Before and After

All of the weather excitement around here has passed.  No more blizzards in the last week - THANK GOD.  In fact, the weather around here is downright peachy if you ask me.  It's been in the 40s all weekend (which feels like shorts and t-shirt weather) and the snow is quickly melting.  We put the screen door on the dining room door (we found it in the shed) and even had the door open for a bit because the south side of the house gets REALLY hot in the sun.  We actually had to move the thermometer because it was in direct sun and at one point today it said it was 93 degrees outside.  Hardly.

Now that we're unpacked and settling, it's time for the projects to begin.  Initially I'd wanted to start on the living spaces, but we thought it would make more sense to get the guest spaces all set up because our first guests are coming in a little over a month!

A couple of weekends ago, we set up the guest bedroom downstairs.  The walls were already a nice light green color, so we decided to leave it.

The room is probably a bit tight for a queen bed, but it works for now.  And I think guests would prefer that to a double (I know I would.)

Here's the room from the doorway.  The door JUST closes past the nightstand.  Tight fit!

Yes, the snow is up to the window...this will all (hopefully) be gone soon.  Also, this is the only room equipped with blackout shades - for when it's sunny at midnight in the summer.  You're welcome, friends and relatives!

Although the bedroom was fine, the downstairs bathroom had some issues.  This weekend we decided to give it a makeover!

Here it is before:

The bathroom is small and has no window.  For some reason the previous owners decided that "dirt brown" would be a lovely color to complement its features.  Granted the bathtub is a hideous brown but it doesn't mean you have to MATCH it.  (this picture does not do the bathroom justice...I think the flash was on).

Here's what it looked like from inside with the door closed.  Lovely.  The room had a great cave-like quality.

So we decided that a bucket of paint was in order.  Also, the hardware didn't match, looked extra cheap, and needed to be replaced.

After two short work days, here's what it looks like now:

The new paint color is called "Bay Waves."  It's very gray on the paint chip, but in some light it looks blueish.  With the new curtain and everything, the bathroom is so much brighter.  It even looks CLEANER, which is amazing.  Not bad for about $100 and a total of four hours of effort!  The hardest part was finding a new shower curtain.  I went to FIVE places today and finally found my winner at Bed Bath and Beyond.  I think it was in the "beyond" section (which also described my state of mind after driving all over town looking for a suitable shower curtain.  Ugh!).

Between the bedroom and the bathroom is the downstairs living space.  We NEED to paint it before people come.  The color is really offensive.

The pictures don't really do it justice - the color is not muted at. all. (Just in case you look at this color and think "oh that's kind of muted.")  It's very very bright avocado.

As you can see, we've already thrown some samples on the wall.  Andy and I are both leaning toward the darker one.  It's a REALLY bright room on the south side of the house with tons of windows, so it can handle a darker color, and sometimes the lighter color looks really blue, which isn't exactly what we were looking for.  The colors are actually from the same paint chip as the bathroom.  The lighter color is called "Polished Silver" and the darker color is "Stone Mason Gray."  (I would love to know how you get the job to name paint colors, because I feel like I would excel at this job.  I would tell you the names that I've thought up for these specific colors, but I don't want Valspar to steal my ideas.)  Sadly the green goes really well with my cactus picture right now, which is supposed to be centered over the sideboard but I had to move it to paint my squares.

I like this little nook by the sliding doors.  We plan to bring the leather recliner we have down, but it's hard to move and may make more sense to actually walk around the house down the driveway rather than try to haul down the stairs.  The green looks especially offensive (and true to life!) in this picture:

It's all coming along.  I've also added some pictures of some of the upstairs spaces.  As you can see, we haven't done any painting up there at all:

Right when you walk in, the hutch is facing the door.  All of my grandma's teacups and saucers made the long trip to Alaska unscathed.  I love that I can look at them every day - I always loved looking at them in her house when I was little and they're some of my most prized possessions, especially now that my Grandma is gone.  The plan is to de-blue the kitchen sometime before our summer guests arrive.

Looking down the hallway to the upstairs bedrooms, you can see we hung a bunch of our pictures.  They all actually look good with the yellow, but the yellow will be going away.  Also, that horrible track lighting fixture doesn't actually work correctly in addition to being ugly.  We may enlist some of our more "handy" family members to assist with replacing that over the summer (Dads! We're looking at you!!)

The main upstairs bathroom got some fabulous artwork (I even know the artist!) and a pretty new shower curtain.  This one did not take me five stops to find.  Thanks, Fred Meyer.  Also, the color was already light and bright.  Not much to do in this room, thank god.

That's all for now.  We've got some other projects up our sleeves.  Maybe if we feel ambitious we'll paint the green room this weekend.  Hope everyone had a happy Easter - I can't believe tomorrow it's April already!