So many options...

I picked up paint chips at Benjamin Moore on my way home from work last week and have been staring at them taped up on all the walls. We are definitely decided on the colors for the bathroom (soft fern) and the office (cedar key), but the living/dining, craft, and master bedrooms are all still in the option stage.

Last night I picked up 8oz paint samplers of four colors for $3 each. Definitely think it was worth spending $15 to double check the paint options, because now I'm totally confused!!

We are thinking gray, or greige, for the living room/dining room and down through the hall. I like gray and think it will go well with the fireplace, but was worried about a cool gray not going with the beige carpet and couch.

The two colors are Benjamin Moore's Light Pewter (lighter) and Revere Pewter (darker). I've seen pictures with Revere pewter in rooms and in no way does it look this dark!!

Granted these pictures were taken at 8pm last night with no natural lighting whatsoever, but still. There Revere is SO DARK!

I think it might have a little more personality than the Light Pewter.

But a whole hallway with Revere Pewter might feel like walking into a cave.

On the other hand, we painted both Light Pewter (left) and Misty Gray (right) in the bedroom.

I couldn't believe it when I put the Light Pewter on the wall.  Compared to the hallway, holy moley, it's super dark in this room!

The Misty Gray is even a little hard to see, but I think it might just need a third coat in order to cover the yellow.


All of our walls are currently a really pale cream/yellow, almost a buttercream. They are light, so I had assumed we wouldn't need to prime, but it is really showing through these light gray colors

Above is Benjamin Moore's Yellow Freeze. It was NOT what I was expecting. I might try out the original yellow I had been thinking for the craft room - Moonlight.

 Just to give you an idea of what I had been thinking, these are pictures of Revere Pewter on the walls.

Traditional Living Room by Decatur Architects & Designers TerraCotta Properties

Contemporary Dining Room by Toronto Interior Designers & Decorators AM Dolce Vita

This is the Misty Gray we liked for the bedroom.

Midcentury Bedroom by Vancouver Interior Designers & Decorators i3 design group

The yellow that got me thinking...

Contemporary Kitchen by Menlo Park Architects & Designers Ana Williamson Architect

The green for the bathroom.

Traditional Living Room by San Marino Interior Designers & Decorators Charmean Neithart Interiors, LLC.

Cedar Key for the office.

Traditional Living Room by Portland Interior Designers & Decorators Garrison Hullinger Interior Design Inc.

Well, what do you think?

The Before Pictures

I last posted in July. Apparently I've been busy. You know, summertime, planning a wedding, blah blah blah.  But now that I'm back in the game, I can show you what I've been working on. That last post, saying all I needed was ribbing on the sleeves to finish my dolman sweater? Yeah, that hasn't happened yet.

What has happened?

BOOM! We bought a house.

So far it's just been a lot of unpacking boxes and setting in and remembering where everything is, but we are about to get to work on some things.

(These are all pictures from the listing, so all the furniture is staged.)

This fireplace? Not doing anything with it.

This one in the basement family room? We are buying a gas insert this weekend. 

This bathroom in the basement with cork floors? Not touching it.

The hall bath upstairs will be getting new tiling sooner rather than later due to a crack or two in the surround. And the faucet already needs a repair...

Our third (!!!) bathroom will stay as is. "As is" as in WONKY! This room has three doors, one to the basement, one to the backyard, and one at the top of the stairs into the hallway. I think the fact that it is the laundry room, too, glosses over the wonky-factor.

Dining room? What kind of updates can you give to a dining room??

Ah, yes, the kitchen.  What you are looking as is an oven that is probably original to the house, i.e. from 1962.  I imagine we will get frustrated with the uneven, slow heating coils and touchy, overly hot oven at some point in the next two years.

I'm sure that from the first picture of the front of the house, the first thing you thought was "What, no garage?" I know that was my first impression of the house (before I went inside and saw the wonky bathroom). I'm still disappointed about the lack of garage, simply for the space for storage and projects. But we do have something almost as good, but a quarter of the size....

The shop room! This room is great. It's unfinished, so we can pretty much do what we want with it. It has a window so it could technically be turned into a bedroom, except there isn't a closet. We will just be using it as a shop for now. I put together two storage racks and now all of our camping, gardening, and snow gear, and even holiday decorations, have a long term home.

Last but not least...

The back yard. Mostly shaded by the douglas fir growing through our deck (yeah, you read that right) and a couple of hemlocks, it is currently mostly moss and mushrooms. The shade doesn't bode well for my future gardening attempts, but that probably won't stop me. I'm anticipating building a few raised beds along the decrepit chicken wire fence. But that's another project on the list...

The first batch of After pictures will be arriving soon. We plan on painting most of the upstairs the week of Thanksgiving.