Paint colors and kitchen progress

Wow, it’s been a looooooong and bumpy ride but we’re really getting close now!

We had to move out of the house for a couple weeks in February, so they could sand and refinish all the floors and paint the stairs. Before we left there was a frenzied week of packing up everything in the living room- once it was all packed and moved to storage the house looked so big and empty! With all the stuff gone could really see the floors – they’ve always looked rough but they’ve especially taken a hard beating during this renovation process.

When we came back home, we found our sad old floors looking so brand-new and beautiful! ✨ So exciting!!! ✨

After a brief glimpse of the newly finished floors, they got carefully covered up with brown paper to keep them safe while our team got to work on plastering and painting the walls.

The last thing that our original contractor did before he closed up shop was to hire a pretty lousy plaster guy (why?) who did all the corners incorrectly and slathered a massive amount of joint compound on everything… When the new contractor and his plaster guy came in, they were horrified to see the plaster job and had to scrape it all off before starting over. No fun for us because it’s SO MESSY AND THE DUST GOES EVERYWHERE. Plus it’s never fun to pay someone to undo and redo work that we already just paid someone else to do. Most of all, it’s the delay that’s frustrating. BUT we’re happy to have a new and more competent team on the job and hopefully things will be smoother from here on! It felt great when we finally saw the plaster work finished and the first coat of primer up on the walls!

While they were starting the floors, we spent a couple of weeks thinking hard about paint colors. I went and looked back at all the sketches and mockups I had done over the past few years, trying to wrap my head around the reality of choosing colors – it’s one thing to have a lot of nice paint swatches on a table but it’s a totally different thing to actually live in a room with the walls painted in those colors! Our new builder has a designer on staff so I met with her to look through colors together. She gave me some very wise advice about choosing neutral, low-key colors but of course I’m stubbornly colorful and I know what I like. I politely avoided most of her advice and picked out a delightful circus of colorful historic shades. Neutral colors always make me feel like I’m in a hotel. No sense painting our walls if they’re not going to paint them in exciting colors, haha! The design meeting was incredibly useful though, mostly because it gave me the push to stop deliberating and finalize the paint choices.

After choosing all the colors, we realized that they kinda coordinate with the stained glass window in our hallway! This wasn’t intentional but maybe a subconscious influence on the choices?

After all that deliberation, it was pretty wild to finally see the paint colors up on the walls!!! The green walls in the kitchen feel kind of dark, but for now we love it so hopefully we’ll be happy living with it. At this point it’s hard to tell what the kitchen colors will feel like once we have windows – everything feels a bit dark now and will undoubtedly be lighter and nicer when our windows aren’t boarded up anymore.

We picked a sort of rosy mauve color for the living room, I think it feels warmer in real life but that’s not a bad thing. Totally different and cozier vibe from the all-white walls in every room!

The stair colors were the first ones I picked- the paint on the stairs was really really horrible and I’d been planning a new paint job since the first time we saw the house! I’m very pleased with the new colors.

Downstairs sitting room is now gold and purple! Wheee!!!

Our hall and stairway walls will soon be painted in a slightly darker shade of gold. They’re finishing plaster patches in the hallways now. We’ll have to do more packing and moving (all of our coats and boots, backpacks and outdoor gear) before they can start on that.