It’s About Darn Time
It was January when we painted three test swatches of gray on our dining room walls.
It took us just days to pick the color but apparently took us, yeah, um, FOUR MONTHS to finally paint the room.
I’m not sure what’s more embarrassing – our painting laziness or my rockin’ farmer’s tan. Anyway, I searched my brain for some sort of an excuse for the dining room paint delay. Maybe we were too tired at the end of the day in January that we spent painting the living room and hallway the same color? Or we were too distracted by completing the guest room for Sherry’s mom’s February visit? Or we were too consumed with patio and party prep to take it on before Clara’s birthday? Maybe. Or we just like to bounce around randomly and come back to projects after months of dormancy. Probably that. Either way, something got into us, and the room (finally) went from this:
To this:
I know, I know. It’s not a huuuuge difference. Heck it might not look different at all online. But the soft gray definitely feels a lot more polished. And ding dong, the witch swatches are dead! The color is the same gray that we used in the living room and the hallway (Benjamin Moore’s Moonshine which we color matched to Olympic Premium No-VOC paint) so we already had the paint on hand (we got three gallons of it a while back in anticipation). You may recall that we wanted to paint these rooms all the same color to connect and unify the spaces (and then the kitchen, which is in the middle of all of them, will have a bit more color on the walls for interest). Maybe looking at the unpainted and then painted room shots side by side will demonstrate how even a subtle coat of paint can help things like crown molding and trim have a bit more emphasis. The room definitely reads a lot more crisp now that it’s painted:
It still amazes us how much a coat of paint can do to make a room look finished – or, in our mostly furniture-less version, at least make it look a little less forgotten. Especially when it’s covering up test swatches that have been there so long that we didn’t even notice them anymore until friends would say “which color did you pick?” and we’d say “oh yeah… those” (it was the bottom one, btw).
Even this subtle addition of color to the walls has helped us notice a few things. For example, we didn’t even realize how beefy the crown molding was in here until we painted (it’s about twice as thick as any other room in the house). And the soft gray looks nice with the built-ins on the back wall. It lets them “be the star” (as Sherry would say) but still adds that light I’m-in-a-cloud vibe and makes the room feel polished and complete. Well, as complete as it can feel without curtains, art, entryway furniture, etc.
Since this room didn’t have pesky wood-toned-molding that needed a bunch of coats of white paint (like the living room), it was MUCH faster to finish (the living room also called for beam painting, which we’re thankful this room also didn’t involve). So by comparison, this project was cake. We did one coat together during Clara’s morning nap (Sherry cuts in while I roll) and then did our second coat in shifts after the three of us ate lunch (since one of us was on Clara duty while the other painted the day away). It was so relaxed that it further underscored how crazy it was for us to put it off for so long. Sherry even snuck in a phone date with her Katie B (her blogger BFF) at one point.
Oh and see those white tags in the photo above? Allow me to explain. Sherry’s “painting clothes” may look like an ordinary black sweatsuit (yes, she’s from Jersey and proud of it) from a distance, but take a closer look. It’s an inside-out black sweatsuit. Otherwise known as her pajamas when worn the right way. What Not To Wear, here we come!
We also took – and then promptly deleted – a PG-13 version of the photo below. Let’s just say I was putting the “moon” in “Moonshine by Benjamin Moore” (and my butt is whiter than my upper arms). Go ahead, I’ll give you a few seconds to picture that calamity.
Ok now stop, you’re creeping me out.
All tomfoolery aside, we’re just glad to live in a test-swatch free home. But of course, now having paint on the walls is giving us the itch to do more in there. I mean, it’d be a shame to leave these nice blank-canvas grey walls totally blank for too long, right? Especially since we’re dying to knock out a huge opening to the kitchen and hang curtains and add art and dye those off-white chair slipcovers…
Eh. Maybe we’ll get around to it in a month or two… or four. You know how we roll. Have you guys painted anything recently? Are you a fan of inside-out-pajamas as painting clothes? Have you had swatches on your walls for over four months? Tell us we’re not the only ones…
Psst- When it comes to how we paint, this post and this post and the video in this post will hopefully help you out.
Psst again- We’re over on BabyCenter sharing how we made some swanky looking photo books for our moms (late Mother’s Day gifts are ok when you’re waiting on a book to be “published” right?).
Comment
If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
We FINALLY painted our baseboards (after having them in our home- unpainted for way too long) this past spring break. With 2 kids and a well meaning family who like to buy presents for our kids- we had started to accumulate a lot of STUFF… so the baseboard project was much more difficult than it needed to be. But it did lead us to go through each and every room- deep clean, de-clutter, and simplify… which felt really, really good.
p.s. You guys are very cute =).
Looks good, indeed very subtle. I did paint this weekend actually. And it was the worst of painting; colonial blue trim and doors. It was a pain. But Floetrol did help so much when we were painting with the latex. I officially love that product.
I just love the Moonshine color. I think your painting would look great on the left wall near the dining table Sherry, for the time being anyway, until you knock out the wall to the kitchen.
8 months!! I eventually hired a painter to finish the living room! We have 12-ft ceilings, ceramic tile, and my husband was living in another state for work. I was terrified I’d fall off the ladder, and there’d be no one around to find me. I also have a bum left elbow from a break and dislocation.
He’s back now though, and we tackled painting our daughter’s nursery together in December. We rocked it! Stripes, chair rail and all…
P.S. – I also do all the cutting in with my angled brush. Women must be more precise.
I actually did a lot of painting over the weekend! I painted an accent wall and hand stenciled on a pattern. I’m so happy with how it’s looking, and I’d love for you guys to check it out!
http://heatherlynnnabers.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-epic-wall-still-in-progress.html
Wow! That’s amazing. Love the stencil you chose!
xo,
s
Lovely! It only *just* shows up online, but I can definitely see that it makes the trim pop a lot more with the grey paint. The husband and I are moving apartments in a week’s time, so I’m very much looking forward to all sorts of room painting projects (especially the new nursery and living/dining area!). I think the nursery will be the first big project, though…barring any decorating ADHD! :-)
Keep up the amazingness, you two!
I still cannot believe how well you guys paint without massive amounts of tape and floor coverage. We covered EVERYTHING when we just painted the kid’s room light green and we still got paint everywhere, even after trying so hard to be neat. Even the cat has a paint drip on his rear end! (2 weeks later it’s still there)
What is your biggest piece of advice for neat painting? (besides practice) I have read all the posts and watched all the videos and need help for the rest of the apt. What’s the best finish for bathrooms/kitchen too?
Semi-gloss is our choice for kitchens and baths. As for keeping it neat when you paint (besides practice since we definitely didn’t start out this neat) would be don’t load the brush or roller with too much paint. It just drips and splatters everywhere. I linked to three posts at the bottom of this post which might also help (the video shows how I wipe off excess paint from my brush while cutting in for example). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I know I have asked a million questions now but I forgot to ask your technique on brush cleaning? HELP!
I just rinse the heck out of mine with water until it runs clear and squeeze out the bristles and lay it flat to dry on the counter atop a folded square of paper towel. Oh and I use mineral spirits for oil-based paint brush cleaning.
xo,
s
A final rinse with white vinegar works wonders after you wash with water. Somehow it gets just a bit more goop out even when the brush is totally clean. Maybe that’s why it’s such a good household cleaner :)
Ooh awesome tip!
xo,
s
I started on a painting project this weekend as well. The kitchen and hallway… It wouldn’t be so bad but I had to paint the trim which after 8 hours still isn’t finished! :( The walls need a second coat too. I am so happy the wallpaper is gone though! Now that was the hard part! I like the Moonshine, I chose Bleeker Beige for the kitchen/hallway and planning on using Silver Lake in the bedroom.
You guys crack me up! I really love that color, it’s sophisticated and cool, but comfy too … and when it’s almost 100 here in DC, cool’s good.
How did the “greyhound” make it back to the dining room? Did I miss something? Was Sherry able to repair it after all? -Did someone buy a replacement?Was there actually a post I idn’t read? ( I always read your site while eating breakfast.) Hsppy dancing today ( We FINALLY) have an offer on our house ! – Dee
Oh scroll back through the comments for that info (this is my concrete greyhound that John got me years ago – my ceramic dog is the one who was sadly killed while tackling the frame wall).
xo,
s
I sooo wish I would have done the color swatch thing. My son wanted 2 of his walls to be gray and we thought we picked out THE perfect gray to go with his “organic green” accent walls. Well, once the paint was up, it looks more like a light blue than a gray. Grrr… We spent so much time looking at the paint chip in different places in the room, different lighting, etc- it looked so perfect on that 2″ piece of paper. Lesson learned. Should have painted swatches in a couple key areas.
It was a painting MARATHON at our house this weekend. Saturday and Sunday I painted the hallway and all of the trim, all of the doors off the hallway and for the first time in 3 months we have door knobs! Then Monday we painted our bedroom and all of that trim. It’s just so nice to have it done. And I love that gray, we’ve been thinking of something like that for our living room. Good job!
umm… is that a new dog statue??? Did I miss a post about him?
Truly LOVE the dining room color! It looks so calming and polished, especially with those slip-covered chairs!
Is it weird that I’m super eager to see the hole blown through the wall into the kitchen?!?!?!? :)
And we totally have projects that take months to start for no real reason… a bathroom shelf, the mirror for the gym, home office organization… ya, there’s just a few!
Oh scroll back through the comments for that info (this is my concrete greyhound that John got me years ago – my ceramic dog is the one who was sadly killed while tackling the frame wall). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Love that color! So calming. I put some test patches on the bathroom wall but those have only been up for about 3 days and hopefully those will get painted over in the next day or two!
We haven’t had paint swatches on the wall, but as my husband calls it “Paint chip hell”. We started with over 100. We didn’t know which direction we wanted to go for our living room.. gray, brown, mossy green, muted blue… all were colors that would work with our furniture. We weren’t afraid to go darker, because it has LOTS of light, and we wanted a cozy feel. We narrowed it down to our top five in each color category (still, 20 different colors!), and then when my parents came into town, my Mom and I would eliminate a few chips a day. By the time they left, we were down to 3 choices, and told my husband he got to pick the final. We ended up doing the living room & hallway in a lighter gray/brown, and the entry way fireplace alcove a few shades darker, and then our bedroom in the darker color too. We love it all, and those were the last few places that got covered up with ‘builder-grade-nasty-peach-tan-orange’ paint we had before!
This is totally unrelated to the post, but I just found John’s movie star doppelganger. Check it out: http://www.kulthit.de/bilder/wir-sind-die-nacht/961/8273/
He’s one of the stars of a German vampire movie called “We are the Night” that just came out in the U.S. Am I crazy or do they look remarkably similar?
Anyway, now you just need to find Sherry’s celebrity look-alike and then you’ll be all set for a YHL movie! Or, perhaps, sitcom?
Hilarious! I see it. John doesn’t (but he never does). We do both love that his doppleganger is German and involved with vampires though. Haha.
xo,
s
I ALWAYS paint with my pajamas inside out- I always thought I was the only weirdo who di that =)
I had paint swatches painted in my guest bathroom for over a year and finally got around to painting it 2 weeks ago! Only having them up for 4 months would be a miracle for me haha
Woohoo I love that you guys joined the gray train. I’ve been in love with gray since I wore my favorite gray sweater every day in the 11th grade. Oh the gray sweater…
it looks good, i know you love it! i just painted our foyer for the 3rd time, i think i do it because it is a room I can actually accomplish during nap time.
I just painted my master bath this weekend after 2.5 years in the house – you guys are way ahead of me! I removed the cartoon fish border 2 years ago, the glue from the border 2 DAYS ago and rolled on a nice cream called “rice grain” maybe when I put up the towel bars, replace the light fixture and dust my new mirror I’ll add some pics to my blog :)
We painted our master bedroom this weekend. We’ve lived here a year and are finally putting our touches on the place. The walls were a light grey/blue/green mix (depending on the time of day) to a charcoal grey color. We also swapped out the dark curtains to white curtains (hung higher and wider) and dark walnut bamboo woven roman shades. It looks a-m-a-z-i-n-g with our cherry floors and white doors/moldings.
Love the color! It’s not a drastic change, but it really makes the moulding and built-ins pop!
Don’t feel bad, we have paint on the ceiling and baseboards because we finish the walls and are too tired to touch up the trim!
The room looks great with its new paint. I’m going to use your swatches to test out colors for my living room. (And probably a dozen others.)
I am going on a month with green and blue swatches painted in our guest bathroom. I even bought the paint to finish it off, but I have been too busy with the “day” job to get started with the project :(
I love the grey color…we painted our whole downstairs a light grey..in different lights it gives off lavender hues… I love it!
I can’t wait to see your chairs dyed in that space!
Haha! I love anytime “tomfoolery” can be worked into a post! Awesome!
Clara must be a great napper! So jealous of what all you guys can get done with a baby! My 4 mo daughter only naps 10 minutes at a time, barely enough time to get to the dishes…
Oh man at four months she hardly ever napped longer than twenty minutes, but now we usually get two hours in the morning and about forty minutes in the afternoon. We’ll take it!
xo,
s
I was painting this weekend too! I’ve spent a total of four months sanding my entire kitchen (I read posts that said to remove all gloss/shiny veneer, so I set out to literally remove every. single. glimmer of gloss that exists on the cabinets). I finally got a paint my pantry!!! SOOOOOO excited. Now for the rest of the cabinets, slap some paint on the walls, and move on the rest of the entire house :D
I love how the light grey makes the white pop! The accent wall in my room has been painted for a few years now, and the other 3 remain untouched. Also, the bathroom has had swatches for a few months now :/
You guys went ahead and painted even though you’re planning to knock part of the wall out?
Yup, we figured it’s so easy to roll the middle of a wall so it wasn’t worth putting it off any longer (and yay! our swatches are gone!).
xo,
s
Love how this room all pulled together! So obsessed with grey.
Love the color!!! That is going to be such a fun room to decorate. Can’t wait to see what you have up your sleeves!! Are you going to paint the office the same color gray? I am the same way when it comes to home projects – I always bounce around. I think I get “stuck” with certain projects and it helps to take a break and come back with a different perspective. Plus you have to do what you’re in the mood for at the time.
Right now I am still dealing with my stair reno mess up. I tried to paint the treads and the paint is literally peeling off like a sunburn. NO idea why because I stripped and sanded just like I should have!! I haven’t had the heart to strip them again and start over. We put new flooring in upstairs and still don’t have quarter round in. I think it’s because it’s not exciting. No one is going to come in and say, “OMG, that quarter round is amazing!!” I like the more exciting projects!!! Which is prob why everything in my house is half done!!!!
Anyways, love what you’re doing with the new house!!! Can’t wait to see what you do for window treatments and art!!!
Molly
As for the office, we’re thinking about going a shade darker or maybe even adding a stencil so there’s something different but tied in going on in there. Should be fun to see where we end up. Someday. Haha.
xo,
s
Someone may have already asked this but I’ve been skimming all the comments and can’t find it. Did you guys skip the priming step? It seems like everyone always says you just CAN’T skip the priming step, but do you guys find color situations where it’s no big deal to skip it?
You must prime things like cabinets and wood furniture and paneling but walls work without it. We only prime walls when we’re going over a dark color or applying a dark color (like the dark teal guest room). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I’ve been painting my (new to us) house for about a month now – the whole thing, ceilings and everything (yuck – ceilings are NO FUN!). Imagine my surprise today to read this post and find that we (out of all those grey’s in the paint fan) chose the exact same shade of grey for our walls! I love Moonshine, I can’t even begin to tell you the satisfaction of covering up the old nasty plum and brown colors that were on my walls. I paired it with “Dune White” for the trim and the pop against that white is amazing.
Your room looks awesome, and YES I can completely see the difference. Love it!
I wouldn’t dye the chairs green, I really like them as they are! Just myhonestanswer…
Alright, I have a paint question (forgive me if you’ve answered this somewhere else). Why do you color match your Benjamin Moore colors to Olympic No-VOC? Does Benjamin Moore not offer a No-VOC option for certain colors?
Olympic No-VOC paint not only has no VOC base paint but the colorants are also VOC free (which is really rare). It’s also ten to twenty bucks cheaper than the VOC free BM stuff. We have had good luck with it!
xo,
s
Beautiful! I love the grey! We have some swatches up in the kitchen that I am secretly taking bets for on how long they stay up before we paint. Any takers? The sun keeps derailing my plans.
I did manage to paint the guest bed recently (prompted by a guest of course) so it remains the only finished room in the house.
Sounds like some of the other commenters have me beat, but I’ve had paint swatches up in my living room for about a year now. I decided on the color over six months ago and even bought the paint. The only thing delaying me is that one wall is interlocking pine wood paneling that was previously painted and needs to be stripped first. Whoever painted it used some sort of filler between each board that was obviously not meant to be painted, and it caused the paint to crack and chip from floor to ceiling at each joint. I’ve used a heat gun to strip about half if it so far, but it’s hot, hard, smelly work, so I keep procrastinating on finishing the job.
Love it! So much more polished and sophisticated looking without those swatches. :P
YAY! I have had plenty of Why-did-that-take-so-long-to-get-done projects. Looks great!
PS – Is it sad that I’m making your Clara Balloon banners for my own 30th birthday party this weekend??? :) They just make me so happy! Might even knock out a few tissue poms too. It’s my party and I’ll craft if I want to!
Oh man that’s not sad it’s awesome. Happy birthday! Get your craft on!
xo,
s
Thanks!! We’re having a funny T-Shirt theme….gotta laugh at 30 right?
Sounds like my idea of a good time! John has a great t-shirt that says “Talk Nerdy To Me” and I heart it.
xo,
s
Nice.
I have been so into gray rooms lately. I save images I like to an inspriation folder, and they all seem to be gray — even gray as a nursery color. It just looks so calm and sophisticated and fun (with added pops of color), all at the same time. What’s not to like??
Oh what a difference it makes. It looks fabulous!
I can totally tell the difference! I love it! I may be partial because I love gray :) I recently painted my kitchen gray and people couldn’t really notice a difference because it was so subtle, so when I saw this post I totally related :)
Here’s the kitchen: http://myersmaison.blogspot.com/2011/04/indecisive-no-more.html
Oh my gosh, I totally feel your pain. If discarded paint swatches were money, I would be a millionaire (ok, a hundred-aire). Do you find that grey’s are the trickiest? They always look 180 degrees different from the store to the house.
Thanks for sharing!
Gray swatches were definitely tricky, but getting those test swatches of paint actually on the walls to help us decide was such a help (all of the undertones were much easier to detect).
xo,
s
Question – we are building a house and I can’t make up my mind on what trim color I want throughout the house. White trim has always been my favorite & I like how your white trim looks in your house. But, I was wondering if white trim gets easily dirty’d (yes, i just made up that word) up? Do you have to wipe down your trim often or anything?
If you use semi-gloss or high gloss paint it’s so easy to wipe (or even scrub) down. We definitely prefer that to unwipeable flat trim (it always looks dingy). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
love the new color!
Yes, I just painted my living room 3 doorways, one built in, two sconces, molding at 8 feet, and the celing at 10, phew. Thanks for sharing the procrastination in lieu of other projects to remind me how normal I am in the best kind of way. Before I even scrolled down to or read the part about inside out sweats, I recognized the tags and though….I”ll be she does the inside out thing too. Way to be hip and hot at the same time Sherry.
Looks great! You know what I would do for art? A big mural type thing, sort of like this: http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/176-3022909-4224300?asin=B001QWVPU0&AFID=shopping_df&LNM=|B001QWVPU0&CPNG=home%20decor&ci_src=13736960&ci_sku=B001QWVPU0&ref=tgt_adv_XSC10001
Not covering the whole freshly painted walls, though! :)
That’s so much fun! Love it.
xo,
s
Love it!!! Glad to know I am not the only painter in progress..hallway is half sandfossil and half ozone and has been for 2 months. I am loving the grey.