Sprucing up the Powder Room

While I was painting the kitchen, I was brainstorming paint ideas for the other rooms. I got filled with this manic energy to just paint everything so that the house was officially fresh and all ours. The bathroom and the playroom were the first things I had to tackle.

The bathroom was just painted this icky yellowish white that was apparently deemed neutral by someone but just seemed dirty to me, and a bathroom is the one place that you do not want feeling dirtier than it already is. Sorry these before pictures were taken right before I started painting so it is already a bit disheveled.

I did not  take any progress pictures but we did a board and batten on the lower half of the wall. We put up a 1x4 horizontal and then put lattice strips vertically as battens in even intervals and then one on top for a rail. I caulked, primed and painted the whole room. It took a weekend but was not super complicated.

A few days later I used a black paint pen and made the diamonds on top. The color looks a little off but the walls are white.

I still need to put up artwork and something over the window, but every time I go in there, I feel like it is too nice to be my house. We are going to start working on installing board and batten in the kids bathroom with a color on top. I will post pictures when that is done and try to remember to take progress pictures.

Freshening Up the Kitchen

(Sorry for the absence. We came back from the holidays and jumped head first into a few projects around the house.)

 I think Ben and I did a good job of seeing the potential in the house rather than the things that were not exactly our taste. As soon as I looked at the pictures, all I saw was a kitchen covered in wood grain. I am a girl would appreciates the warm texture that wood can give a room but I know that it needs some balance. This is what we moved in to. Ignore the stuff on the counter.

 

I toyed around with getting a new backsplash but the lazy/cheap side of me knew that the one there was alright, so I was going to have to work with what was already there. This would be the perfect excuse for my obsession with the color navy. 

Anytime a navy room pops up on Pinterest, I drool. I have managed to work it in to all the rooms that we have been working on and always find a way to use it but I wanted to paint a room navy. 

After thinking long and hard about it, I decided I wanted it to be the kitchen. The room gets enough light so it would not feel like a cave, especially since I was going to paint the bottom half of the wall white. After searching out samples from every store we went to, I decided to try these three and went with the color on the left. It is called Night Sky by Behr.

I started by painting all the trim so that I could be messy with it, then go back and fill in the walls. Thanks to my dad, he reminded me to caulk all the trim while I was painting it. I am amazed how big of a difference it made and my cramped up hand was all worth it. Here is a shot before I caulked it....

....and after.

I did a coat of primer and three coats of paint. I filled in the bottom half of the wall white to sort of match the molding that we have in the living room and dining room. It was already so much brighter here!

It was terrifying to start painting the navy. TERRIFYING!!! For 5 days I had been up to ears in clean white while painting the trim, now I was getting ready to trust my hands to be steady enough to paint this super dark color next to my new beautiful white trim. I started by trying to use a guard to help get a straight line but the navy just bleed under the guard and I had to resort to using my angled short handled brush and trust myself. I actually got quite good at cutting in by hand and I am so proud of myself.

I think whomever thought this corner was a good idea was a jerk. The previous owners had not done a great job with it but I was determined to get it right. I did not want to tape directly onto the white trim so I taped a piece on the inside of it (since I was not too concerned about someone seeing if any peeled up) to some saran wrap that I then taped to another surface. I used a small brush and hand painted it. I used the same brush to do the white while I was doing the trim.

After two coats of the navy paint, it was done. I LOVE it! It always takes me a few days to warm up to the change but I love the navy. It is dramatic but so classic and elegant. (I was setting up for a Valentine's party so some decorations are out on the table.)

We finally got some artwork on the walls. They are prints and frames from Ikea that we have had for months.  

There were a few other small tweaks we did. One was the curtains. I searched for fabrics to make new ones but never could find one that I was in love with. I actually do not mind the current fabric that was already there but I did not like the style. So rather than rushing into something, I cut off a foot and a half from each panel so that they would hang straight, and pinned down the top so that there was no more bunching. It makes a big difference and while I will keep an eye out for something I like better, I am happy enough with these for now. 

The second tweak was the light. We got a drum shade from Ikea and hung it around the current light. I have always loved the bubble chandeliers that I have seen on-line and decided that I wanted to try it in here. Once we bought the glass bubbles, I started having second thoughts that we needed them in here but I gave it a shot. I could always take them down later. We ended up liking them and so far have kept them. They are a little whimsical but I kind of love that. (And of course I took pictures so you can see the seam on the shade. Sorry!)

Here are the side by side comparisons.

You will notice that I did not paint the doors or windows. Well the windows we are probably getting replaced soon so I decided to save myself the trouble and I figured it would look weird to not do them but do the doors. It may seem weird but I kind of like them this way. It warms it up and gives some texture to the room. I do not care for rooms that have paint as the majority of the texture. I had toyed with painting the cabinets at some point but I am feeling the same way and kind of like them. Sure, they are not what I would have picked but I think it they were painted, they room would look so blah.