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!

The Final Stretch!

We are inches away from the finish line of our kitchen remodel. The picture is a little hint at our floors, but we don't want to post any pictures until we are completely moved in. I can't tell you how happy I am about this! In all honesty, this hasn't really taken that long. We started the kitchen in November and it's been pretty steady since then.  It's just that we still haven't really settled into our house at all.  We barely moved in and started all this business. We still have boxes somewhere in the dining room that are hidden away by all our kitchen stuff. We just want to feel like we really live here.

Today our plumber comes to put in new fixtures, connect the ice maker and fix up some odds and ends for us. Then Friday our tile man makes the final finishing touches.  This Saturday we move in!  Yay!  After that I am going to blog about it. I just really couldn't while it was happening. I would have sounded whiney and bitchy. I just let Marya and Sabrina deal with all that stuff. (Thanks for putting up with me!) There might not be any cooking on Cooking With Sean & Joey right now, but trust me there hasn't been any at our household, either!

The Clean Cadet 3

I think Joey and I have a problem. We are addicted to remodeling. We certainly were never this way before, but ever since we moved into this house we are remodel junkies.  We are lured to Home Depot or Lowe's to get our fix. At home it's an endless stream of painting and fixing while one of us is online looking for that perfect faucet to match that toilet paper holder we just bought on eBay. It's serious.

Yesterday before the grout had even set in our kitchen floor we were off to Lowe's "to return something." Since were there we naturally had to look around a bit. We ended up in the plumbing section because, I don't know, we needed a front door or something. There we saw it. It was exactly what we needed. How could we have not thought about this before?! The Clean Cadet 3 High Efficiency Toilet with an EverClean® surface. We want this toilet. We need this toilet. We must buy this toilet.

We quickly pulled out our iPhones, took pictures of the box and every angle of the toilet so we could research it at home. That's when the crazy hit. On the side of the box it said clearly in big white letters: "No Tools Installation - Everything you need including step-by-step poster."

What? A poster?!!!

"Joey I bet we could install this ourselves. We won't even need to call the plumber."

"You know, I bet we can.  Let's go home and look it up online.  Maybe Jim is still there working on the floors and we can ask him if he thinks we can do it."

With our pictures safely in our iPhones we ran home to do our research.  (Well, we didn't run right home, we had to stop and JoAnne's to buy some thread and also a quick stop by Marshall's.) Once home we quickly got on the computer. Jim was still there working on the floors (beautiful!) but we wanted to at least know what we were talking about before we declared our intentions.

The first thing we found was a video from the Home Depot.









My goodness look how easy that looks!  All you really need to to do is make sure it's sealed.  It's like canning fruit!  That's settled we are going to do this! We ran into the kitchen and announced to Jim, "We are going to install our own toilet." He looked at us funny.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well," I said, "We saw a toilet we wanted and it said easy installation and we just watched a 3 minute video on YouTube, so we decided we could do it ourselves. Don't you think we can?"

There was really no reason for him to answer. The look said it all. But he did politely say, "It's possible." Right then we knew it wasn't.  Back to the computer we went. That's when we found this video.








There is no need to watch it. We both checked out at about the 20 second mark.

"What kind of screw did he say?"

"What's that waxy sticky stuff?"

"What kind of tool is that?!"

With that one video our hopes of being home plumbers were dashed. Of course we are still going to get the Clean Cadet 3. Please, we need it. However, I think we are going to save each other the agony of installing it ourselves then wondering each time we flush if the house is going to flood.

Put A Little Love In Your Lunch

Once in awhile my inner Martha Stewart kicks in. Not often, but sometimes. One Martha thing I do is put little scrolls along with Joey's treats in his lunches. It's pretty easy and makes us both feel good.

Awhile back we started listening to Louise Hay and were really inspired by her positive affirmations. So much so that I thought it would be fun to add them to Joey's lunch. Every week I pick five affirmations and make little scrolls for him. Now I am not artist, I use a super simple program to make them, but it's really the thought that counts. Along with each scrool I include a sweet snack and a savory snack. I try to find something healthy and on sale. Last week, I made little bags of Japanese crackers along with yogurt bars. I put them together and tie them up. It's a great way to give encouragement, send love and show you care. You can download a sample of our affirmations here.

So, put a little love in your lunch! Even a small hand-written note would mean the world to your special someone. Your inspiration can come from any place, as long as it comes from your heart.