Dining Room Status = Almost Done

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

What a LONG, EXHAUSTING day!

And it’s not over yet.  I still have to go for a 12 shift at the hospital.  It’s going to be a long night.  Good thing there’s this thing called COFFEE that will help me survive.

So if you ever paint, just remember that trim work always takes FOREVER.  It doesn’t seem like it, but it will.

We started at 11:30 am and didn’t finish until 3:30 pm–4 hours later!  But it made a huge difference.  Trim work is one of those things that when you don’t do it, someone will notice, but when you do do it, then no one will really notice, because that’s the way that it’s supposed to look.  Kind of frustrating.  Whenever I do it, I have to remind myself that the final result will be so awesome.

Trim color in paint can…Magnolia Blossom, basically a cream

Some examples of how trim work can make a difference…

Before… (window sill)

After…

Before…(window frame)

After…

Before…(window sill again)

After…(ignore the trim on the baseboard…has not been done yet)

Before…(vents)

After…this made a big difference–because there was wood showing

The only thing that is left to do in the dining room is to hang the pictures, get either blinds, curtains, or both, and something to put in the one empty corner (possibly a large floor vase filled with some cool organic sticks, if you know what I mean?, or maybe a large plant?)

The room with all the furniture moved back in…it looks so great!–at least in our opinion 🙂

Another view…the pictures are really going to pop against the deeper green, even the floors seem to look better

Charlie relaxing on the drop clothes…he is SUCH a cutie…

Same old ceiling fan, BUT with new pulls–more modern look, I actually don’t mind the fan anymore, whereas before I thought it was kind of old-fashioned looking…

UPDATE! I just got cancelled for the first four hours of my shift!  Woo–woo!!!!  I’m so excited.  I truly needed this today.  My feet are so sore from painting.  Maybe it is just a mental thing, but it is so nice to go in for 11 to 7 because there are no 10 pm meds to give, it is less busy, there’s NO chance that I will have to go to two floors.  It’s great all around 🙂

I made a wonderful smelling dessert tonight with RHUBARB.  Recipe to follow tomorrow–just to make things exciting!

Hope everyone has a great night…the week is flying by!

Dining Room Status = 1/2 Way Done

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

It’s hard to believe it is quarter of midnight.  This day FLEW by!

A lot got accomplished though which is a very good thing.

Kimm and I got up by 10 am and then had some coffee while we sat with our laptops–me checking in on all my blogs, and her on her New York Times.

But eventually we had to get to work.  By quarter of noon we were ready to paint!  I was so excited to begin.  There’s nothing like seeing a brand new color go up on the wall.

So the colors are…(DRUMROLL PLEASE…)

Dining Room: Olivine

Living Room: Mississippi Mud

Trim: Magnolia Blossom

These colors look so good together…

All the paints are Behr.  After using the Behr paint, we both REALLY liked it.  First of all, it was really thick.  Second, you could not smell any painting fumes.  Not at all!  Third, it cleaned up really well–it spilled on the floor in one spot and wiped right up (we had spilled the Glidden paint upstairs when we were painting the bedroom and it’s STILL on the floor–nothing we tried got it up).  And lastly, it rinsed super easy from the brushes and our hands.  Definitely a winner.  We are going to be using this paint for the rest of the rooms.   Which is really good, since I like their colors a lot.

The color of the paint in the can!

The original room color…a very pale green (it almost looks tan in this picture, but trust me, it was green)

Yay!  The first stroke on the wall (here you can really see that the color we chose is much bolder)

Here you can really see the difference in the two greens.

Trim work (please excuse the bed head!)

Charlie making sure we do things right 🙂

Miss Madeline watching as well, from a very precarious perch!

Of course we completely underestimated the time that we would need to spend on that one small room.  The actual painting with the roller went by fast–Kimm has that down to a science.  However, because there are two doorways and two windows in the room, there is a LOT of trim work to do in the room.  And that is what takes the time.  This time we did not use the painter’s tape because we found that last time it didn’t really provide a straight edge.  So it was just slow going trying to make sure that every edge was straight.  That is the perfectionist in me!

And then, while we thought that we might only have to do one coat, it turned out that we did have to do a second coat.  The lighter color was still showing through in spots with one coat.  But we did that after we ate “lunch” at 3:30 pm!

Before the second coat (I thought I had taken a picture when it was all done, but I didn’t…I must have been TOO tired!)

We finished the second coat at about 6 pm and then headed to Rocky’s to get a few more painting supplies–and Kimm picked up some knee protecters.  Her knees are all red from kneeling on them to get the bottom portion of the walls.  Then we headed to Target to look at either blinds or curtains for that room.  Can you believe that we have lived almost 6 months in this house with NO window treatments on the first floor?!

We did find some ivory crushed voile curtains that we both liked, with some black rods.  I think it’s going to look very nice, especially when the breeze is blowing in the dining room and the curtains billow out 🙂

So the the dining room is painted, but tomorrow we have to do the trim.  Hopefully we will only need one coat of that since the color is very similar.  We are estimating about 2-3 hours.  And then we will put up the curtains and move everything back in.

I can’t wait to see the final effect!

But right now I am heading to bed because I’m exhausted and my feet are so SORE 🙂