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Another Big Bite

Another Big Bite

Tag Archives: painting

What’s wrong, Lisa? Are you CHICKEN??

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Fixing Up the House

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

boys room, decorating, diy, finn, house, kids room, painting

I was going to paint Finn’s entire room charcoal gray.  But I was terrified to do it.  Chicken, actually…

While Nathan was out of town for a few days on an exotic business trip to Pennsylvania, I decided to get cracking.  Before that body was even cold, the kids and I were waltzing into Home Depot as the store was opening its doors.

Let us have a moment of pause for the level of dedication required to get the kids up, ready and at Home Depot at SEVEN IN THE MORNING on a Sunday.  Woman on a mission, I was.

Before...

Before…

When push came to shove, though, I decided to paint one wall really dark, and the rest of the room a light gray.  I semi-chickened out.  Buock, buuuock.

I got busy taping and prepping so that the moment Alice was down for a nap, I started to paint the dark wall.  The color is “Intellectual” by Behr.  Is that the most ridiculous name for a paint color, ever??  What color were you thinking of painting your guest room, Lisa?  Oh, I cannot decide between a light remorse or a deep, deep hungry.  Or, maybe I should go with something a little more startled-ish?  Once the first wall was done, I was luuurving it.  Oh, this was amazing!  What was I worried about?  Awesome!!

Yes!! Yes!!!

Yes!! Yes!!!

I was even more excited than usual for bedtime.  As soon as Finn was out cold, I moved him into my room, pumped quietly rocked-out the Mumford and Sons.  I went with Martha Stewart’s “Cement Gray” for the lighter color.  Once it was on the walls, it looked, well, like a cement wall.  I religiously follow Thistlewood Farms’ advice on always going a shade darker than you think.  It has served me well so far.  Now?  Notsomuch.  It looks like a prison cell in here.

Whomp, whomp.

Whomp, whomp.

But, it is only paint.

Just paint.

OH GOD, I’m gonna have to paint again.

Or not.  This will do for now.  Maybe once the walls have some art on them, and the roman shades are up (which I have decided to go with white since the room is so dark), it won’t look so bad.  Right now I am patiently waiting for some supplies to come in from Denmark (oh, now you’re curious, hum?) for the art I plan on making.  The bed/loft will be painted white, so hopefully that will brighten up the space.

For now, a teentsy part of me feels a twinge of guilt when I send Finny to his cell room.  (As for every other fiber of my being, the entertaining irony is not lost on me.)

Get back in your cell!  Don't make me get the hose!

Get back in your cell! Don’t make me get the hose!

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Putting Our Best(ish) Foot Forward

27 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by anotherbigbite in Fixing Up the House

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Tags

curb appeal, front door, painting

It seems like every list of tips associated with selling your house demands that you paint your front door.  And when your front door is a 1970’s, white, plastic-medalioned, six-layers-of-paint-peeling-down-to-the-steel DISASTER, you should probably follow that advice.

Yeaahhhh… That’s is indeed the “after.”

I wish I had a really good picture of what it looked like before, so you can see what an enormous improvement it is.  This is in no way perfection, but I’ll be damned if I drop another $500 into a house we are selling.  I know, everyone does RED.  With a front door as atrocious as this one, I didn’t want to draw too much unnecessary attention to it.  If we went red, I’m betting it would have looked something like this:

Not QUITE the look I was going for, though she is totally rockin’ it. via advancedstyle.blogspot.com

So I chose grey.  “Seal” by Martha Stewart to be exact.  With a house as yellow as ours, I’m not really sure what would have been a better option.  This, by the way, was supposed to take my mom, grandmother and I an afternoon.  They ended up staying an extra day because it ended up being such a pain in the ass.

First, we pried these bad boys off with a putty knife.  I know, I mourned the loss of them, too.

Which left huge, gaping holes.  Nice.

So we sanded, filled them with “steel door filler” and sanded again.  Then filled them again.  And sanded.  AGAIN.

This was the point where I started to panic.  We opened up the can of paint, and I started to think I made a huge mistake going this dark.  It was like every episode of Trading Spaces EVER.  Open the paint can… And gasp.

But, we got THREE coats on, and I felt a little better.  Then I broke the door handle; successfully locking myself in the house and my mom out of the house.  This led to one of my legendary panic/temper tantrums.  But, as always, Mom saved the day. I’m thinking about loaning her out to crime rings to pick locks.  Email me if you are interested.

In the end, I just have to keep reminding myself that this is a VAST improvement over what it was before.  We interviewed our first real estate agent, and I swear she flinched a little when I told her that we had just repainted it.  Whatever.  We are making the best with what we have.

Case (or door) closed.

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