Master Bedroom Painted

I knew it wouldn’t be long before I had another update on our bedroom.  I decided to just go for it and paint the room to get everything else moving.

After living with a few paint swatches taped to the walls for the last couple of weeks I decided on Sherwin Williams ‘Peppercorn’ (SW7674).  While the internet is a great resource for paint colors, it’s so hard to pick colors for spaces based on rooms you see online.  For example, one of the colors that I thought would be perfect was ‘Naval’ based on Earnest Home Co. Erin’s entry.  But when I watched the swatch at different times of the day in my room, it read too cool.  And not to mention, when Katie from Bower Power picked ‘Peppercorn’ to paint her basement storage room floors, it looked more gray than I wanted for my room.  It definitely made me second guess my choice. 

I decided to go for it and I’m so glad I did.  It went on very gray, but dried a dark, inky blue and looks awesome!  Seriously, I’m obsessed with the new color.  Every time I go upstairs I stop in to see the new color.

I’m even more impressed with myself because I decided I wanted to fix all the holes from the various frames before painting.  Usually, I would just let Mike handle this, but for some reason I wanted to do it.  I’m happy to report you can’t see any evidence of the old holes after painting.  Here’s how the room looked before I changed anything:

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And, after removing all the frames and spackling the holes:

Before

And, now after 2 coats of ‘Peppercorn’

Peppercorn After

The pine bed looks much better against the darker color now.

I’ve never painted a dark color like this, and it was a little different than what I’m used to.  First the guy at Sherwin Williams said I should go with 2 gallons because the deep base paint used for dark colors is more translucent which means it may not go as far as a light color.  I now have 1 1/4 cans left.  Seriously, I didn’t even use a whole can, and I did 2 full coats.  Usually, I’m able to get away with maybe a coat and a half.  As in I have to edge again, but I just fill in where it looks a little thin.  For this color, I needed to recover everything.  It was the most tedious wall painting I think I’ve ever done.  But I wanted to make sure it looked good, because in this room the walls are the original plaster and the dark color was going to show any imperfections, (Mike is more concerned than I am about this, I call it character!).

I did this last Wednesday since we were out of town this weekend and I joked that it was like drinking as you get older: not something I should do on a weeknight, and it takes much more time to recover than it used to.  I was sore all day Thursday!

Peppercorn After 2

I knew the dark color wouldn’t be as overwhelming as Mike was concerned with, (but at this point he knew I was sold on the idea so there was little he could do, also he’s happy with the rest of the house, so he knows to trust my vision!), because our trim and base boards provide so much white accents.  There’s 2 windows and 2 doors and the room is so tiny.  Also, it’s a room we prefer it to be dark, so we’re looking forward to closing the curtains and sleeping in on the weekends.

I’m obviously loving the first step of this room refresh and can’t wait to finish bringing in the new elements.  I plan to hem the curtains this week and will have an update on those soon. 

The KDH Family Build-Off

While I’m taking my time with the bedroom refresh, I thought I’d share some family news.

I’d like to introduce you to a little competition my brother suggested around the holidays.

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Mike’s ridiculously good at building things.  I'm more crafty, but can fudge my way through building something.  But, we’re not the only ones.  My family is also really handy! 

My brother has been woodworking recently, and thought with the crappy weather, it would be fun for all of us to have an excuse to build things.  And, of course that turned into a friendly competition between the family members.  His idea was everyone must make something out of pallet wood.  It’s free, easy to use, and readily available.

Meet the Players:

My older brother, Dan, is the mastermind behind the competition.  He lives with his fiancé, my soon-to-be sister-in-law, Kelly.  (They’re so cute in their engagement photos!)

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My oldest brother, Matt, travels a lot for work, but has still decided to play along!

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My parents, Brian and Jana, are retired so they might be the biggest threats since not only do they have a woodworking shop in their community, they also have a lot more free time than anyone else.  They’re also down in Florida so they don’t have to deal with the sub-zero temperatures we have up here either!  (Check out their shenanigans on my mom’s blog: A Real Retired Housewife of Florida)  

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My sister, Michelle, and her fiancé Keith have decided to sit this round out, but hopefully they’ll pick up during the next round.  (Lots of weddings this year, mean lots of engagement photos!)

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And, of course Mike and I.  We all have different last names, therefore - KDH Family.

The Rules:

  1. Projects will be turned in bi-monthly, on the last day of the month.  First project to be submitted Feb 28th.
  2. Each project must be structurally made of pallet wood.
  3. Projects can have other materials added to them (metal, ceramic, glass, electronics, cloth, plastic, etc.) as long as it remains primarily made of pallet wood.
  4. Projects can be finished in any way you want (stain, paint, veneer, upholstery, etc.)
  5. Projects don't have to be complex to win. Simply gluing the wood together if you want is fine, they don't have to last forever. Obviously, everyone is not going to be at the same ability level, but while craftsmanship is important, we should focus more on creativity.
  6. No teams! This is a competition for individual creativity. Although help with power tools is allowed.

Each person was tasked with coming up with 5 categories.  These would then be used to pick the rounds topic.  For example, I suggested:

  • Tool (Useful item)
  • Outdoors
  • Textile
  • Decorative
  • Furniture

Dan is taking some programming classes so he used his new skills to create a program that randomly selects a topic from our combined lists.

The Topic:

This round’s topic is ‘The Office’.

As you can tell, that leaves it pretty open.  It can be something decorative or useful.  And, as many people use an office differently, it’s open to a lot of interpretation!

The plan is to submit our projects on February 28th and I’ll post them here for voting!  Each project will be anonymous, so that creativity is picked rather than the individual person.  There’s no prize, just bragging rights, but sometimes those are even better!  Maybe if we keep this going throughout the year, we’ll tally up the wins and losers have to buy the winner dinner.

Mike is about halfway done with his project and I just changed my idea completely, so I better get moving!