we've rearranged

So the living room, our most lived in and "in-flux" room, has been rearranged once again - shocker! It was feeling a little too closed off with the couch creating a "wall" between the living room and dining room. I guess it's a live and learn situation: we broke down a wall in order to open up the space and then we placed the couch in a way that the room felt closed off again. Well last weekend I looked at Rob and said "Would you mind if we did some moving" - those have to be his least favorite words. I know this is especially true because I always ask while we are watching some kind of show or movie; all I can do is sit and think about is how I don't like the space i'm in; meanwhile, he is innocently watching and enjoying whatever flick we are watching!  

To remind you what we had going on before, take a look at the picture below - tv against the wall, couch creating a wall, coffee table, chair in corner and an open wall to the left. From this angle you can't even see a bit of floor! 

It definitely goes well enough and there was plenty of room to walk by to the left of the couch but it was just not "right!" Away we went with moving, we tried a couple different arrangements before we ended here. 

The angles are a little different (and the second photo was taken at night) but the feeling in the room is much more open! We were able to keep the television and buffet where they were, the large city scape art was just moved up a couple inches to accommodate the couch and the floor lamp stayed put. After moving the couch we realized that by using our coffee table as a side table under the window (top left) we were able to save a lot of floor space without losing any surface space! And look, you can see the floor! 

Overall, much nicer and (hindsight) it should have been set up like this all along. It's a nice configuration for conversation as well as tv watching and there is a lot of open space for extra chairs when we have people over! 

The dogs love it too, we had my cousin's little girl over the other day and it gave them plenty of room to play!! They got some major lovin' that day! 

        

I know some of you will think i'm crazy, and I think that of myself a bit for even thinking it, but I think I am going to repaint the room. There is still something off about the space; it's a little too warm with the furniture that we have. I won't go back to white, that was too cold but I may offset the warmth a bit with a soft grey... I don't know yet. Painting is such a huge undertaking but it's worth it. I think we will live as is for a bit and see what I decide with color before making any hasty decisions. 

Any color recommendations for this room? What color would YOU paint it!?

some color inspiration

Walking into a paint store, looking online at colors or shopping at home depot (with their terrible lighting) is an overwhelming event when you are in need of paint for your home. It's so hard to think about a two to five inch square as a color that will cover your whole wall.

To alleviate any pains of paint purchasing on your part, we have put together a fairly comprehensive paint palette for any style of home. I know people who would use every color in one category and others who would mix the categories up! It's all about your personal style and what makes you LOVE your home.

Before we show you our choices, we wanted to share some advice that we learned a while back: It's easy to fall into the trap that every room in the house should be a different color - even if they look good in the scheme of "matching" - but in reality all those separate colors create some serious home A.D.D. ha! Use a color to complete two adjoining rooms (ie. kitchen and hallway) to create some serious flow for your home!

We decided to use Benjamin Moore as our source. We love the quality of Benjamin Moore paint and have known these colors to be pretty true to their swatches. Needless to say, any color from any company can change based on the individual circumstances: primer used or not used, base color, wall condition/type, etc..

We compiled six different categories for your inspiration!

 COOL BOLDS

COOL NEUTRALS

WARM BOLDS

WARM NEUTRALS

WHITES

BRIGHTS

Imagine these colors not only on walls, but trim and ceilings, as accents, back splashes, furniture and more!

What's your favorite and where would you love to use it!?

let there be darkness?

As you might have seen in yesterday's post about our new bedroom furniture we also spent the weekend painting the walls of the bedroom. Last week we painted the ceiling and though we liked the color it was darker than we had imagined it being. It was "sitting" atop the white side walls, and the light grey ceiling look heavy and a little bit clumsy.  

Enter step two of painting and step four of our bedroom upgrade: grounding the walls with a dark color on the sidewalls.

The paint we used on the side walls was Armory by Pittsburgh Paint; again I only paid $10/gallon for this paint and ended up using less than half the gallon. We decided that the rich color, which plays off the blue in the ceiling, was a perfect color to ground the room. 

***Disclaimer: the dark carpet, whose days are numbered, should be ignored completely! We are choosing color schemes with hardwood or cork flooring in mind. 

Painting with a dark color, like we did in the hallway, is always simultaneously exciting and nerve-wracking. Because the color is such a stark contrast to its surroundings there are more chances for bleeding, uneven lines, etc.. To alleviate most of the worry, I arm myself with many painting cloths as well as my handy short handled paint brush to get the job done. Painting cloths are the best, made of old t shirts, they make the best wipes for getting into tight corners and cleaning off molding. 

       

During the edging process, the color was reading much more brown than we had hoped for. The color swatch, shown above, looks more like the ceiling color than the wall color but we just crossed our fingers and kept on painting. 

     

After the first, very splotchy coat we were left with a good feeling. Even though the color was still reading a little more brown than we had hoped, it was doing the job of grounding that ceiling and making them feel light and bright in contrast! As you can see above, we opted not to paint the "end walls." We thought adding that much darkness to the room would make it feel like a cave. 

You can also see the way the walls and the carpet are fighting one another, it's driving us crazy for the time being but we are putting our blinders on until our wallet is ready for us to change up the flooring. 

     

After two coats, the second with a roller, the color smoothed out and was giving us warm and cozy feelings! Even though it still reads a little more brown than we thought it would, we love the color and are happy to walk upstairs into our new and improved room. 

     

Above you can see where all three colors come together: white molding and end walls, Benjamin Moore Winter White ceilings, and Pittsburgh Paints Armory side walls. Doesn't it just make you smile?

Painting the bedroom: CHECK!! (phew!!!)

Here are a couple looking forward / next project peeks for the bedroom!

Left: The 15 drawers that are built into the wall of the bedroom are currently natural wood, as you can see below. I got a little over zealous and (just to see what it would look like) painted the top left drawer the same color as the walls. Eventually all the drawers need to be taken out, emptied, sanded and painted but that will be another day! 

Right: The built in cubby space that is right across from our bed (at the foot) needs reorganizing and a paint job. Currently, the center section houses my jewelry, rob's watches, etc.; really, it's just a catch all. I want to change it around so there are more shelves in the middle and make the back of the right cubby a place where I can hang my necklaces. We're not sure what color we will use for the back of these cubbies but I can only imagine it will be one of the existing colors in the room. 

   

Lots of things already accomplished and still more to do! For now we are enjoying our cozy space and counting down the days until the carpet "meets its maker", ha!

Until next time,
Lindsey

we're moving up... about five inches

This weekend was chalk full of activities and projects. We spent time with both sides of our family, played games, had dinners, and really enjoyed ourselves! In between all that good family fun, we worked on projects around the house, mainly upstairs, and scored some awesome deals on items for our home!

One of the things on our to-do list has been getting our bed up off the floor. We have been waiting to either build a bed frame or find one that we liked and in the meantime (the past four months) our box spring has been right on the floor. It doesn't really make sleeping any different but the bed is lower and it's hard to vacuum close by the bed. Adding a bed frame was always in the playbook for us, we just weren't in any hurry. 

Once in a great while I check Craigslist just to see what's happening out there and what may be available. Nine times out of ten when I do this, I don't find anything but that one time of ten is when I find something that we actually need that is in great shape, for an unbeatable price. Enter Wendi and her craigslist posting for a bed, chair, night stand and dresser all for $280 bucks! We don't need a dresser or night stand because of all the built-ins in the room but the bed was exactly what we were looking for and the chair was a perfect addition that we didn't know we needed wanted. In total the bed and chair were supposed to cost $110 (according to the original ad) but she gave them both to us for $100! Both pieces (valued at around $300) are in almost perfect condition and if we hadn't said anything, you would have thought they were brand new! 

Rob managed to fit the whole bed (disassembled) into the Torrent with the chair, what a guy! It was definitely a squeeze but we made it home. After some painting [we'll fully reveal that excitement in a post tomorrow] we were able to assemble the bed and waalaa! the room was transformed. For some reason, Rob and I equate nice bedding and bedroom furniture with the idea of being a grown up - who knows where that came from - needless to say, we were feeling mighty grown up last night when we stepped back and took a look at phase three of our bedroom process! 

     

     

Rob did most of the assembly while I handed him what he needed (and took pictures of him working). It wasn't hard to put together and thankfully the people we bought the bed from had opted to separately buy the slats for under the box-spring, always a nice addition. Once the bed was assembled we tipped the box spring and mattress back down and made up the bed. 

   

We like how the light wood offsets the darkness of the room and with the addition of the chair, it has something to match. Currently the built in drawers and railing around the staircase are a sort of dark cherry colored wood, but eventually those will be repainted and the natural wood look will be gone for good! Also the carpet, the purplish blue "elephant in the room", is being completely ignored during this process because it isn't going to last very long - our color scheme is designed with a wood or cork floor in mind. 

   

We are very pleased with the "final product" for stage three of this bedroom makeover. The chair and the bed tie together with their light wood, the fabric on the chair goes perfectly with the color scheme of the room (it's a burlap-y tan), the paint is working exactly how we wanted it to - here's your sneak peak at tomorrow's big reveal, and because I can't just leave a corner without flourish I added some empty gold frames for interest! All in all a successful weekend and a great deal! 

Did any of you snag some awesome deals this weekend? Take on a fun house project? Share what you are up to with a comment on this post! 

Until next time,

Lindsey 

*** In case you were wondering, our nosy pups were safe in their cages during this process so they didn't get into something they shouldn't. "How happy were they about that?" you may ask. Well, let me just say that Oswin is in fact not sleeping in this picture. When I got near her to take a picture, she closed her eyes in protest. Yes, she is that dramatic! As soon as she heard the camera noise she perked right back up and looked straight at me. WHAT A GOOBER. 

bedroom upgrade: step two

Last week we finally changed our mindsets about our upstairs, bungalow style bedroom and decided that it should be just as "finished" as the rest of the house. Our first step in that process was getting some new bedding - a simple change that made a nice amount of difference while we were still living in a very large, very white room.

Step Two: Painting the angled ceiling

This past weekend we resolved to getting some color up on the walls / ceiling of the bedroom. Now, it's not as simple as picking a color and simply painting the four straight walls because as you can see in the "original" image above, the shape of the room is not typical. The angled shape creates an overbearing amount of white ceiling when left white. Merely painting the limited wall space isn't a strong enough contrast in a room of this size. In light of this, we decided to switch things up a bit. 

We chose to use the same color that we used in the dining room: Benjamin Moore White Water which I snagged for $10/gallon. When we painted the dining room, the color read a little more blue that we would have hoped but we still ended up loving the contrast it created. We thought having that nice "light blue" feel on the ceiling of the bedroom would be nice and cozy without feeling too heavy. 

After edging in along 22 edges and around 2 light fixtures, not only once but twice (gotta have good coverage!), I was feeling the ceiling painting pain. There is a lot of ladder standing when there are that many edges!! 

When I was ready to start rolling, I made sure to tarp below where I was working. It's amazing that the tiny little paint drops get all over everything - myself included! I channeled Dexter (the tarping not the stabbing) at some points during the process, but all in all got the impression that it would be very hard for him to do all that tarping and wrapping on his own - always a critic. 

After two coats of paint and some death defying balancing over the stairwell shown above, the ceiling was painted and the room was looking cozier than ever! 

   

The color, which read blue downstairs, now reads completely grey up in the bedroom. Crazy how paint can trick you! We weren't disappointed though; the white pinstripes of molding along the middle panel add depth and character that would have been lacking had we been able to just paint the whole ceiling as one smooth surface. So far, we are pleased! 

We have more plans for the bedroom but they are constantly changing and morphing with every task we take on. For now, we are loving the warmth of the colored ceiling and our new bedding! You'll just have to wait and see what is next. 

Until next time, 

Lindsey 

***It's always so fun when I am painting to have Rob come into the room I am working on and express his thoughts, usually along the lines of "Wow!" or "Looks great!" Since he promises that he is a terrible painter, he hold the dogs at bay to keep them from becoming my next paint project and comes to see me with moral support and an occasional Diet Coke! Gotta love that team work!