Numbers

Oh. Hi.  We’ve been keeping ourselves busy with some projects around the house the past few weeks.  The main one?  Painting.  Ohhhh painting.  Let’s break it down by the numbers.

20 – total gallons of paint we purchased

6 – gallons of paint we originally purchased, thinking it would be the color

1 – number of times we had the original 6 gallons of paint re-tinted after we hated the color

5 – number of “sample” quarts we purchased after we hated the second color (and after we painted the entire downstairs in that second color that we ended up hating)

3 – gallons of primer we had to use after the second color

11 – number of gallons of the final color, and we used every last drop of that 11 gallons.  Sheesh

4 – days it took to (finally) paint the entire house

7 – total days spent painting over the course of all of the mishaps

14 – number of feet the ladder was that we had to rent to get to our high ceilings in the entryway

1 – number of times I climbed that ladder and subsequently freaked out and refused to get on it ever again (fear of heights right here)

1 – number of times Cooper threw a quart of chalkboard paint onto the floor, where it busted open and spilled all over.  Luckily it was on the wood and not carpet, and came up easily.

So, there you have it.  In case you didn’t catch it – we originally chose to paint the same (gray) color that we had painted our old house.  So we bought it, and proceeded to paint.  Well, in the new house, that gray paint looked…lavender.  Seriously, it was little girl’s room purple.  We had purchased 6 gallons of that non-refundable paint color. And we hated it. (No, stupidly, we didn’t test the color before purchasing all of that)  Ugh.  So, I went back, they re-tinted it for me, we tested it on a wall and liked it.  So, I proceeded to paint the entire downstairs.  And when I was finished, I looked around…and hated it!  Ahhh!  I wanted to cry.  Lee probably wanted to strangle me.  So we started completely over and sampled a TON of colors, and finally ended up with one we liked (we painted a ton of samples, and then one entire wall of the one we thought we liked best, just to be sure this time!). 

Here are all of the colors we tried.  The main wall color is the second try, the re-tinted version of the original.  It looks gray on here, but it was more of a smoky blue.  I told Lee it reminded me of a man-room color.  Which is fine.  But not for our entire house.  The lavender is around the top.  The one we went with in the end is the far right swatch on the top.  It looks tan-ish here, but it is almost a true gray in person.  (This picture was also taken at night, and with my phone)

I took last Thursday and Friday off work, thinking I would be able to get our entire house painted in that time.  WRONG!!  It also took the entire weekend, and lots of Lee’s help to get all of the high areas.  I still have not cut in around the trim upstairs.  I finally stopped about 5:30 on Sunday night and just couldn’t do it anymore. We will finish that this weekend.  Whew.  I am SO SO glad to have this behind us!  Even without all of the paint color issues, this was a much larger task than I had been anticipating.  I am used to painting.  We painted our last house 4 times in the 5 times we lived there, and it was never a big deal.  But that was also a 1,000 square foot house, with 7 foot ceilings.  Much easier than our current home! It’s a good thing that I didn’t think about it too much before I actually got into the whole process.  And thank goodness for a tall husband who is not scared of heights!  I could never have done that entryway on my own!

Now I am on to the next project, curtains!  I ordered the fabric on Monday, and I can’t wait to get it in and get started!  It took me so long to choose a fabric (shocking, right?) and I absolutely love the navy and white ikat. (none of those paint colors are the one we went with, btw)  

I can’t wait to have the curtains up and get some stuff on the walls!  It’s only taken us 9+ months to actually start decorating :)