I had secretly been dreaming of painting our living area a soft blue color, but couldn’t imagine what it might look like. I knew we had to keep our rugs since they were fairly new and a bit of an investment. I wasn’t sure how to make soft blue work with all of our natural woods and the yellow and orange in the rooms already. Then I saw this picture in Better Homes & Gardens and just knew it would work. The way the natural wood looks with those walls and the patterned rug. Oh and the curtains! I am in love with the bold blue curtains and cannot wait to replicate that look on a budget for my own room. Now I was convinced, but I just knew Josh was going to die when I mentioned painting the rooms. He didn’t even bat an eyelash — he agreed that after six years in this house we needed an update. Whew, I was worried for nothing.
via Amy Meier Design
Armed with some inspiration, a couple hundred bucks and a weekend’s worth of babysitters, we decided to spend Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend giving our house a little face lift. Did I mention satellite radio and lots of good barbeque was involved? Let’s just say we stuffed ourselves silly and did quite a bit of dancing around here.
First, we filled cracks in our concrete walls. They are concrete block {we think} coated with a layer of concrete plaster. I have always loved the subtle texture, but drilling holes for artwork is quite an ordeal. Because they are a bit brittle, they do crack from time to time. No big deal structurally, but every few years we get to fill and paint.
We moved all of the furniture into the living room while we worked in the dining room on Saturday and then did the complete opposite on Sunday to work in the living room. When we had only one room finished, Josh started getting nervous about the color. It did read very “baby blue” when contrasted with the orange on the other walls, but I convinced him to stick with it and see what we thought after everything was finished. He was worried we would be watching television in a little boy’s nursery by the end of the weekend.
The bookcases moved into the dining room because this wall doesn’t have a plug and we needed something tall that didn’t require a lamp or any accent lighting. I repainted the whole thing the same color as before just to freshen it up a bit. Our original plan was to remove the back and replace it with beadboard until we realized that the construction of the cabinet wouldn’t allow for that. Instead, I used my trusty hot glue gun to attach burlap to the back of the cabinet and cover the television hole from before.
We had to find wherever we could to sit down for breakfast Monday morning! The girls were home with us and this big girl was a huge help. Not only did she pitch in and vacuum up the dust in the living room, but she helped to paint some of the furniture once we settled on a color. Sophie on the other hand, was into everything and got banished to the pack & play for most of the day. Even Beemer was a pretty big help, until she gave herself a paint-tray facial halfway through the weekend. That’s what happens when you drop a goldfish cracker into the paint. She’ll go after it no matter the cost.
Tune in tomorrow morning for what the rooms look like now. It isn’t what I’d call finished, but we are definitely in the home stretch.
