Project Homeowner: Painting

Project Homeowner: Painting

So I knew right away I wanted white walls. There was certainly nothing terribly wrong with the khaki color paint but it felt dark and drab. 

My biggest source of inspiration was Audrey Bodisco's lovely instagram. Her unique style was the perfect blend of boho/mid-century modern/southwest that best defined us. Another big plus, is she has the same warm orange pine trim in her whole house. 







In fact, I would say 80% of the trim in our house was painted at one time in its life before the previous owner chemically stripped all of the old layers of paint off. Originally the wood was a bit darker as seen on the baseboards here. After stripping the paint it also took off the original dark lacquer and left a beautiful golden color you see now. 

@aud_bod

Audrey told me she went with a warm white called "Swiss Coffee" by Benjamin Moore. Of course, we don't really have a Benjamin Moore paint store here but our local Sherwin Williams was able to pull the exact color blend codes and mix up several cans for us.

 

When you Google image search a paint color, it's really amazing (and a bit intimidating) how different hues of white can affect the entire atmosphere and feel of a room. However, I went with my gut and it paid off. I just knew it was be the perfect shade after we started our first coat! Prep work for this took the most amount of time. One big pet peeve I have whenever I walk into a home is when homeowners paint around their outlet covers (it's only two screws!). Allison and I really took our time and the results paid off. 

The big lessons I learned were:

• Remove painter's tape right away after you're finished
• Remove outlet covers and buy new ones (they're dirt cheap)
• Keep a hot, damp rag around and wipe clean any drips on trim/floor right away
• Roll in random patterns and stick with multiple, light coats. 
• Invest in quality rollers/paint brushes and then wash them right away afterwards
• Don't paint when it's humid/raining out!
• Take pizza breaks 

Pizza breaks are important essential.

Our First Home

So we bought our first home! It was a funny story really. We had spent months looking at houses and even put in offers on two homes we thought were "the one." When you start dreaming and imagining yourself in a home only to lose it to another buyer, you understandably tend to feel a bit defeated. 

So, we stopped looking for sometime, mostly because we had seen everything that was listed worth looking at and thought we'd wait until the spring for the next batch of new listings. Early in the spring, we looked at a fairly large 4 bedroom home across the street. As we were both getting into our cars, a man kind of waved at me from the house across the street and I stepped back out of my vehicle. He asked if we were interested in looking at his home because he and his wife were thinking of listing it in the spring. I looked over at my wife and we both said "sure!" Long story short, we fell in love with the house, forgot all about our realtor and signed the papers at the bank that spring.