There's nothing like a fresh coat of paint

We've been in our house for 3 years now. I moved in and immediately wanted to paint every room, but life with 2 small kids and 2 working parents doesn't work that way! So, I, like you, can't do it all at once.

We've painted our main living space and bedrooms and now we're finally moving down to the family room. Poor, neglected family room—it's your turn!

This weekend (and well into next week) we'll be painting this room Sherwin Williams' Ryegrass and we'll be painting the ceiling either Ryegrass or Shagreen (it's easier for me to make decisions for others than for myself!). Oh, and we're painting the ugly brick on the fireplace—SW's Dover White.

Keep your fingers crossed for an easy painting job and stay tuned, because you know this means great before and after pictures for you!

What are you painting? What have you put off painting? What are you waiting for?

How I love a great flea market

Oh, how I love a great flea market. There's no better way to spend a spring morning. 

It's a shopping trip full of possibilities. You never know what will be waiting for you at the various tables. There's the digging and hunting and bartering, and the idea that you might go home with something really unique or special—at least to you! This is "green" shopping at its best.

My style is somewhat eclectic, so I don't like everything matchy-matchy or new. I like to mix old pieces with new things, or with gently-used pieces. Some need paint, some need nothing at all. The ability to see the possibilities is what makes it great.

Here are a few tips if you are considering going to a flea market.

1. Go early. Be the first one there! This will ensure that you have a chance to see the best stuff.

2. Have an open mind. You need this in order to buy someone else's "junk." 

3. Don't be afraid to ask questions. You can barter on price, ask for a special deal if you buy three, ask if the seller will split up a set at the end of the day if it's is still there (most people do NOT want to take stuff home).

4. Make it YOURS. You can paint almost anything so don't let things like an ugly color get in your way. If you love the size and shape of a table but it's not a color you like, buy it and paint it! (The ways in which you can jazz up junk are endless—cover it in fabric, cut it down to size, add a wire screen, hang it on the wall, etc., etc.)

5. Don't think too hard. Remember, this is about finding objects you really like, things you are drawn to, don't worry about where you'll put it or what you'll do with it when you get home. My experience has taught me that if you love it you'll find a use for it!

6. It's not over till it's over. I once bought something from someone who had already bought them from a vendor. I really, really wanted them and just asked if they'd be willing to sell them to me. They did!

7. Have fun. Even if you don't find that "perfect" piece enjoy the weather and the friendly conversations and remember, there's always the next time...

My favorite flea market was scheduled for tomorrow, but I just found out it is postponed until the following weekend....I guess that's just more time to imagine the possibilities!

How does your bathroom measure up?

I have to start this by saying that I really am not obsessed with bathrooms, although looking back over my past posts you may think I am. Now that I've said that, here's another bath/restroom-related post!

I recently spent a great weekend in NYC—specifically in Brooklyn. (On a side note, if you've never been to Brooklyn make it part of your next trip to NYC—it's a wonderful Borough, full of great restaurants, shops, a farmer's market and a beautiful park.) While there we dined at many great restaurants. As you all know by now, I notice things like decor. All of the restaurants were beautiful and unique—until I made it to the ladies restroom.

I left a beautifully-decorated seating area and once in the ladies room (of one restaurant in particular) entered what looked like a roadside rest stop bathroom! Ewww. I'm talking below average. It was like night and day. The friends we were visiting live in NYC and shared in my observations. I couldn't understand why the restaurant had stopped decorating at the bathroom door!

In all fairness, most restaurants we visited had LOVELY bathrooms and this made me very happy. I feel that a bathroom should match the rest of the building. It should not be an afterthought, but a factor in the overall design plan.

This got me thinking about our homes and bathrooms—specifically do they "match" the rest of our home's decor? They are such small spaces (even when they are big, they are small compared to living spaces) they can be overlooked OR that can make them an easy choice for a makeover.

I recently worked with a client on her master bed and bathroom. Through paint and a few accessories I was able to transform her bathroom to match the bedroom (which also received a slight update). 

I've included some before and after pictures here. It's now a room they enjoy versus just a room they have to use first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Don't you deserve a room like that?

How does your bathroom measure up? Would a fresh coat of paint and new window treatments breath new life into it? Should you retire the mats on the floor? Add art, a new mirror and a colorful shower curtain. Who knows, it might just become your favorite room in the house! 

Painting our family room

Terrapin Green

I'm on to my next painting project, but I need your help! I'm trying to select a color for our family room. Please help me via the poll I've set up on this page.

Brookside

Blue Danube

The various color choices are shown here. The room has dark brown wood floors, a light tan sectional and borders stairs where you can see some brick red paint.

As you can see, I'm leaning toward a blue or green. What do you think? Even though I help others select paint colors for a living I sometimes need help in my own home! 

Please vote for your favorite color. Now if I could just find someone to help me paint....

Salamander

Eucalyptus Leaf

How to make smart color choices

With spring around the corner color is about to surround us all—that Mother Nature has an eye for color, doesn’t she? I have good news. You don’t have to wait for Mother Nature to add color to your life. Painting is the most affordable and easiest change you can make to update your space. If you are afraid of selecting color fear not, I’m here to assist.

Let’s talk about some common myths and I’ll offer a few helpful suggestions.

Myth: Dark colors make a room feel smaller.
Not necessarily true. High contrast between large pieces in a room make it feel smaller because the contrast highlights the size of the room. It breaks up the room rather than expanding it. If you paint your room dark blue and have a sofa of a similar shade they will “blend” and open up the room. If you are painting a room a dark color just keep the contrast of large pieces (sofas and curtains) down and you will expand the room.

This of course also means that light colors don’t necessarily make a room feel bigger. Again, contrast impacts that perception.

Myth: When decorating, pick your paint color first.
Paint is available in ANY color. If you can’t find the color you want on a chip, a paint store can custom mix a color to match anything. So, since sofas and bedding are not available in ANY color, begin your color selections with the large pieces in your room. Then, pick a paint color to coordinate. It doesn’t have to match exactly, but should compliment the larger pieces in the room.

This is not to say that you can’t decorate around a paint color—for example, if you know your décor will be black and white the sky is the limit for wall color—but selecting paint first can limit your choices in other areas.

Myth: If you like the color in the store you’ll like it at home.
Please, please, please do not go to a paint store, pick a color from a chip and go home with a gallon of paint. There are so many reasons why you should not do this. The first is that a tiny paint chip cannot begin to show you how actual paint will look on your walls in your house.

Every color looks different in every space. Your room’s light, floor color, furniture and surrounding room colors will impact how a color looks on your walls.

Here are my suggestions for selecting paint colors for your home.
Based on the note above about basing color on furnishings in your home, visit the paint store and select as many paint chips as you like and think might look good and bring them home! Feel free to bring inspirations with you to help you make your decision. Take 10 strips of blue, take 20 if you need them. It’s okay; they are free.

Once home, use painters tape to attach the chips to the wall. You need to look at the colors on the wall—not in your hand. The color looks different at different angles. Try to narrow the colors down to 2 – 3 that you like.

Next, buy samples of each and paint a 2’ x 2’ size swatch on your walls. Make sure you do two coats if needed. You want to see how the colors will really look. Look at the colors in the day, the night, give them a few days to make you happy or turn you off. Go with your gut. This is not a time to talk yourself into something, it will not look better with time!

If you like the color a lot but are worried about painting an entire room X color, select one wall and paint that wall. Select the wall your eye first sees as you enter the room. You may love it enough to paint the entire room, or you may just leave it on one wall. Finally, if you are making a dramatic color change make sure to use the right primer, your paint supplier can provide the right primer for your color.

It’s not unusual to experience a bit of shock when a room is painted a new color, but these pre-steps are the best way to “test drive” a color and reduce the post-painting shock.

I can’t tell you what colors to pick (unless I'm in your house!), but I know this will get you off to a great start and I always encourage folks to try new things in the world of color…be brave!

My home's ugly duckling grows up

I'm very happy to report that our home's ugly duckling has grown up!

Our downstairs bathroom was so ugly and "off" it made me cringe every time I used it—or walked by it. Check out a few of the "before" pictures.

It's really not the room's fault (it never is, is it?). The previous owner went to the home store and asked for all of their ugly bathroom items and put them all in one tiny, awkwardly-shaped, oddly-laid out room. 

Starting at your feet there was a sheet of linoleum covering the floor—your basic white with diamond shapes in a blueish color. It was slightly peeling up around the edges.

Next is the space ship tub/shower—this is still with us, but we've now hidden it—it's one big piece of plastic enclosure with a ceiling and for some bizarre plumbing reason it sits about 6" up from the floor. Oh, and it had sliding doors, so you could see inside the ship! I've really never seen anything like it.

Then there was the toilet's position. It sat at a 33 degree angle in a corner, opposite the corner sink. It just messed with my mind that it wasn't at a 45 degree angle or straight. More on that later. Then, above the toilet the aforementioned previous owner recessed a cabinet in the wall. So there was/is a random, not-especially-attractive cabinet door on the wall over the toilet. Odd.

The lighting over the corner sink and cabinet is just sitting on top of the cabinet (we haven't fixed that YET, but it is the next step and requires building up the cabinet and mounting a new light...).

This is getting long, but stay with me!

Let me take you back to my Jan. post, "Dreaming of the after." I wrote a bit about working on said bathroom, but there's a story behind the story. Last Dec. we had an issue with the toilet backing up. Enough said. So, the same night we brought home our freshly-cut Christmas tree, my husband spent the next 24 hours in the bathroom cleaning up and fixing the plumbing problems. 

The floor came up (yipee!), the molding came off (great!) and we HAD to do an instant update on that room. Luckily we had already picked out a floor tile in anticipation of an update. It's a nice tan and brown pattern with flecks of blueish grey.

Once the floor was down we put in new, custom 6" molding and trim to cover up the fact that our tub sits on a wooden frame. When the toilet went back down we discovered it was never in the right position (I could have told you that) at 33 degrees from the corner. It was intended to sit straight out from the wall! It looks 110% better and it's the same darn toilet.

When we first moved in we took the doors off of the space ship and made a shower curtain rod out of piping parts because (and, you'll be shocked here) the way the shower is positioned there is no place to anchor a rod, so we had to make one that curved one side and was straight on the other...pretty ingenious if I do say so myself!

A fresh coat of paint (covering the cabinet over the toilet so it "disappeared") in Sherwin Williams "lazy gray" really makes the room peaceful. New shower curtain, mats and towels (the new towels are tan, not white as pictured) finish it off. Light coming next. Art to come soon. I'm thinking beach pictures from past trips.

Best thing about our new swan—it cost only $205. Once we add a light and art and we'll finish up around $300. Not bad for a face lift in our ugliest room! Now onto my office....the new ugly duckling!

Dreaming about the "AFTER"

I love a good home project. 

There is always one going on at my house (seems that every room is in need of some sort of update). Pre-kids my husband and I would get a room done in a weekend -- paint, build, arrange furniture and hang pictures. Now, with two little kids we don't move as fast (okay, we move very, very slow) but, we still move. My husband would much rather watch football, but he always joins me as my "labor."

For me a good home project is a thrill. I get a rush out of it -- out of the AFTER. 

You've seen the shows where they show the "before" picture and then they busily create, labor, move, create more and BAM -- the "AFTER" is achieved. Well, at least they make it look that easy on TV. Anyone who has ever done any home project knows that's not the case...but I digress.

It's the thrill of the AFTER that motivates me to spend night after night, free hour after free hour, painting, planning, hanging, nailing, agonizing over color, size, the right curtains, etc. My problem is that I can see the AFTER so clearly in my head that I can't stop moving until I get there. 

We're currently redoing out downstairs bathroom and we just put up new 6" base molding. I was recently on the floor of this tiny bathroom putting another coat of white gloss paint on the molding and I was excited about it. Yeah, that's right. I was excited. Painting molding on the floor of a tiny bathroom doesn't sound too exciting, huh? But, the AFTER got a hold of me. After the molding comes new lighting, new paint on the walls and a new shower curtain, bath mats and maybe towels. Along with the recently laid new floor and repositioning of the toilet (long story), we'll have an updated room. I'm giddy just typing this.

The AFTER usually means a lot of time, learning something new, researching how-tos, reading decorating magazines (pure heaven in and of itself), shopping, asking tons of questions and maybe making a mistake along the way, but that's all part of the AFTER process.

And I LOVE every bathroom-floor-minute of it!