More Painting

Oh yeah, our 4th of July party forced me to finish painting the stairs and most of the upstairs. I went with a tuscan yellow and actually really like this one! It looks brighter in the pics than it does in person.

Herky is saying "hi" here!

Pub Room On Its Way

The saga of the pub room paint continued this weekend. Todd suggested Navy for the room and I wasn't sure. But in the shower one morning, a new thought came to me. I would be ok with a dark navy bottom, with subtle cream stripes on the top. My sister did a similar thing in her master with burgundy, and I love it.  However, I always wanted to try metallic paint, and specifically metallic paint stripes. So, I went to Lowe's and grabbed every one of their metallic paint samples. Todd actually picked out the navy color (I had picked up about 25 different navy colors). And then we pulled out the best options in metallic paint that would look good with the navy. I settled on "blue sateen."

The metallic paint has to begin with an undercoat in a specified color. Since I have a paint discount at Pittsburgh, I picked up the undercoat, "Freshwater," there. I painted the upper and lower half of the pub  room before getting the metallic paint. Then Saturday we went to Lowe's to get the paint, and the clear flat top coat that would provide the subtle stripes. However, all that was on the shelf was the clear coat in satin. Since the metallic paint is shiny, I knew satin wouldn't be the sheen needed for the stripes. I asked, and was told that Lowe's no longer carries the flat protector. WHAT? I based my whole room around this!! Needless to say, I was not happy, but thought I should try just painting stripes of metallic and alternate with the Freshwater that was already on the wall. I was assured I could return the paint if it didn't give me what I want. After all, their instructions told me to use a product that doesn't exist!

So started the long process of painting metallic stripes. I've never done vertical stripes, but it was surprisingly much easier than I thought it would be. It just took a lot of time and patience. So, here's the room so far. I'm not totally excited about the effect. I wanted the whole wall to be the metallic color, with very subtle stripes. The end result is not quite so subtle. I'm thinking that once we get art up on the wall, and our bar built, and the pool table in there, I will be happy with it. For the record: the metallic paint is so pretty and looks awesome! I would definitely use it again!

Failures... and one success

So, I wanted to make our front room a "pub room." Its the perfect size for a pool table, and we plan to have a bar in there someday. Pubs are usually dark, so I choose an olive green that I've loved for awhile. But it turned out to not be a good choice because our house is too dark. All our windows have sunscreens, which help keep our house about 10 degrees cooler than outside. Unfortunately, it also makes everything dark. I then picked out an orange, thinking it would be dark, but bright for the room. But that didn't turn out so well either. So this weekend I went and picked up paintable samples to get some ideas for the room. I like the terra cotta orange, but its still not the look I was going for. What I want is a color I saw at my salon in Iowa City. I called them today, and they knew the color, but it was made by an Iowa paint manufacturer. So I called the paint store, and they do not carry the color anymore. Furthermore, they didn't have the color on file from her account. Sigh.... will I ever get the color up I want?

The olive is the first color. Looks ok in the pics, but too dark in person.

The four stripes on the wall are colors we were thinking about.

Also tried an orange I really liked. Too bright, although I still like this color. Not the pub color I was hoping.

What to do....

Todd spent some time this weekend putting together a misting system for our patio. The misting system will keep us cooler outside in the summer. Todd tested it Sunday (after curing for 24 hours) and there were no leaks! Its ready to go. I just need to paint it to match the house!

Adding on a splitter from our hose spiket.

Going up the side of the patio.

With the misters on! They all work!

Dad always taught me to buy the right tools, the first time! We purchased this PVC cutter for $13 at Home Depot. Totally worth it! Cut the pipe perfectly and without any plastic saw chips to worry about getting in our pipes!

More Painting

Vicki and I (mostly Vicki) have spent the last couple of weekends doing some more painting at the house, among other things. While she mostly does the painting, I do the other random small things around the house. Most of what I do doesn't need pictures (cleaning out the shed, spraying the yard and house for bugs and weeds, etc), we always like to take some before and after pictures of the painting. First up is the downstairs bathroom!

Looks good huh? =) We also painted the archway off the living room, at the opposite end of the kitchen, the same color as the kitchen. For the record, this was my idea...

Every weekend we seem to have a project to work on for the house. I'll keep posting pictures as we get them all done...

New Kitchen

Well, repainted kitchen. Vicki did a lot of work this past weekend and got our kitchen painted. It looks really good, and is a definite improvement over what it was before! Below are the before and after pictures.