Before and After - Part 3

We finished the last big push on the painting Friday - yay yay yay! I still have the living room that needs to be done, but that's on the back burner until we deal with the cords. And my parents are flying in tonight for a week's visit so I won't be wanting to paint anyway. Breathing a bit of a sigh of relief over here. It's been a long haul with the painting and I absolutely cannot wait to throw away the brushes and drop cloths!

Friday's project was the sun room. It went from this: To This!: I had an extra can of red from the dining room and not wanting it to go to waste the sun room was elected to be red. As it turns out, it didn't cover as much as we thought it would and we had to run to get one more can right in the middle of the project. Lucky for me, my husband unexpectedly had the day off, so he did the running part and I stayed in my paint clothes and rested my back, then finished it off myself when he got back (while he went out bowling with the guys - I'd be more annoyed if he hadn't just got off a stretch of 12 straight work days so I was fine with it).

Earlier in the week I had taken on double paint duty - both the playroom and the guest room, since they're connected to each other. It still only took one day, but oh what a lot of painting went into that day!
The playroom Before: (of course I didn't remember the before shots until I was partially done taping)

and After: excuse the toys. It's a playroom, they're inevitable. I know you know that, so you forgive me for not cleaning up before I took the photos, right? I'll do a beauty shot later when I get some things up on the walls.

The guest room Before:

And guest room After: We already had the headboard and the quilt, but the mattresses are new. Hope my parents enjoy them.

As you can see, we've been using the khaki color (technically it's Behr satin paint, color: Garden Wall, just in case you were wondering) on most of the rest of the rooms so the house doesn't start looking like it has multiple personality disorder. I also painted the master bathroom (khaki!), but neglected to take photos. I'm sure you'll be seeing some final photos of it once I get some of the more decorative projects done.

And with the nice weather we've been having this week, we were happy to run across a good deal on patio furniture for the screen porch. I have a feeling this area will be getting a lot of use soon.

There you have it. Hours and hours of hard work summarized in just a handful of photos. I get a lot of satisfaction out of knowing I'm almost done (almost, almost, almost!) with this stage of the settling in and will soon be showing you all lots and lots of fun projects! Enjoy the week! I'm going to see how well I do with "slowing down" for a few days and pretending I'm on vacation right along with my parents.

Before and After - Part 2

I've been painting! And I tell you, my poor hands are really taking a beating. It didn't show up as well as I had hoped in this photo (because I really want sympathy haha) but all my nails (except the pinkies) are chipped and broken and crooked. My hands are completely dried out, no matter how often I use lotion. And the two fingers that I use on the caulking - those were bleeding at one point they were rubbed so raw. I'm certainly due a really nice manicure once all the large projects are done, don't you think?

I paint in bare feet too :)

Ok, enough of my silliness. Get prepared to ooh and ahhh over the last couple weeks' progress on the house. Keep in mind that we've had really rotten weather lately so the lighting on a lot of the photos isn't the best - sorry.

The Dining/Craft Room Before:

And After:
I just love the red. I call it my happy color. I can't wait to get this room all put together. It's going to be SO pretty. How can it not be with all that great paneling and the tray ceiling and the wood floor and... :)

The powder bathroom also got the red.
Before:

After:
Love the towel too. We happily treated ourselves to new towels in the powder, the kitchen, and the master bathroom shortly after Christmas. The little things make a big difference sometimes.

Next up was the master bedroom. Before:

Tray ceiling in here too. Painting the dining room and the bedroom was a big pain because we had to do the ceiling. They were great and put crown molding up there, but instead of matching and the ceiling color they used an off white while the trim is more white-white and the two colors together...ick! So, annoying as it was, the ceilings got a coat too. And in case you are wondering - the big push to get everything painted ASAP is in part because of the paint the contractor used. Again, we have the color issue with off-white walls and white-white trim. But they also used FLAT paint on the WALLS. So it looks like everything has really only been primed. And anytime you even touch the wall it gets marked or scratched. It really has to go. Anyway...

Here is the master After:

We kind of ended with a bit of the red/white/blue thing going on and that wasn't the intention. We just loved this shade of blue. The bedding will be updated eventually, along with new furniture at some point. It's kind of low on the list of things to do right now.

And finally, Sam's favorite of the recent projects. The garage.
Before:
a giant stack of boxes and totes. At the time I took the photo we were in the middle of putting up shelves but these had spent most of the past month filling Sam's side of the garage, forcing the truck to park on the driveway. (I'm told the truck was very upset about that :) )

But we took advantage of a couple of snow days (still can't get over how easily they cancel school and work here!) and got to work. Sam installed a whole bunch of shelving and we went through the boxes. We filled the back of Sam's truck with stuff for Good Will (how that much stuff made it past all the earlier sorts at the old house, I have no idea) and managed to fit everything else on the shelves.

And here is the After, for now. The wire shelving we pulled out of the house will hopefully made it to Craig's List soon. The chairs and hoses and things will be given hooks on the walls. And the rest of the wood...well, I'm sure we'll use it somewhere. I have a feeling I'll be doing one more final After shot of the garage at some point.

Yes I know we have a ton of stuff. The whole right wall up there is holiday decorations. Bet you all have this much too hiding somewhere right? The perfectionist in me would love to stitch everything out for matching totes with perfectly typed up labels....maybe someday huh? I still love it. And Sam loves that his tools all have shelves and that his truck can now park in the garage.

The last little bit of wall by the door to the house. Didn't Sam do a great job on all the shelves?

Oh, and a peek in what we are now using as our paint cabinet. (it was in the laundry/pantry at the old house)

Now I'm off to do some work on the laundry room. It might be the first room we completely finish in the house and it's gonna knock your socks off... :)