Happy Blogiversary!

Today is this blog’s second birthday. So, just for fun, I decided to mix it up.

Here you have my third-ever video! I’m working up the courage to post more videos. I’m not a huge youtube fan or a fan of any kind of online videos, for the most part. However, I can understand the usefulness and can see the appeal of a house tour video–since it makes it clearer how the house is laid out, how the rooms connect, etc. Although… this house isn’t really complicated. Anyway! Without much further ado, I give you… my 2nd Blogiversary Video!

I have to admit, it’s not horrible, especially since I only had one take. Yesterday on my lunch hour I had to walk/feed the dog, make this video, and get something to eat. Well, I ended up snagging my lunch at Sonic and eating it at my desk once I got back. Could be worse!

Happy blogiversary to me! I hope to celebrate another one in 2012, but we’ll see where life takes me.

Let There be White, Part 2

Okay. The other two rooms took longer and took more paint, but this is the real dramatic improvement. The hallway.

What once was a two-toned, navy blue tunnel of sadness…

has turned into a white tunnel of not-quite-as-sad-ness. The ridiculous plaster effect cannot be dealt with, but at least with white on the walls it isn’t bad. In fact, my MIL says it looks like cake frosting–which is true, and actually makes me want to relive the success of my chocolate cake endeavor.

Here are some progress shots:

Yes, covering the blue was UH-HAWFUL!

So, several coats around the edging, two rolled-on coats of paint (with a high-nap roller to get into all that texture) and a bazillion hours of brush work (my fancy term for poking the end of the brush into all the little holes and crevices) the hallway officially resembles cream-cheese frosting.

Breaking up the grey tones of the two bedrooms with the white hallway actually makes them look lighter and less intense, making my decision not to paint those rooms much easier. With lots of white and light-colored accents the darker rooms will still fit into the cohesive “look” I’m hoping to incorporate throughout the house.

Has anyone else painted an extremely textured wall? Commiserate with me in the comment section.

Let There be White

Covering all that dreary beige took us two + coats. This shouldn’t come as a surprise but man, it was a lot of work.

“Before”

First, I got down and scooted around on my butt for the better part of Friday cutting in around all the baseboards. Then I cut in around all the windows, then I cut in around all the doors. You get the picture. The problem with doing that is that by using a brush, the paint goes on much thinner and by the time the weekend was over I think I had cut in three times. As you can imagine, I was extremely sore from crouching, standing, getting up on a chair, stretching, etc. Over and over. Doug was in charge of rolling, which is usually the easy job except that since the ceilings are arched–and the same sad, lifeless shade of beige–he had to roll the ceilings too. Which meant leaning back and stretching in funny ways.

White walls and ceiling

It even made the extremely questionable ceiling fan look OK. (That, and cleaning it thoroughly)

Saturday was a sad, sad day for us (mostly me) with sore muscles, but we kept on truckin’ and between Saturday (twelve intense hours), Sunday, and Monday we got all the painting done. Well, except for the window trim and baseboards. Yes, we plan on tackling that depressing task, but the house was just so grimy and dirty that no measure of cleaning would make it look new and pristine.

I’m excited for white. I never, ever thought that when given free-reign as far as colors are concerned, I would pick a non-color. But, after reflection I realized that all of my favorite rooms from pinterest had backdrops of white walls which featured colorful and eclectic furnishings. The white helps keep things light and lets the focus be drawn to the rest of the room.

I’m on the fence about the bamboo roman blinds (you can see them in the first picture in this post). I sort of hate them, but sort of think they could be worked in could eventually be a nice natural element in the room. We’ll see what they look like once we get curtains up (high and wide, natch). Another problem about them is that when pulling the cord to raise them they get hooked on the window latch and I’m nervous about breaking them. Only time will tell…..

Oh, and also: most annoying pup award goes to this little guy. He is such a social animal that being out in the backyard (on a tether since the fence is questionable at best) by himself was tantamount to torture. He whined, whined, and whined the whole time,only letting up when someone went out to pet him. Let’s just say that after enough was enough he was taken home to the apartment to nap in his kennel. I hope the neighbors don’t hate us already because of our nuisance of a pooch. He’s normally an indoor dog! I promise! Luckily, most of the houses on this street seem to have dogs. So, they should be understanding. I hope.

What did you do over Labor Day? I hope it wasn’t as strenuous as mine.