Fresh white + crown molding for the dining room

We've been working hard on a last push of projects with the intention of either selling or being happier living here (leaning hard toward the former, though, much to everyone's surprise), and removing the grasscloth in the dining room was one project I'd been avoiding.

I partially thought it would be a lot harder than it was, and I also came to really like the grasscloth, despite my initial spouting about how it would be one of the first things to go. (This house has taught me to say less, because I have ended up eating a lot of my words about it.) 

 

 

So anyway, around the beginning of the year, Todd just decided to go for it and started taking down the wallpaper. It turned out to be a lot easier than either of us anticipated, and we had the whole room clean in two days or a little less. It was well worth investing in a wallpaper steamer all those years ago; it made the job as clean and easy as wallpaper removal can be.

(Anybody want to buy a china cabinet? I'm unloading it!)

I also used a drywall mudding knife to remove the paper and get a really clean swipe at the plaster beneath, which meant a lot less scrubbing to remove old glue before painting. The door to the paint closet still needs to be painted.

We discovered at one point that the trim was this color on the right in the photo below. GROSS. You can also see the vaguely mauve color of the trim next to the hinge, before we painted it 7 years ago. WHO PAINTS TRIM MAUVE? omg.

Just for fun, here are a couple of 8-year-old pictures from the first time we looked at this house. I have 36 pictures from that day in April 2008 and I look at them and seriously have no idea what I was thinking. Apparently I saw potential that I can't see anymore looking at them. Eek. Our realtor Linda is in the first one. She unwittingly named this blog when she declared the house to have "loads of potential" :)

 

Before we ripped out the wall to the kitchen, replaced the windows, finished the floor...

 

Just this week, the crown molding was finished. We still have to paint the ceiling (again) and replace the light fixture, but we couldn't believe what an enormous difference the white made in terms of how spacious the room felt. It felt like all the walls took a step back. We weren't expecting it to make that big of a difference.

But at least in some situations, that's what a nice bright coat of white will do for ya. For those wondering, our go-to white in this house has been Behr Swiss Coffee. It's slightly warm and slightly off-white, but not very much. 

 :)

Office Closet Redo... Finally

I've always loved my office closet. It's big, has tons of storage space and has a cool window. The floor is distressed, which I kind of like. What I never liked about it was its bleh tan color. But that's gone now, and all the little cracks from settling are caulked up. It looks much neater now. Let's have some before and afters, shall we?

Before

 

After

 

Before

 

After

Before

After (obviously I still have to paint the built-in dresser, but isn't the contrast amazing between the old "white" and the new white?)

And one other thing I did was string the power for our modem around the door, because I got tired of tripping on it. We should probably have just had an outlet installed in the closet, but this is a decent second best choice.

Goodbye, Antique White

Years ago, shortly after we moved into the house, we needed to do some touch up painting on existing off-white trim and built-ins. I evidently didn't know you could get a custom color match and used my own high-tech method of eyeballing paint chips next to said trim. (All things considered, it didn't work too bad.)

My fatal flaw was that I didn't consider the fact that I strongly disliked that ivory color, and considering we were, you know, redoing the entire house, it was in my power to decide to paint it a different color. Live and learn. It borders on tan with the amount of brown mixed in, and it really doesn't do the bolder wall colors many favors.

I can pretty much tolerate it in the living room, and the bedroom is next on my hit list, but it was driving me redneck crazy in the office where everything else is white. It was all very incohesive, which bothered me because the office is otherwise the most-finished room in the house. It's decorated and accessorized just how I want, so this one massive, glaring "detail" really needed to change. There were a handful of other issues that were grating on me, too. They're noted in this marked-up picture.

 Window casing painted. See how the crown and chair rail is so much darker? Not anymore!

 Closet doors, for contrast. BLEH.

 And after, with their cute little coral Anthropologie hardware. Anthro has the best hardware.

Removed tiny bits of wallpaper that we left on the wall when we removed wallpaper about five years ago and replaced scratched screws on outlet and switch plates, which makes a surprising difference in my little OCD brain. I also slapped a bit of paint on the old ivory outlet (the actual plugs). If you go fast enough with the roller, the paint doesn't get into the holes, which I'm guessing most electricians would say might be a bad thing.

 Mmm...that crisp white against the navy makes my heart happy.

What else... painted the nuts and bolts on the light fixture so they blend better and finally touched up the ceiling where the old fixture was. We put this in almost two years ago. Sometimes I move slow on the things that annoy me the most. What you'll notice from this picture is that there is no dirt halo around the base of the fixture and that you don't see two silver bolts sticking out on either side of the base. It just looks normal.

 Painted the white wall with a fresh coat of more-scrubbable eggshell finish, instead of the primer (possibly just a dead flat paint) that was there (again, from five years ago). It was in rough shape, whatever it was. Lots of holes, some bad, unsanded spackling...it just needed a fresh coat of white.

Not fully put back together, but looking so much crisper.

I've felt thankful every day that I've had this time to knock out all these projects (and there are more to come I'll be posting in the next few days). I'm actually kind of excited now to start working again in my finally finished, not-annoying, cohesive office.

Painting tips for lazy painters

I hate painting. I think it's my least favorite of all the home renovation tasks I've had to tackle. It's tedious and takes forever because we either chose super-saturated colors or have to paint large spaces. The tedium inclines me toward cutting corners (hence the "lazy" part), which produces a result I'm then unhappy with.

So today while I primed the entire stairwell, upstairs landing and ceiling, I had plenty of time to think about how I've gotten better and made painting a bit more palatable over the six or seven years I've been working on this house. Hopefully they make your life a little easier. This isn't at all a comprehensive list of painting tips, just my own takeaways that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Prep

1. Think of prep as part of painting. I always think of painting as the bulk of the work, and for some rooms or projects that really is the case, but it helps me to reorient my project mindset to 60% prep, 40% painting. Or something like that. Otherwise I do a sloppy job prepping and end up with messes that need cleanup later.

2. Frog Tape. The trick with this stuff is to wipe it with a damp rag/sponge before going to town with the paint. While the water in latex paint theoretically activates the tape's barrier, my experience is that without the water, I've just spent twice as much on tape that performs like blue painter's tape. When it's wet, it's pretty incredible how well it works.

3. Remove outlet and light switch plates. Do it while you're prepping so you won't be tempted to paint over them. Not that I know anyone who's ever done that.

Tools/Gear

1. Hat. As you know, I have curly brown hair. When there is white paint, or especially primer (primer is my hair's FAVORITE) my hair will dive into the freshly painted surface. Getting primer out of hair is no picnic. Wear a hat.

2. Safety glasses. My dad is usually right about things. I keep learning that. Just last week, I cut my tongue a little while licking a butter knife and scowled when I heard his voice in my head saying "don't lick knives." Another thing he told me a while back was to find a pair of safety glasses that were comfortable (that is important) and actually wear them. I'm not as diligent about the safety glasses as I should be around power tools, but with painting a ceiling, I can't not. There's just something about looking up at the roller that feels like eyeballing the inside of a gun barrel.

I know. They are super fashionable. Whatever... you know what's even less fashionable? Getting paint in your eye. (Another Dad-ism: it's not a fashion show, Joanna.) Also please note the HAT. I primed all day and have none in my hair. I think. 

3. Spatter guard roller. Even when you're pretty careful and not slopping paint all over, like I was for most of today, you still end up with a bit of splatter from the force of rolling the wall. This thing cuts down dramatically on that. They're like $5. Well worth it to avoid drop-clothing everything (or ending up covered in spatter).

4. Trim guard. I don't always use this thing, but sometimes it's handy. Don't expect it to be as crisp as what Frog Tape will do for you, but it can be the right tool for semi-detailed work.

5. Assorted accessories:

• Paper towels and some water, good to have nearby
• Quality brush. Bite the bullet, buy one and then treat it nicely. This Wooster is my favorite. I have an equivalent Purdy and don't like the handle feel as much, so I use it less frequently. Brushes make an enormous difference in the finish you get. 
• Paint pourer of some type. There are tons out there, just get something that goes on your paint can to keep it from getting paint crusted in the rim. 
• Mini roller. Two types: sponge for untextured surfaces that you'll follow with a brush and a normal one, but mini-size, for small textured areas

General

1. Don't cheat. It took me a long time to realize cheating actually made my life more difficult and resulted in more work and crappier results. If you're lazy and you hate painting, do a good job the first time.

2. Paint trim and walls the same color with different sheens. This is almost as good as cheating and you don't really get caught unless you are super sloppy. It mostly works if you're going with whites or maybe grays if you're doing gray molding. I did an eggshell wall and semigloss trim in Behr Swiss Coffee last week and didn't tape anything. It's not perfect, but you can't really tell where.

3. Music. I'm not a big music-listener in general. I only sometimes have something on in the car and probably go days without listening to anything. But for painting, I've found it helps me a TON to listen to something, and that something for me is country.

I'm not sure what "the holler" is, but from what I can tell, there are trucks and beer and swimmin holes and biscuits. I love two of those things, so that's good enough for me. I also pick up gems like "idle hands are devil's handiwork," so I get good, everyday lessons out of it too.

4. Paint quality. Buy good paint. Like a good brush, good paint makes life easier. Cheap paint is infuriating to deal with, because you put just as much work in and end up with something that looks awful, and the $10 you saved will not be enough to buy the amount of beer you will need to make yourself feel better about it.

I ended up with a gallon of Behr's Ultra Premium Plus (or something, there are so many fancy words on it I can't even remember) and have been very pleased with how it's performing. Behr Premium Plus has also treated us well; most of our house is painted with it.

5. When you get tired, stop for a while. The wall will still be there later. If you don't stop, you know what else will be there later? The bad job you did because you were tired or sore.

Cleanup

1. Drips. If you get a paint drip on the floor, leave it (assuming your floors are wood). They scrape off very easily once dry, as long as you leave it in an undisturbed gloob (technical term) on the floor. Also, these are fun to use to mess with people. Try putting a few dried ones on your significant other's cell phone screen.

2. WD-40. I've discovered that a bit of this on a rag will remove smaller dried spatters from a polyurethane-finished wood floor.

My nemesis, the staircase

Once upon a time there was a dreadful old house with a hideous staircase (in a house purchased by two 20-somethings who probably should have run screaming from it).

It had weird, western-themed wallpaper, a sturdy but utilitarian railing and carpet that looked like someone had cruelly skinned a muppet turtle and glued it to the floor. There really are no words to describe whatever that thing is hanging from the ceiling (and may still be there but under a giant and temporary paper lantern).

But we primed and painted and ripped out the turtle muppet carpet. Several years later, we ripped out the primed and painted walls, had the floors finished and had drywall put in, and last week I sanded, primed and painted the railing.

 SOO much better! (These are just the primed pictures; the paint looks a lot smoother and more consistent.)

The saga of the kitchen trim

Yesterday afternoon, it was broiling and humid outside so I decided to work on something inside. The kitchen trim has been grating on me for a while, so I grabbed my caulk gun and went to work. I dislike this project because it's multi-step and the parts that need to be done first aren't very gratifying, like caulking unprimed wood. Anyway, here's the window over the sink before. 

Before from straight on...you can see the wood on the sides and top. 

And here's the icky shape the trim was in. Now unfortunately, because we are suspicious that we likely have some lead-based paint somewhere in the 72 years of layers of paint on this casing, I wasn't going to sand it. I used a lint roller (you laugh, but it works!) to remove any loose paint and gave it a wipe with a damp paper towel before Kilz-ing it. 

This is after I primed. I told you it wasn't very gratifying. It does look better in person, and there's a nice crisp caulk line along the counter all the way around that painter's tape. That is gratifying. 

The trim around the kitchen window is now primed, which is a wild improvement that's hardly visible on camera. The rest of the trim is either primed or painted. What's annoying about that project is that it doesn't really look significantly better, it just doesn't look crappy anymore. That's what nobody tells you (ok, my parents both warned me) about renovating old houses. So much of it is just bringing it up to a certain baseline of acceptability before you can start improving on anything. 

I also did some more serious work styling the shelves that flank the windows. I had some random stuff there, but that's pretty much what it looked like: random. stuff. 

 Still a work in progress...

 And we'll see how far I get not killing the succulents I've started collecting. TBD.

I love this. That aged french florist pot and little Delft creamer pitcher. It has a small tray and a sugar pot that it goes with. Maybe I'll pull the other pieces out and put them on a shelf too. They're in my china cab right now. They were my grandmother's pieces.

 I'm becoming a bigger fan of identifying what I love in decor and filling spaces with that. It's evolving, but I find myself drawn to rustic wood, aged terra cotta pots (shocker), blue and white pieces, anything cobalt blue, crisp white finishes against dark wood especially with green plants...

One of the decor blogs I follow posted a palette of her colors throughout her house, and I like that idea. Given the moment of crystalizing my own tastes I'm having right now, I created my own whole house palette:

It's a lot, I know. But somehow it's working, I think because it's usually offset with some metallic (gold or mercury balls) and a "big" texture: jute, woven baskets, wood. I usually don't go with all the colors in one room; our bedroom is cobalt, yellow and tangerine with lots of white. The living room is red with cobalt and navy accents and a heavily textured jute rug. The dining room is navy, white, moss green (literally, moss...) and a little orange, again with heavy texture from the grasscloth wallpaper. 

The guest room, kitchen, entry and powder have had me stumped for a while because they're like the inverse of the other rooms: where I've had major color backdrops to work with, this is white, with white cabs and dark floors. Pulling in the pots and the greenery is helping me crystalize. I've been trying to figure out how to pull in cobalt and orange or possibly lime for the downstairs rooms, but haven't gotten there yet. 

Upstairs I'm still stumped, but that's ok. It's a process, and I finally feel like I have some kind of framework after this weekend, when I spent hours on Pinterest distilling what I was drawn to in certain images. It was a good and productive exercise for a groggy Saturday. It's weird, turning it into more of a science. Everything I've done with this house so far has been freehand and by some combination of chance and my eye for things, it's worked together. I think this is a good move and will help me start finishing rooms so I can stop thinking about them and just enjoy being in them. What a concept...just living in a house :)

And lastly, our most expensive investment in a while. Here's our lovely new roof. We opted for a lighter color for better energy efficiency. I'm working on adjusting to it. Kind of wish it was a little darker, but I'll get over it. I just realized how actually horrific our back yard looks here. I've gotten used to it (a particular type of coping us renovators develop) but wow...what a mess. That's going to change soon though. 

P.S. Have you ever seen a bluer sky than that? That's Oregon in the summer, folks. It's so blue you can't even look at it. You just can't beat it.