Stage 1 - Painting

I have decided that I am going to document our redecorating adventure since we have put so much into our house and did it so quickly. While I probably should have written during the process there was just no way I could have with so much going on. As they say, "Better late than never!"

When Joey and I first got our house absolutely nothing had been done to it in about 25 years. That means it needed a lot of work. The first thing we wanted to tackle was painting. Our entire house was this pink color. When I say pink, I really mean pink as you can see below.

See? The walls are really pink.

We wanted to get everything painted before I moved in for several reasons. The biggest reason was our birds. Painting around them or with them in the house would have been a nightmare. Not only are the fumes not good for them, but our birds are flighted. We let them fly around the house when we are home. So, painting with them there was not really an option. Second, it is much easier to paint an empty room rather than I furnished one.

Painting an entire home at once has it's plusses and minuses. On the downside, it's a bit overwhelming. It's a lot of work to paint a room and even more to painting seven of them. On the up side, it's great to start with a fresh pallet and be able to pick colors for each room that complement the others.

After looking at lots of paint samples we decided to go with Martha Stewart paint from Home Depot. The paint chips are awesome with complimentary colors for each shade listed on the back of the chip. It gave us a lot of ideas that we might not ever thought of. Upon suggestion of our handyman we decided to go with one main color for the room with an accent wall. A darker color for the doors and a very light version of the main color for the ceilings. It may sound like a lot of color, and it is, but it looks amazing.  Below you is a sample of the first color pallet we came up with for the entire house.  This became our roadmap, so to speak for our color selection.

Our pallet

Once we had decided the basic colors for each room we got samples for every color we were looking at and used a wall in our music room to test them out. I strongly urge anyone who is painting to do this. Colors that looked amazing on the chip suddenly changed when on a wall. You would also be amazed how big subtle differences between colors look when painted on a wall! We finally decided on these colors.

We tested all the samples compared and finally came up with our colors. All in all we ended up with over 30 colors.  Well, 32 to be exact.  I am listing them below just because I can!

Stairs, hall, trim:
Heavy Cream (trim, mostly around the house)
Reed (wall)
Fawn (wall)
Filing Cabinet (Ceiling)
Ganache (door)

Living Room:
Cornbread (wall)
Satchel (wall)

Downstairs:
Beach Moss (accent wall, door)
Dandelion (walls, and 1/2 power for ceiling)

Entry:
Sisal (window border, garage door)
Blue Suede (wall)
Natural Twine (accent wall)
Ice Rink (ceiling)
Wrought Iron (door)
Picket Fence (trim)

Music Room:
Raisin (accent wall)
Aegean Blue (wall, and 1/2 power for ceiling)
Geyser (door, closet)

Bedroom:
Pumpkin Seed (door, closet)
Graham Cracker Crust (accent wall)
Hemp (Ceiling)
Oolong Tea (wall)

Kitchen:
Carmel Latte (wall)
Rich Cream (trim)
Desert Tan (ceiling)
Burnt Russet (door)

Upstairs bathroom:
October Leaf (wall)
Endive (ceiling)
Toasted Marshmallow (trim)
Fennel Seed (door)

Downstairs bathroom:
Aurora Borealis (wall)
Rice Paper (door)
Picket Fence (trim)

Now all this might seem extreme, but it's really not. Oh, who am I kidding? It's totally extreme but I don't care. I love all the colors in our house and they are are basically the same color scheme we started with.  We just supplemented it a little.  Well, a lot.  It's kind of funny, Joey and I have worked with them so much that if he told me he bought a new shirt and I asked the color he could say, "October Leaf" and I would know exactly what he meant.

Now that we have our colors selected it's time to paint!