Goodby Cruel Chair Rail.......

Finally! The living room painting project is complete, and I think it looks mah-velous. We changed our paint choices about four times before settling on Rugged Suede and Grey. The first brown was too dark, though I liked it, and the first gray has too much green in it. This brown is lovely, and the gray has more blue in it, and they work so well together.

As I'm apt to do, I wanted something different. So, as I was painting out the trim, from brown to ivory, I brought the trim color down from the crown moldings about two inches and up from the baseboards the same amount. Then, with my trusty ruler, I measured down from the crown about and inch-and-a-half, and taped a half-inch piece of painters tape all the way around the room leaving a half-inch gap between the crown and the tape. i did the same to the baseboards, only the gap was three-quarters of an inch.

Then the painting began. The long wall, er, the art wall, as that's where our watercolors will go, went Rugged Suede, while the other three walls went Gray. And the results, i think, are beautiful, and more importantly, Carlos likes it, too.
Now.....to the hallway and beyond!

Painter Man

Semi-Sweet and Cathedral Stone

It's hot. And sticky. And I hate it when I get all hot and sticky...well, some of the time.
The weekend is over and it seemingly just started. One minute there was a Friday night cocktail, and then it was Monday morning. In the old days that would have been the sign of a really fun weekend, but nowadays it's just a sign of Old Days. But I digress.
I'm on yet another painting binge at Casa Smallville. This time it's the living room. When we moved it, it was painted a very delicate shade of light blue, above a chair rail--do not get me started on chair rails--and then there was some sort of painting technique applied to the wall below the rail. I swear to Ellen, the people who lived here before we bought this house never met a hideous color, or an outdated painting technique, that they didn't slather from stem to stern of the house.
Navy blue sponge-painted kitchen? Yes, we had that.
A flesh colored dining room? Check!

Chair rail and stripes! Ack!

The aforementioned striping below the chair rail--which really just looks like the paint ran, and they called it art. Indeed!
A pineapple wallpaper border in the master bedroom that wasn't actually applied to the wall, but was, instead, stapled, top and bottom, all the way around the room!
Yes, I know you feel my pain.
But, back to the living room. The chair rail was removed, and the walls patched. The crown molding and the baseboards have been sanded and primed, and mostly painted a lovely shade of ivory. Now, comes the time for picking a wall color. And this is where the trouble starts.
Carlos and I never agree on color. I like something a little unusual, a little dramatic. I see the room as a whole; the paint, the art, the furniture. Carlos sees just the color of the wall. And, to be fair, he likes the freaky. He, and I'm biting my tongue here to save you all from a slew of curse words, was thinking of painting the living room lavender.
I know!
La-ven-der.
Oh-em-gee.
Luckily, I was able to persuade him that lavender wasn't really the right color for the room. You know, I said, the furnishings are mostly earth tones, in greens, golds, browns, so lavender would stick out like a sore gay thumb. And it may have been the eloquence of my anti-lavender argument, or it may have been the hammer I kept swinging in my right hand, but the idea of lavender was shelved. Lavender! I mean, we're gay, not queer. I kid. We're queer, too.

The recently painted mantle will soon match all the trim.
Chair rail down, but note the chair rail in the hall!
In The Hall!!!!

I explained that I wanted the neutrality of gray. Gray, with my ivory trim would be lovely, especially when we install carbonized bamboo flooring. But, I also I wanted an accent wall, and I wanted a darker shade of gray there. So we researched grays. Grays with blue. Grays with green. Grays with with brown. Even grays with a hint of purple, that looked, yes, lavender, Those I hid from Carlos.
And we settled on a gray with some blue in it. For about five minutes, and then it was back to the paint store for more samples. And I found it.
Gray. or, as the paint store called it, Cathedral Stone. And the accent wall in Semi-Sweet. it's like a church for chocolate. I bought sample-sized cans and came home and painted splotches on the walls. Carlos, who was working in the yard, came inside, saw the splotches, and promptly made a gurgling, hissing noise and fainted dead away, while muttering, 'Too dark....too dark....too.....'
But I think, on the one wall, covered with our collection of watercolors, the Semi-Sweet is gonna look All-The-Way-Fabulous. I even brought out some of the paintings and held them against the wall.; Gorgeous. I showed him different colors and how they looked against the gray. Wonderful. I even promised that his antique writing desk would look fabulous against a Semi-Sweet wall. But, I also promised to live with it for a few days. 
The first day, I changed my mind, and agreed with Carlos.
Too dark.
Now, I'm not so sure....I could switch the Semi-Sweet for Rugged Suede, which is a shade lighter, and then switch out the Cathedral Stone for something which might be lighter, too. Or, I could go with my gut. or i could go all Rugged Suede Cathedral Stone.
What to do.....what to do.
I hope the room is done before Christmas.
Our tree would look amazing in the Chocolate Church.

It's A Paint-A-Thon

Casa Smallville--Before



Casa Smallville--After

Well, another painting project down, and still a few more on the horizon.

As I've said before, when we bought Casa Smallville, we loved the house. We did not, however, love the choice of paint colors used by the former owners. The kitchen was dark blue......sponge paint. I know! And the master bedroom; ah, what a thing of beauty. The bottom six feet of the walls were painted a deep dark, murky blue, while the top two  feet were painted a shade of blue I will call battleship. Bridging the gap between hideous and hideous'er, was a wallpaper border with pineapples and fruit cornucopia on it.


 

The Hannibal Lecter Dining Room

 I.Know!

The day we moved in the house, I decided to see how much trouble it might be to removed the pineapple border. I saw one edge, near the door, had lifted up, so I gave it a tug. Imagine my surprise, when the border began pulling away from the wall with ease. It pulled away from the wall all the way around the room.

Why. you may ask? 

The former owners had simply stapled the border to the wall.

I.Know!


The Nursery Dining Room


The dining room, well, it was flesh colored, with some sixties, or early seventies, brass-and-glass light fixture in it. And since I am neither Hannibal Lecter or a Time Traveler from the past, I opted to make that my second painting job--after ridding the kitchen of the Navy blue sponge paint. 

And I didn't want a red dining room because it's been done. So, I opted for blue. I selected a gray blue, called Oxford Blue, because it looked far different from the kitchen paint I'd just hidden away, and I instantly painted the dining room Oxford Blue.

And it looked plain.

So, I taped off stripes, and purchased some Oxford Blue in a satin finish, and went at the dining room again. I painted the wall below the chair rail the same color as the trim, so it might look better. And it did....until that first family dinner.


Aaaah, Green!

 I sat at the head of the table, looking at my Oxford Blue, matte and satin striped walls, and thought, Hmmm, we need to get a changing table and a crib in here.

Yes, it looked nursery.

Time for a change.

I went from Oxford Blue to a deep dark Forest Green, and when we bought the new dining table and chairs--in a color called Ginger--along with a new lamp, it looked beautiful, except....

Tape It Off.

I missed the stripes.

So, rather than buy a gallon of Forest Green in satin, I did some research and discovered I could use something akin to Polyurethane, called PolyCrylic, which came in satin, to achieve my matte-and-satin stripe-age.

Well, furniture was removed, measurements were taken, pencil lines drawn, tape applied, and then i hit it with the PolyCrylic; two coats. It gave every other strip a slight sheen, and gave some added detail to walls I already loved, because they were no longer flesh colored, or looked like a Little Boy Blue room.

Aaaaah, now on to the living room.

Now, to be fair, Carlos had his own painting project.

Shortly after we moved in, we had pot lights installed in the kitchen, a new fixture over the island, and one over the kitchen table.

With the removal of the old fixtures, the ceiling had to be repaired, and Carlos took that on. It had to be re-textured and then repainted. He did the re-texturing in record time....about six months.

The repainting? Well, that took a bit longer.

Three.Years.

Then, this past Sunday, out of the blue, he got out a ladder, some sponge brushes and paint, and painted the kitchen ceiling.

Three.Years.Later.

I couldn't figure out why he decided to do the ceiling, until I leaned the next day at Post Apocalyptic Bohemian--thanks Stephen--that Sunday was Michelangelo's birthday.

Now it all made sense.