One of the great things about a brand new house is that you are starting from a clean slate-- no old or ugly paint jobs to have to cover up. But that clean slate can also be a blank slate-- plain, boring, or even blah. After living for years in white-walled apartments, Jason and I knew we wanted to add some (still neutral) color to our new place. And we knew that if we didn't do it before we moved our furniture in, it would never happen. So the week between closing and moving was spent taping, painting and more painting.
Here's what we decided to tackle pre-move: master bedroom, master bathroom, loft/family room, and the main level (dining room/living room combo). In retrospect, it might have been a lot for two novice painters to tackle at once. But we did get it all done...with a few hiccups along the way.
The hiccups were primarily around color choice. When trying to decide about what colors to choose, we constantly encountered the same piece of advice--paint generally dries darker than it appears on the swatch or in the can. So we took that into account when making our color choices-- however, this did not turn out to be the case with most of the paints we chose. So in both the master bedroom and our loft/family room, we ended up with great looking neutrals...that are not that far off from the off-white that the builder painted everything to begin with :( That means a lot of work that will likely go unnoticed by the majority of people.
The other hiccup had to do with our idea to add a horizontal stripe accent wall in the master bedroom. We painted the walls a greige (again, that turned out to be not all that far off from the what it was originally) with the idea that we'd paint a pale blue-green stripe that complimented the rest of our decor to add some interest. Well, that pale blue-green (which looked great in the paint can) ended up looking powder blue on the wall-- perfect for baby's room but not so much for an adult. After one coat we decided we couldn't live with it and repainted in the same greige as the rest of the wall-- this time in a semigloss-- so we ended up with a tone-on-tone stripe instead. A great and sophisticated look-- that would have looked even better if we had gone with a slightly different neutral. Fortunately, our master bathroom and main level came out just as we intended!
Master bedroom accent wall--all taped up and ready to go.
Ummmm...no.
And here it is with the tonal stripe-- very subtle. But at least it's not baby blue.
Overall, I am happy with our painting experience but would probably consider actually painting samples on the walls the next time around.
Main level all taped up and ready to go-- by the end of the week I was a pro at taping.
Main level-- painted!
Here are some other tips we picked up a long the way:
frog tape is amazing and you can never have too much and
edging tools making cutting in a snap.
Master bath: before....
...and after. We also replaced the single large mirror with two smaller, framed mirrors.
Color list:
-Master Bedroom: Benjamin Moore Tapestry Beige (in flat and semi-gloss)
-Master Bathroom: Benjamin Moore Nantucket Fog (in semi-gloss)
-Main Level: Benjamin Moore Stonington Grey (in flat)
-Loft/Family Room (not pictured): Benjamin Moore Manchester Tan (in flat)
