation. My original thought was to match the doors to the white of the trim but as I sit here I am dreading the amount of cleaning that will lead to.

Pinterest may have inspired me to take a different direction with the doors, particularly this image from Moore Designs:

The post has information about painting doors and vanities so check it out if you're at all intrigued. I love the side by side comparison.  Fortunately we were already planning to paint the doors, builder white just looks dirty next to our beautiful white trim, so I'm not TOO worried to tell B about this new huge project.

Next on our list: buy a washer and dryer, buy a refrigerator, paint the master bedroom.

Paint and things

We're finally getting back to the house. Yes, it has been nearly a month since we closed but no, we're not living there. We decided to try and finish everything BEFORE we move in. Little Luna sheds like crazy... worst labradoodle ever.

 

If she wasn't such a sweetheart it would be annoying, definitely not what we thought we'd be getting with a labradoodle but it is what it is. But since I don't want to paint her hair onto the wall, because it will inevitably end up everywhere, we're painting and then moving. 

After a lot of research, I think I have every paint chip ever in our bedroom right now, we (I) finally found our wall color for the main living spaces! It is called Repose Gray from Sherwin Williams, it is a nice somewhat cool gray. I thought I wanted pretty beige walls but we're loving the grays right now. 

I cannot believe how many shades of gray there are! We also considered Revere Pewter from Benjamin Moore, it is a really pretty color but is a little warmer than what we wanted. I'm picturing soft dove gray walls with a really stark white trim and dark wood furniture.

Painting is exhausting. I loved the vaulted ceilings in the living room/ dining room area when we bought the house but after a day of painting, and knowing we have more in our master bedroom whenever we get there, I'm much less in love. I'm not necessarily afraid of heights, but balancing on top of a ladder painting trim is not high on my list of favorite things to do. We didn't make it nearly as far as we wanted to, but B and I were to tired to do more and had to get back to puppylove and get her dinner.

Not the most attractive picture of me but it is how I spent pretty much the entire day. The wall to the right of me peaks a bit higher than this wall. Even up on the next step of the ladder I had to stretch to reach, my sides are already hurting. Hopefully this process gets easier as we go along. I do love the wall color though!