What colors YOUR world?

What colors YOUR world?

I have to admit, I fell in love with the new paint color on my old house. I bought that house in 2007 when it was brand spanking new. And ALL khaki. Mind you, khaki is a nice neutral color, I just happen to not like it EVERYWHERE. So the girls and I bought paint. LOTS of paint. And we painted. The kitchen. It wasn't for several more years that we painted again. The dining room. Then, a few years later, after my oldest went away to college and my youngest moved into the 'big' bedroom, I painted a bedroom. A year later, I was preparing my house to put on the market. So everything got painted. All one color. Sherwin Williams Perfect Greige. Awesome color!

That started what I was looking for in my new house. Except, a little different. I like color. I LOVE color. I needed more than one color. There is a little limit to what/how many colors you can paint your house. There is a bit more leeway now then when I was growing up but still, there's a limit. For example, you really shouldn't do something like this:

Bedroom,aka Brittani's room (BEFORE repainting)

Seriously, THAT was on the walls AND ceiling in one of the bedrooms of my new house. My favorite color happens to be purple. I almost had to change my mind after seeing this. Since this is the second largest bedroom (with a walk-in closet) and since Alex is living with his dad and Brittani is a girl, this is Brittani's room. Even if the design was what she had in mind, Brittani is not a purple fan. Her pallet was easy: Grey, Red, Black. The design was determined (hint: it wasn't sponge paint) and they painted. It looks amazing! (pics to follow).

As my daughter did her thing in her room, I poured over paint colors online, collected paint chips, purchased many paint samples (please, do not skip this step...more on paint products coming up). After this drawn out search, I knew one thing: I love purple. 

Okay, I knew two THREE things: I had to have a warm, coordinated color scheme that flowed from room to room and I wanted gray grey light black in there somewhere. In addition, I love purple. 

I did discover some difficulty keeping track of which paint goes in which room. Of course I wrote which room it was going in on the back of each paint chip, but that didn't help much when I had to keep flipping the cards over (simplicity rules). 

I tried putting all my paint chips as my house is laid out but I couldn't keep track very well with everything written on the back and how was I going to do the upstairs? 

1st floor layout

 I ended up getting a piece of cardboard and laying the paint chips out kinda in room order. I covered the entire front with packing tape to keep them in place, then wrote which room on each chip. I ended up with this:

All of the paint is Behr Ultra or Premium Plus, in either an eggshell or satin finish (unless noted). Some of the color names are either difficult to read or covered up, so I'll list them in the order they appear on the cardboard:

Left Side

(top to bottom)

Porpoise

Gulf Winds

Gentle Rain

Weathered Sandstone

Only Natural

Toasted Wheat

Shale Gray

Crepe

Right Side

(top to bottom)

Ancient Stone

Country Club

Silvery Moonlight (Glidden)

Stone Fence

Gray Timber Wolf

French Lilac

*Custom Color based off Old Amethyst

                          Lilac Mauve & an older (unopened) Valspar paint I had left over from TN (bottom 2 colors)                                                                        

The one color that misfired on the walls was the Ancient Stone. On the chip, it was perfect for the hallways. On the walls, it was an odd purple. While I believe we have established I love purple, I did not love purple for my hallway. I was going for an awesome grey gray light black (one of these days I'll figure out how exactly GREY is spelled). Back to the local Big Orange...I ended up with Winds Breath, which turned out perfect. I also ended up using Pewter Mug in the Master bedroom instead of the Gray Timberwolf. Since I never replaced those on the cardboard, here they are:

 

Winds Breath

Pewter Mug

Overall, I think they all turned out quite nicely. I can't wait to show you the finished Before & After's!!!

*** EDIT: A few things I learned with the whole house painting project -
                                 
                                    1) NEVER pay someone to do something you think you can do yourself. I paid for painting services and regret it in every room of my house.
                                    2) If you do pay someone - watch everything they do
                                    3) Don't be afraid to experiment or change your mind
                                 

The Right Write

Is there a wrong write? A left write? Should you write? Will you be left?

The whole situation of suddenly finding myself without future purpose has these questions being tossed about in my mind. There's a whole lot of life that has been lived in my life. A whole lot of love. A whole lot of tears. Many have suggested I write my story. A story. Anyone's story. Everyone's story.

A gaze further at that thought and I'm wondering...should I? What would I say? Would anyone buy it? I mean, would they buy it...as in, believe it?

If you were to pick up a book, what would you be looking to read? Romance? Suspense? Mystery? Sci-Fi? Self help? Famous memoir? The story of someone else's life that you don't know?

That's what I thought...I need a life...

Nevertheless, I decided to write. It starts here: I Walk

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Tiny Pantry

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE my new house but it has its "needs".  The main thing beyond the usual and customary is the pantry. The pantry is TINY and I mean tiny. Well tiny with huge shelves.  You know, the metal kind that stuff doesn't ever sit right on and big enough that you can't see what's in the back. 

BEFORE

The worst part is - not everything fit, so I was using valuable cabinet space for food storage. Not. Good.  On to the solution!

                     
                     Materials Needed:

• ShelfTrack Brackets - Double or Single track per preference (I used single for this project) $15/track
• Brackets - Double or Single per track requirements & as many as needed for number of shelves & desired depth (I wanted versatility, so I purchased enough for 12 shelves with a 10 inch depth) $2.50/bracket
• Shelves (I purchased 10 inch deep shelves long enough to cut to size) $10/shelf - because I cut them, end result was $2.50 per shelf)
• Spice rack $20

Materials

We started with removing the existing shelving and hardware. Patched the holes and painted the interior.

Then we installed the tracks.  Important note: Be sure to get heavy duty anchors, the shelves will be holding a LOT of weight.  We went with 70# anchors on the top, 50# anchors in the middle and 30# anchors at the bottom. Here's what it looked like at that point:

We then cut the shelves to size. The back width of my pantry is only about 30 inches, so I purchased 72 inch length shelves to get more for my money. As I mentioned, I was going for versatility, so once we had the right length (covering the back wall width), we cut all but 2 shelves in half.

Once all the shelves were cut and placed side by side, it looked like this:

                  

 

NOW I had something to work with!! Notice the slices down the center of the shelves. That was so I could end up with THIS:

  

AFTER - AMAZING!!!

Authors Note: "We" in every project refers mostly to Ivan, who has been my steady assistant through these projects. My design, his work. And NO project would be complete without the awesomeness that is Brittani, to whom ALL organization of the finished project credit goes to. Thank you both so much!

Now, let's take care of that disgusting wall color shall we???

The Laundry Center

Laundry. Ugh. Kind of everyone's thought, right? In reality though, laundry equals job security. Just a thought.

New house, new things, right? Indeed! Since we all can't walk around in dirty clothes all the time, the laundry room was one of my first projects. (Okay, I changed the locks and painted the front door first, but the laundry room was next).

First on the list was a new washer & dryer. I went with the Whirlpool Duet set from Lowes since I had a 10% off coupon in my moving packet from USPS.

I'm short, but still had to bend/squat quite a bit with my old front-load set (which was on a standard pedestal), so after much looking (well notsomuch) I decided I wanted this (which I found on Pinterest)

The Inspiration:

http://ashleemarie.com/new-laundry-room-and-shelf/

I drew out a plan and headed to the tore for materials. We ended up with:

                   A few 2x4's (we got long ones and had the store cut some of them to the sizes we needed)
                   A sturdy plywood board
                   A box of wood screws (long enough to get through the plywood/2x4's)

We needed some of the 2x4's for legs and some for the plywood base. We started off with aligning the legs under the base and screwed the base 2x4's into the wall studs. We slid the legs under and attached them to the base.

 

  

Before adding the plywood to the top, we put another 2x4 through the center for stability

Attaching the plywood to the 2x4's was the easy part. 

 

We hoisted the washer & dryer onto the plywood and VOILA...

 

 Since the dryer vent in the house is on the left (and front loaders need to be positioned with the dryer on the right), I needed to figure out how to get the dryer vent hose from the dryer to the vent.When we were building the pedestal, we made a cut-out in the plywood to feed the vent hose from the dryer to the outside vent going under the pedestal itself.

It is the PERFECT height and I can get those old-fashioned laundry baskets (you know the smaller grungy cheap ones you can get at the dollar store) in the cubbies underneath and my detergents/fabric softeners/garbage can in between. I'm in love with my laundry room!

(Much thanks to Ivan for his building and lifting assistance)