Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

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Lightening Up In The Living Room

We’re back from our week at the beach and excited to dive back into things! We were so lucky to have great weather and even got to squeeze in some window shopping and a thrift store trip, so that stuff’s in the hopper. Other than that we were beach bums and pool bums just soaking up the sun. Allow me to keep it real and mention that there were three kids under the age of four, so there were also meltdowns and even a cookie-tossing incident, but it was a great trip. We really loved Destin!

Back to the salmon living room walls that are no more.

After rolling back the carpet and covering a few things with dropcloths to protect them from flying paint (doesn’t usually happen, but ya never know…) we ran around spackling all of the wall holes. Turns out there were a bunch. We just used Dap Crackshot and sanded it with a sanding block once it was dry and wiped/vacuumed up the dust before moving on to the priming step.

As is the usual for the painting duo that is John & Sherry, I cut in around all of the crown, trim, windows, and door frames while John rolled. In inside-out painting clothes of course. Here’s the primer coat going on:

Since this is just a colored wall that we’re bringing back to a lighter and more neutral tone, we didn’t need anything heavy duty when it came to the primer (no stain-blocking or oil-based stuff was necessary since it’s not like dealing with potential wood-bleed). So we just used what we had leftover from priming some of the blue and mauve doors and trim upstairs.

In fact this entire project was a $0 update since we decided to go with the same paint color that we used in our foyer (Edgecomb Gray by BM, which is actually more of a creamy sand tone than a gray) since we still had enough leftover to complete the living room – but more on why we chose that in a minute.

Thanks to the primer coat, we only needed one coat of paint. And since it was just the upper portion of the room that we were painting (along with the fact that there are a bunch of doors/windows/built-ins that cut into the “wall area” in here), we thankfully could rely only on our leftover paint.

It’s definitely not a risky choice, but it’s such a breath of fresh air to see something pleasant and neutral after living with salmon walls for the last two months.

The coolest part is how much wider the room feels now that the color sort of recedes instead of saying “hiiiiiiii!” like the pink walls did.

Here’s the other side of the room where we’d love to eventually create a nice wide doorway in the center that leads to the kitchen, with built-in cabinets on each side (sort of like the opening between the office and dining room in our last house). We’ll probably use an accent color on the back of the future built-ins, and since we plan to whitewash the brick on the other side of the room, there will be two nice “focal areas” going on (so we didn’t want the wall color to compete or make things too busy). We have even debated using a soft blue color on the ceiling between the white coffered beams. Should be fun to see where this room takes us!

And since here’s a little sofa shot, I thought I’d toss out another update for you guys since we’re always being asked how we like our Karlstad from Ikea. Still love it! After a few years with a dog and a kid it’s still going strong. We can’t vouch for any other type of cover (ours is the dark sivik gray) but it’s super durable and washable. Check out our poor console table though – we still need to shorten it and make it interlock correctly since we just sort of mashed it together from the extra long version that we had at our previous house (back when our sectional was configured to be a lot larger). Hence that earthquake-lookin’ crack going on behind the sofa.

But back to the living room walls…

… we’re so happy we devoted an afternoon to de-salmoning them right before we hopped in the car for our road trip. It was totally worth the time and leftover paint to come home to such a lighter sight.

Perhaps the most upgraded view in the house is this one…

We still have a lot of wood trim to paint and three different floors going on, but at least there’s one less room full of wallpaper, no more blue trim, and the living room has been de-pinked.

The funniest thing to us is how differently Edgecomb Gray can read when it’s next to wood trim vs. white trim. See how it looks darker in the foyer thanks to the contrast with the white trim? Meanwhile in the living room from this angle it almost looks off-white against the wood – so of course we’re more anxious than ever to keep on painting in there.

Slowly but surely…

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Comments

  3. The color looks almost completely different from how it looks in the hallway! Such an improvement from that salmon – the room is so bright and airy now. I think a coffered ceiling will be an awesome touch (though I’m secretly hoping you guys keep the wood beams in the ceiling natural or re-stain them).

    Reply

  4. I’ve been reading since you were in your first house, so I’m definitely familiar with extreme makeovers, but since everything was so polished and finished in your last house, I’ve forgotten what the in-betweens and baby steps look like. Three cheers for sans-salmon walls. Here’s to no more wood trim and a whitewashed fireplace! Keep up the good work!

    Reply

  7. Cannot wait to see if you paint the ceiling a soft blue. One day when I’m a homeowner and not a renter, I want to do that! Thanks for inspiring me. :)

    Reply

    • I agree with Victoria – those curtains make a huge difference, too – especially compared with those dark floral originals!

  9. I loved both edge comb & revere pewter, but BOTH came off purple against the exposed redwood beams in our new (to us) house. Looks amazing in your house. I am still baffled how paints can change so violently in different lights. {Yes, I just called the paint violent.}

    Reply

    • Haha, it’s true! We hated how Edgecomb Gray looked in our last house and love it here. I think it’s how much light a house gets and what cardinal direction it faces. That or paints just have multiple personalities…

      xo
      s

    • I’m going to go with multiple personalities! Just painted our bathroom Grey Goose by Olympic (a nice greige) and all the samples and paint chips did not prepare me for how lavender it looks in the room. Not sure how I like it but I’m 36 weeks pregnant and NOT in the mood to change it at this point! John and Sherry the living room looks great! I know what a relief it is to lighten a paint color like that!

  10. Welcome home! Glad to have you back!

    I know you guys are big fans of white trim (and I’m sure it’ll look great once everything goes white), but I’m really liking all the natural wood in this room (especially the shot of the wall with the built-ins)! I’d love to get to see you work with it as-is at least for a little while. :)

    Reply

    • We’re fans of living with things like brick and wood trim until you’re 100% sure you’re ready to paint them (since it’s hard to go back on that). So that’s the plan fo sho!

      xo,
      s

    • As the hall shot shows, Edgecomb really does its magic against White trim. Indeed I think it looks spectacular there and just kind of ho hum against wood. So here’s one reader hoping for the white trim!

    • This girl loves me some white trim also!!!! Everything always looks so clean and crisp. I am working my way through my house painting out the trim. Not an easy task.
      Hope your vacay was nice. I love your blog.:)

  11. Looks great! Do you have plans to paint the wood trim? Also, in your foyer you changed out the wood doors to white doors. Did you paint them white or get new doors all together? (might have missed a post but I had no luck searching for it). Thanks!

    Reply

    • Oh yes, check out the post for the wood trim plans! And as for the doors, we just sprayed them in the garage and rehung them with new hinges and hardware. They’re like new doors for a fraction of the price.

      xo
      s

  12. Well I guess I can turn just about anything into a story about the hubs, even painting. :D We did the same thing – I cut in and he rolled the walls. But he was 6’4″ so getting down on his hands & knees was a little comical. Thing was, he’d be done rolling in, like, 1/3 the time it took me to cut in. sigh.

    While I’d love to paint some walls in our new/old house, it’s just one more grief-hump to get over. So I’ll just watch you guys, k?

    Reply

  13. I love that you are lightening the house even though my living room is teal and my dining room is apple green, I love a neutral palette with punches of color. The dark grey couch still looks awesome and I am loving the master bedroom rug in the living room and the living room rug upstairs. Glad you gusy are back from vacation and looking forward to the transformation of house #3…so far so great!

    Reply

  14. Welcome back! Nothing like a week at the beach to recharge the batteries.
    I really love how you approach your rooms in stages. It gives you time to make wise decorating decisions but also makes the projects less overwhelming.

    Reply

  16. We have the SAME PLANKED TRIM going around our den area, along with the beams on top and the oddly shaped built-in! Can I ask if your plan is to remove the wood planking, or just paint it and the beams white along with the brick on the fireplace? I have so many ideas, none of which are inexpensive at this point (ripping down the plank wall probably means drywall replacement), so I’m super curious what you plan on! Thank you!

    Looooove that color too. :)

    Reply

    • We actually love the thick planked wood walls below the trim when we see them painted in rooms on Pinterest/in magazines so that’s the plan! It’s going to be a ton of work but we love the beachy and architectural look when we see them painted white!

      xo
      s

  17. I am dying to know your plans for the woodwork in the living room, since mine is much the same! It wreaks havoc with every paint color I consider! What if I change it all up just about the time it comes back in style??

    Reply

    • Painted wainscoting and slatted wood just seems to be our preference (many rooms that we pin/tear out of magazines have that) so we’re sold on that look, but I always say never to paint brick or wood unless you’re 100% sure you want to go with that since it’s so hard to undo! Basically wait until you can’t stand waiting another second to paint it and only then should you grab a brush!

      xo
      s

  18. Have you guys considered the idea of tiling over your brick fireplace? I did ours a few years back and it was such an amazing, quick and (best of all) inexpensive transformation. I went with slate tiles and a contractor gave me tips on a product to use that primes the brick so you dont have to mess with backer board or mud and wire like some other methods of tiling.

    Reply

    • We did think about that! In fact I think in our first Listy-McListerson we linked to a white stacked stone tile job that we liked! I think we’re on the whitewashing train now though, so that’s most likely going to be the first thing we try.

      xo
      s

  19. Perfect timing! We just bought a new home in March and the entire house is painted a pinky beige color. Now that I’m past my first trimester exhaustion I’m itching to start figuring out color options. I’ve been pouring over your old posts about paint colors because I felt so overwhelmed with all the new space and what color to paint. I just decided this weekend that I’m going to use the same neutral color in the two story foyer and family room and bring in color with accents. Seeing you guys do it makes me feel like yes I made the right decision :)!

    Reply

  20. I don’t know if anyone else is experiencing this, but when I go directly to your website your new post doesn’t come up. The only way I knew you had a new post was from the link through facebook. Thought I would give you a heads up–not sure what is going on.

    Love the living room! It looks awesome.

    Reply

    • hitting F5 on your keyboard will automatically refresh the page, too (I sometimes have the same problem)!

    • I completely deleted all history and cookies and everything and I had the same issue today. I’m using google chrome, btw.

    • Oh yes, even if you clear them, it could happen everyday if your cache time is set to something (ex: if your computer is set up to cache every 10 minutes, even if you clear it and it pops up, everyday it’ll be 10 minutes behind). So maybe try changing that setting to a more frequent number (every minute) would help?

      xo
      s

    • F5 does not clear your cache. It only refreshes the page.

      To truly clear your cache, you need to go into your browser tools and delete temp files, cookies, and history. Of course that will sign you out of everything each time you do it, if you’re the type who doesn’t sign out of sites when done for the day. But it will make your computer snap without having to drag all that rubbish with it with every new tab opened.

      It always amazes me how many people think computers are self-cleaning. No, just like self-cleaning ovens, you need to start the process. Especially if you’re online a lot, as that stuff accummulates likes crazy. If you don’t clear your cache at least once a month (a heavy user should do it weekly), you’ll find that the process seems to take forever once started because there will be a ton of temp files.

      Every single graphic on a page visited is in there, in addition to the cookies for the page itself. Now think of how often you’re on Facebook with its gazillion ads and avatars alone. That adds up to a lot of drag and wasted space on your computer if you don’t flush it away every so often. F5 isn’t doing a thing for you in that respect. Find the gear icon up top and familiarize yourself with the cache purging process. Your computer will thank you.

  21. Funny that my first instinct when looking at this room would have been to paint all of the wood trim white. But now that you have neutralized the walls, the wood trim looks great! It has such a nice sophisticated feel to it. Especially once you neutralize the fireplace, I think it’s gonna look amazing!
    Can’t wait to see where this room goes!

    Reply

  22. it’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do! love seeing you guys move right in too. we’ve lived in our home 7 months now and i just haven’t brought myself to putting much decor up, i’m stressing about it way to much! thanks for inspiration always.

    Reply

  24. Looking good!!!! Question about your pillows. What is your rule of thumb for picking out pillows for a room? I just got new ones, and was going to get 2 matching, but found two (unmatching) pillows that match the room, but not each other. Thinking about going for a “layered” look like you have with multiple different pillows, rather than having 2 of each pillow I buy. (I got them for a STEAL and couldn’t pass up) Thoughts?

    Reply

  25. It is amazing how colors can change as time goes on. I painted a few different colors on areas of my room and stood back and watched the color show, I was able to pinpoint one that stayed pretty much the same. Totally unrelated, a few weeks ago we purchased a front loader washer, Im not super happy as lately I’ve noticed, actually smelled my supposed to be clean clothes. Do you have any issues with your machine?

    Reply

    • We never did with two sets of front loaders (both by Whirlpool) but we’ve heard of that issue from others. Our tip was that we ran Affresh tablets through it to clean the machine every once in a while and also left the washer door open to air out after a load for a little while. It became second nature and it never got stinky, so it must have worked!

      xo
      s

    • I had this problem, because we have 4 dogs. If you run a sanitary cycle (or the hottest cycle on your washer)with bleach in the detergent ‘holder’, it will clean anything you’ve been dealing with. I ran it every 3 days for 9 days, and now do it about once or twice a month. if I’ve cleaned a lot of ‘doggie’ things, i’ll do it immediately after. this is the only thing that worked for me!

    • I use the method of running the sanitary cycle (or hottest cycle)with bleach in the detergent dispenser. do this every 3 days until the smell is gone, then follow-up once or twice a month. this is the ONLY thing that worked for my on my LGs. but I also have 4 dogs :)

    • We had that issue with ours as well. There’s a cycle on ours for cleaning the washer with just bleach in the dispenser. But we were also told by the repairman who came to work on our dryer and kindly did a tune up on our washer while he was there, that we should always leave the door open to the washer between loads to avoid it getting musty smelling and to prevent the rubber seal from mildewing. We haven’t had to run the cleaning cycle as often since.

  27. What is the name of the trim color? And what brand? I am in major need to of covering some contractor khaki, and I have the hardest time just picking white!

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  28. It’s amazing to me the colors that some people can live with. I guess I’ve never been a bold color lover, and that salmon would have probably killed me. Loving the new look SO MUCH MORE.

    We just finished painting our house and used two different shades of gray throughout our living area, foyer and hallways. It looks like about 6 different shades depending on the lighting, etc. Craziness. But I’m loving it. Can’t wait til the flooring and trim arrive!

    Reply

  29. Looking GOOD! A small, very humble suggestion: do the whitewashing of the brick BEFORE painting the ceiling beams. You never know! I had so much fun whitewashing a wall in our old office (formerly a screened porch that we closed in) and I realized after getting rid of all that dark, depressing brick color, the darker wood trim now looked gorgeous! It helped define the area instead of becoming an accomplice to the icky, dated red brick. I would so whitewash the stew outta that brick, paint the window trim, and *possibly* leave the beams. What is the plan for the lower part of the walls? Again, the living room already looks a 1000 times better!

    Reply

    • Thanks Jenni! I think that’s my plan (I can’t wait to whitewash so I’d love to tackle that next!). Right now we’re leaning towards painting all of the wood trim (including the wainscoting) glossy white since that’s just usually our preference in inspiration rooms that we pin/tear out of magazines, but you never know where we’ll end up!

      xo
      s

    • I agree! The trim and paneling should be white, and the brick should be whitewashed asap. Then see what the beams do! They should look great, kind of like how your slate became beautiful once it was set off properly.

      We whitewashed our fireplace and it was the best choice ever. We went from almost demo’ing it, to having it be our favorite thing in the house. We also have a slate entryway that we installed three years ago-it’s our second favorite thing!

  31. Loving that Edgecomb Grey! We are building new right now and I’m searching high and low for a wall colour that is light, neutral and splits the gap between a soft tan and a warm grey. I’ll be testing it in the home, but wanted to ask… do you find this colour achieves that? Or would you suggest another colour you’ve used and loved? Thanks!

    Reply

  32. Looks good! Edgecomb Gray by BM reads like a similar color that I am doing in my living/dining room: Quill by Olympic. Sometimes it reads a very light, sandy beige and other times it is almost a blue gray. Either way, I am in love with the color. P.S. These houses you have bought in the Richmond area have such beautiful wood work and built-ins. Very different from the boxy ranch homes we have a plethora of here in southern California. They are so beautiful. :)

    Reply

  34. I’m so glad you linked to the post about making the couch smaller, because somehow I totally missed it and hadn’t even noticed that the configuration was different. I usually read the posts pretty thoroughly, but I don’t always see all the details in the pictures, even one as obvious as this. :)

    Reply

  37. We have a lot of dark wood trim in our house, too. I don’t intend on ever painting it, but when it comes to adding crown moulding, do we go white, like the ceiling, or more wood?? It feels so heavy when it’s up high! It’ll be nice to see how the room progresses…

    Reply

    • I would check out sites like Pinterest and Houzz and flip through magazines to see what you like. I think you can find some rooms with white crown and wood trim and others with wood everywhere (or white everywhere). You can also just hang wood crown up there and see how you like it and live with it a while and paint it if you end up thinking it looks heavy. Sometimes seeing it in person is the only way we can ever make a decision. Haha!

      xo
      s

  38. I wondered if you’d paint the wood too but the color you used compliments the wood nicely enriching it’s tone. You point about multi-focal point spaces needing something to recede is spot on … I also have a great room with multiple focals and didn’t figure out until recently that we needed a neutral wall so it didn’t look so crazy! Can you share where you stayed in Destin … noticed that Burger came with on the trip and I’ve always wanted to visit Destin but hadn’t located pet-friendly accommodations … if Beaver can’t come with we don’t go! Thnxs, Robin

    Reply

  40. Thanks for painting that pink away! I was not enjoying it (I expect you guys were enjoying it less LOL).

    Are you planning anything special for the wainscoting? Or just keeping it there and painting it white?

    Reply

    • We actually love the thick planked wood walls below the trim when we see them painted white in rooms on Pinterest/in magazines so that’s the plan! It’s going to be a ton of work but we love the beachy and architectural look.

      xo
      s

  42. I wish my dad would let me whitewash their brick fireplace… it needs some love… And heck, I’m painting the rest of the living room… why not, right?

    Reply

    • Thanks! It was from Joss & Main about 2+ years ago and such a great buy! We hide tons of Clara stuff in there and it’s soft and wipeable so she can sit up there, jump on it, eat snacks on it, etc.

      xo
      s

  44. That looks great. My wife and I this year just got done changing our salmon-ish kitchen color to a light blue and we upgraded our salmon-ish siding (we don’t know why the previous owners liked that color so much), also to blue.

    Reply

  45. I am on pins and needles for the brick white washing tutorial. We have some red RED brick around our fireplace (not a whole wall, just the immediate fireplace surround) that I am desperate to get rid of. I keep thinking “I’ll wait until Sherry & John do it; with their directions, I can’t screw it up”! :) But then there’s the terracotta red tile for a ‘hearth’ that I’m not sure what to do with… any ideas?? I can’t just paint that, can I?

    Reply

    • Yeah, it’s a gas fireplace that we use with some amount of regularity in the winter (not so much last winter with two one-turning-two year olds, but hopefully now with two-turning-three year olds it might work better).

      It’s only about 4ftx2ft, so I may get crazy brave and just pull it up and lay something. It usually takes me just getting fed up and my girls taking an extra long nap and I do crazy things!

      Thanks!!

  48. Do you have any tips for storing paintbrushes/rollers when you’re not finished with the project? i.e. overnight? I hate cleaning my brushes and have often wondered how you handle this chore since you guys paint so often. Looks great by the way!

    Reply

    • And then stick them in the fridge! When you pull out again the next time to paint,just give it a few mintues to get to room temp.

    • My grandfather always covered brushes and rollers in Reynolds Wrap and stuck them in the freezer. That was a sight back in the day when a freezer was the most miniscule part of an icebox and meant only to contain Sunday’s roast. I owned one of those old fridges when I was in college and you could barely get a frozen pizza in there. I’ve followed his advice on many housepainting projects and it works. You do need to open the foil and let brushes thaw out for a little bit to regain their pliability, but rollers can go right from the freezer to the wall.

  49. I know you have said everything looks off/crazy in the middle. I have a brick red living room and my neighbor just painted her above-the-chair rail a slightly darker than salmon color. I’m used to the warmth of a nice creamy tomato-soup paint. But I’m interested in seeing what you will do with the wood paneling and the beams and the built-ins. I love the foyer with the white trim, but it looks so stark and contrasty in the living room.

    It’ll be interesting to see what you come up with as a finished (or finished as it can be) room.

    Reply

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