Last week, we spent a couple hours two nights trimming out the entire great room, which took a long time considering so many doors and windows and cabinets and corners! And then Saturday, we knocked out all the rolling in a couple hours total.  And we were left with a much lighter house that we’re so happy with. Evidence you say?

Here’s what we started with:

And here’s how it looks today:

If a house could lose weight, that’s what i would say happened.  It shed a ton of pounds–although it also feels bigger, so I am not sure that’s the right analogy.  Kitchen!

Woohoo!! Like I mentioned in this post, we decided on a really light taupe that is sometimes tan, sometimes gray and sometimes a soft grayish green.  Ace Hardware’s Richland in their Clark + Kensington line.  It’s such a clean, ethereal, and calming paint color that we’ll live with for a good long time.  We were worried the painting process would include a few coats of primer before painting since the walls were so dark to begin with but the people at Ace were certain their Clark + Kensington paint would have no trouble since it has a primer built in.  Spoiler–they were right. I snapped the photo below with my phone while rolling on the first coat:

Impressive. The whole thing took 2 and a half coats total.  Two full and then one more in various places. It had a good thickness that didn’t drip either.  Good paint, people. Here’s how the living room looks now.

This room will change drastically before we’re done.  A window on the right. A fireplace where the couch is.  Uh, more furniture.  A new rug. Hardwood floors. This house has 1000 more square feet than our last house so everything is sparse right now, and I also feel like I have to explain why everything doesn’t look great right this second. Haha. Just know, with fresh paint, we’re finally looking at a starting point.

We didn’t paint the staircase to the left quite yet because we want to tear down some wall detailing first, but it will eventually be Richland as well.  I think all of these clean walls are calling for some art now. On it.