Home Ownership Week One

Sorry for the delay in posts!  We aren't getting our cable and Internet hooked up until August 15th so I am posting from work during my lunch break!

The first week of home ownership has definitely had its ups and downs.  Husband and I started our first weekend of home renovation on Friday night at where else:

The shopping trip was daunting, from start to finish.  I had no idea how many supplies we had to buy and things we had to consider in this first round of painting.  We were also fairly stressed because we were trying to get as much painting down above the old carpet that was in our house prior to the installation of new carpet on Monday (which is a whole other story). I will also say that we went to a local location of the Home Depot and were less than thrilled with the customer service provided.  I think for future excursions we will either be going to Lowes or making the trek to Madison.

Once at Home Depot, I had my first mini panic attack which was caused by this:

I had gone into this weekend thinking I knew exactly what type of paint I wanted to use and what colors, but then I realized everything looked so very different up close and personal.  Husband and I both knew we wanted to use really good paint and after a little research we both concluded that it would be best to use Sherwin Williams.  Which, as you will see, I am so glad we did!  It is definitely a little more expensive than a Glidden or a Mystique, but the result is transformative. 

We left Home Depot with plenty of paint supplies, but no paint, and headed to Sherwin Williams.  I again was faced with a wall of color and after my second mini panic attack of the night decided to take a color wheel home before actually purchasing paint.   

So we began prepping the room.  Again, I had no idea how much prep work went into painting a room and you might not either.  Because we had a fairly dusty, unclean space to start with we had to take down all of the curtains (aka collectors of dust) and begin washing walls and baseboards.  This was by far my least favorite task.

Our new drop cloths

Then after the walls were washed we had to putty the 9,000,000 holes the previous owners put in the walls and sand them.  Then, in case washing the walls and baseboards wasn't tedious enough the first time, we had to do it again before we painted to get sanding dust cleaned off.

Below is some of my handiwork:

Unintentional photo of my mother-in-law helping me wash out closets and test paint on the wall.  Thanks Ms. Katie!  We are both very lucky that both sets of parents came down Saturday to help us.  From picking up lunch to painting ceilings to delivering boxes that had been sitting in their homes for two years, it was a huge help!  Side Note:  the entry way into our vanity/closet area used to have a swinging western style door that Husband took down.  I really wish I had a good before picture because the thing was ugly

Large guest room before we started prepping:

After prepping:

Small guest room a.k.a. the staging room

Finally it came time to paint.  I pretty easily decided to paint the Master bedroom, bath and large guest room the same color, but the small guest room, vanity/closet and hallway/entryway were a different story.  My mom basically had to step in and calm me down.  I was so afraid I was going to hate everything and then we would have wasted a ton of money on my painting whims.

Below is a sample of my color schizophrenia pre-mother intervention (I'll tell you which one I picked later):

 We spent, LITERALLY, every second of this weekend at the house working from sun up until sun down trying to get as much painting done before Monday.  Husband spent hours painting trim and ceiling.  Monday dawned and the carpet guy met us at the house.  First words out of his mouth were that the trim had been painted for nothing because the shoe molding around the bottom had to come out to put the new carpet in.  I thought husband was going to be sick and I wasn't very happy either.  Oh well, you live and you learn.  We will be sanding and repainting trim this weekend.

However, it was totally worth it because we both love the new carpet!  It makes the house feel so much more modern and updated.  We are also really glad that we paid someone to install it and did not even consider trying to do it ourselves.  They had it done in a little under one day!

TA DA!!!

Added bonus, the stairs underneath the original carpet looked great and are a very pretty oak/pine combination.  So we are going to get them sanded and stained eventually (Husband and are pretty sure we would mess stain up so I think we are going to hire somebody-we may change our mind).  For now, we have had all the nails pulled out and are going to just kinda live with them.

Before:

After:

And finally, the room we made the most progress on this weekend, the Master:

Ignore the bedding-I am getting something new in October and I plan on moving this comforter into the small guest room.  We painted this room Hazel from the Urban Organic palette in the Sherwin Williams HGTV line of paints.  I love it!  The plan is to paint the master bath and large guest room this same color.  We are also going to put blinds up and eventually replace the lamps, hang curtains, etc.  I also have some prints that I found on Etsy that I am ordering.  They are a bright, sunny yellow in white frames!  

I'll put more picture of different angles of this room up once I have the room finished.

For now, I am going to be spending some time continuing to unpack:

Fighting a nest of wasps, potentially shooting some squirrels that are clawing at our siding and working on my washing machines spin cycle.  Oh, and playing with one of these shades of green this weekend in my closet/vanity room!

As husband said to me the first full night we lived in our house-we have moved into an endless to-do list!  I'll try to keep the blog updated, but it may be a little irregular until we get Internet at the house full time!  Hope you like what we have done so far!