We’re slowly but surely making good progress on the house, so that we can move in by the end of this month – I hope. During the first week, we painted all of the bedrooms, and I finally finished touching them up on Friday. The back bedroom, which was in the most dire need of transformation, is going to be Keegan’s office.
I’m not thrilled with this particular shade of green – I wish it had a little more gray in it – but I think it will be okay when the furniture is in place, some art is on the walls, and the window treatments are up. Regardless, this room looks a million times better than it did before. I didn’t paint the closet doors because we couldn’t figure out how to get them off the tracks, and I’m hoping they’ll be replaced some day (soon). That large column to the left of the window in the first two photos conceals the venting for a wood stove in the basement. I don’t know whose idea that was, but I would love to ask what they were thinking. I hope they really enjoyed their wood stove. This room also received new carpet that was repurposed from the front of the house.
The master bedroom “before” was perfectly fine, but I like dark, cozy and slightly masculine master bedrooms. I painted out all of the trim in Behr Ultra* matched to Martha Stewart Bone Folder, with the new baseboards yet to be installed. The wall color is Sherwin Williams Quiver Tan. It looks really gray in this photo, but it’s more of a deep greige. I love this color so much, and am so glad I decided to go darker than I originally planned. The ladder is over by the doors because the cheap tape I used to tape off the wood let paint bleed all over them, and I spent a good hour getting it off.
In the guest room, I went really dark. One of the previous owners (probably whoever installed the wood stove and the paneling with integrated wallpaper) added a three season room onto the house, which means that this room gets no natural light because its only window looks out into the three season room. Rather than try to lighten the room through wall color, I decided to embrace its cavelike quality. The color is Martha Stewart Mushroom, and it’s a really dark warm charcoal. I’m planning to incorporate lots of white accessories to offset the walls, and I’m thinking about using yellow as a accent color. This room didn’t get new carpet…yet.
Maybe you noticed the lovely ceiling fans in the office and guest room. I dislike ceiling fans, but I think they’re a necessary evil. I would much rather have a pretty chandelier in a bedroom, but that chandelier won’t keep me cool when it’s 80 degrees at night in the middle of August. As a compromise, I would like to get new fans that don’t have integrated lights. I heard a great quote from Candice Olson yesterday: “When you light everything, you light nothing.” This statement totally sums up how I feel about ceiling fans with lights…what is the point? This type of light just makes everything look washed out and over-exposed; however, these are perfectly serviceable fans, so I’m going to replace their blades with ones that don’t involve material that should only be used in antique chair seating.
Next up, painting the living room and the kitchen cabinets simultaneously. It’s all about multi-tasking.
*I’m using Behr Ultra throughout the entire house, color matched to Martha Stewart and Sherwin Williams colors. This paint really lives up to its reputation – two coats, no primer necessary, even to cover those horrible blue stripes. I highly recommend it.