Wednesday, April 28, 2010

"We're" Repainting

When I was brand new 'lil baby homeowner two years ago I made a few small mistakes with regards to paint.

My first mistake was thinking that the Mr. and I were capable of paining our own home. We are not. We just don't have the painting gene. Or patience. Or any talent at all.

Seriously, we spent an entire weekend painting and all we had to show for it were two rooms with some seriously uneven paint and jagged trim. We then hired painters to fix our awful paint job and to complete the rest of the house. Outsourcing lesson learned. We. Do. Not. Paint.

My second mistake was thinking I could figure out what an entire wall or room would look like based on paint swatch. Wow those little paint swatches can be deceiving!

I've always loved the colors we chose for our bathrooms and master bedroom -- but the paint scheme in the other rooms just never quite did it for me. I blame the tiny swatches.

So as part of kitchen upgrade project "we're" repainting our entryway, kitchen, dining room/living room, and hallway. And just for fun, the office too. (note: click the links to see how they look currently)

And this time around we're doing it right...

First, we've hired painters. That why "we're" repainting is quotes.

Second, we bought little paint pot samples in several colors from Home Depot. Then we tested the paint on several giant pieces of poster board and taped the poster board to the walls to visualize the color better. It's SO much easier to tell how the color will look when it's covering a wall when it's on poster board!

And this weekend we decided on the following colors...

For the entryway, hallway, kitchen, and living room/dining we chose, "Sand Fossil" by Behr.


And as a small accent color for the living room we chose "Mojave Sunset" by Behr.


And finally for our beachy office we chose "Surfer" by Behr.


The painter is coming this week to give us the final estimate based on what's being painted and should get started painting next week. I can't wait!

Did you make any painting mistake as a new homeowner? How often do you repaint your home?

18 comments:

Kel said...

I hope it turns out great!

Mrs. Carioca said...

That's a great idea about testing the color on poster board. I was just going to test the color on the wall and it would look really bad if I never got around to painting the rest of the wall!

alyssa said...

love the blue!!!

Lindsey said...

Gorgeous colors!!

Sara said...

I'm pretty good at painting while my husband won't go near it. Which is kind of frustrating since I don't feel like paying a painter, but end up doing most of it by myself.

Those are great colors; I especially like the blue-green for your office.

Becky said...

We painted three bedrooms, a hallway, kitchen, and small bathroom last fall when we moved. We didn't do a terrible job, but the trim could use some work. We are planning on putting crown molding up, so we don't see the point in really fixing the trim work just yet. We'll see how it goes! Good luck with your project.

Pollyanna said...

Very pretty colors. I'm pretty good at painting, but when we built our house, I hired that job out. I had just painted the old house to get it ready for sale. I had just helped my pregnant sister by painting her house so she could sell as well. The last thing I wanted to look at was another paint brush. The professionals had about 1500 square feet painted in a couple of days - it would have taken me two or three weeks to accomplish all that.

michelle ellis said...

I love those colors! Enjoy "painting" :)

Meant to be a mom said...

Love the colors. Good luck on the painting. Not so fun, but the end result is always so nice.

the BLAH BLAH BLAHger said...

I had painters when I first moved in and made the mistake of painting my bedroom BRIGHT yellow. The painter, in his broken English, told me "eet's like soonshine." I repainted after a couple of years and can't believe I lasted that long!

Jamie Pickle said...

My mistake was never painting. I always had bland yellowish/beige walls. Now we are hoping to move soon, so I don't want to spend the time and effort.
Love the colors you chose!!

Shoshanah said...

When we moved into our house we wanted to get rid of the wallpaper in the kitchen. And everyone says you can't paint over wallpaper, so we started trying to remove it because it was supposed to be easy. Turns out we wound up practically destroying the walls in the process, and really should have just painted on top of it all. I guess lesson learned for the next time we buy a house with wallpaper.

AC from ATL said...

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Crazy Shenanigans-JMO said...

I love those colors! I bet it's going to turn out great!

Perfectly Imperfect said...

I SUCK at painting. I did one wall in our room when we moved in and the hubs had to redo it. Then he banned me from painting. I just don't have the patience! Your top two colors look a lot like colors we have in our house. And our office was a blue like that til we made it Baby Girls room. Can't wait to see how it looks!

Our Happy Married Life... said...

hi! Just found your blog. :) I hired the painting as soon as the home was bought. No painting for us. No way! :) We actually didn't even move in until the painter was done. Love your colors.

Fabiola said...

I have NO CLUE how to do it!!
We are in serious need for some painting in our house and we will hire someone soon, because I don't trust myself or my Hubby to do it ; )

kanishk said...

That's a great idea about testing the color on poster board.
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