painting stinks

(I've fallen behind with updates on our house project. I started this post weeks ago and just now finished it)

I don't mind painting. But Dave hates it. The part that REALLY stinks is picking the colors.

We were about the throw the towel in...but I don't really know what that means.
Would we have just left our walls unpainted?
Hired someone to do it for us?
I'm not sure what our options were...so luckily we sucked it up and made some decisions.

Our first dilemma...

The wall we tore out used to cover up the color-break between the living room and dining room (green to red). But without that wall, something really had to be done about this. We were pretty sure this LONG wall needed to be all one color. But what? I did NOT want to lose that red wall in the dining room where I have the black frames...that's my favorite wall. But neither of us were too sure about extending the red into the living room. We worried it would be TOO much.

But we decided to go for it.
Dave grabbed the old can of red from the garage so we could match the color to what was already up there. After the 2nd coat got put on, we noticed that it was NOT the same red. WHAT!??!! It has to be. We've never used red anywhere else, this HAS to be the same color (says Dave). And then I reminded him we did one of Mason's walls red.

OOPS.
Back for more paint. Thank goodness for Uncle Jim and his 40% discount!

So the red is up, and we are loving it.

Now for the 2nd color. This is where we wanted to give up.
I was thinking something yellowish/gold...but maybe brownish/tan. I don't really know WHAT I was thinking. Dave's sister has a color in her house called Applesauce Cake. She referred to it as a yellowish color. I see gold, but it's more brown than yellow to me. So anway, we tried it. Hey, I like it in her house, so hopefully it will look good in ours.

We got a small can and I painted this small area to see the color on the wall.
We hated it.
It looked peachy or something weird. I don't even know how to describe the color.
It was suggested that we paint a LARGER area to get a better idea. And then a 2nd coat as well, since we were maybe seeing some of that green still through it.

Here it is again, where our hallway meets the kitchen...and we liked it here. It looked totally different here than the other place. Weird what light does.

We left it on the wall for a few days, and I kept going back to the area by the door and painting more. It slowly grew on us just a little bit. Dave was in a hurry to just get the decision made and get it done. So of course, the minute I said, "I guess it's okay"...the paint was bought.

WHOAH HORSEY!!! I was still not sure about it. But I also didn't know how to change it. I really didn't want to go back to square one. So he assured me that if we (I) didn't like it, we could repaint in a year. OK. Deal. He hates to paint...so hearing him say he'd do it again in a year, that was fine by me. I can deal with yucky paint for a year.

So the Applesauce Cake went on the walls.



And surprisingly....we really do like it now that it's ALL up. The only weird thing is that it looks like it's 3 different colors in 3 different spots. Down the hall it looks VERY yellowish-gold. Outside the hallway, someone said it looked green. And over by the door it looks even different. But all in all, we like it. I think it looks great with the red wall and with our furniture.

Dave began building the shelves around the fireplace. He'll put adjustable shelves in for decor, picture frames...whatever I find to fill the space. And the other side will be our TV, with a shelf or 2 above and a cabinet below (for games and toys). We'll stain it darker to match the other woodwork.



Coming up next....the stone for the fireplace, and carpet.
I just can't wait to have everything put back together. Right now, everything's just kind of randomly placed or put away all together. I'm hoping we can come far enough along here soon that I can get my fall decorations out...I can't imagine having to skip that this year.

Oh yeah, and here's what the kiddos are thinking about our big project...


Sometimes when people come over, the first thing Taylor will say when they walk in the house is "my daddy tear down my house!" and points to the missing wall.