Unexpected smurfiness

That is what we got when we asked the teenager working at Home Depot's paint counter for a primer to go under navy blue paint.  Thing is, our walls in The Shining room were rather, uh, smelly?  Maybe it was the wallpaper crumbling on them for the last 70 years, or the dampness in the plaster, but something was stanky in there.  For this reason, we wanted to use Kilz primer.  Problem is, Kilz is white and they could only tint it slightly.  While we should have primed the walls with a dark charcoal primer, we ended up with a smurf blue primer that wasn't going to do much to darken the walls.  Observe:

This first pic is closest to the actual color, the others were taken with an improper White Balance setting so they turned out very cold and dark.  I didn't realize until I uploaded them.  Ooops!  Hey, at least I know what White Balance is, right?   Go, me!

Despite the color, I knew that I could make it work out fine.  And it didn't stink like adhesive anymore, so that's neato.  We also primed/painted the trim and doors:

(Flashback!)

 

Then I tried out a couple paint samples, including BM Hale Navy (middle square) and SW Gale Force (on the left).   

I chose Hale Navy, matched in Sherwin Williams paint.  Why?  Because I thought the BM paint was a bit too runny when I did the dressing room.  However, I actually like the finish of the BM Matte paint much better than the flat from Sherwin.  And the Sherwin paint was about $10 more.  And it still splattered all over the place!  Anystupidpaintmanufacturers, after I was done yelling profanities and drowning my sorrows in a nice Port, I decided WHO THE HELL CARES anyway.  It's done, I will live with it.  And without further ado, here's a teaser of things to come!

I did it.  For reals.  It's almost black, and oh so cool.  Full room shots coming next week!

A bit of irony

I find it amusing that underneath the wallpaper in the Shining Room, the original paint color closely resembled the pink I had chosen for my ill-fated 'circus nursery'.  Observe:

What a hoot!  (Don't tell anyone, but I do still like this color)

So the walls were in pretty good shape, we just did a bit 'o spackling and a little sanding to get them ready for primer.  However, the wood in the room looked like it had been ridden hard and put away wet.  And it probably had been wet many times since the house was built because there wasn't a storm door for the door to the deck:

Oh wait, there WAS.  It was sitting broken on the deck when we first walked through the house.  HELPFUL. 

There is some significant damage to the floor under the door because of water seepage.  Yeah, I said seepage. 

These poor baseboards haven't seen any TLC (or cleaner, or a broom) in a long time.

Don't worry though, we fixed them all up real nice.  Next post is all about primer!  Titillating!

A different kind of painting

You all may not know this, but this guy...

...is a bit of an arteeest.  Not a member of Weezer. 

He has sketched, painted, and color-penciled many pieces of original art for me.  This one is the first thing he drew for me 4 years ago:

Don't you just love how he managed to sneak a fish skeleton my name in there next to the weird pumpkin-headed scarecrow?  It was instant love when he gave me this drawing.  He also helped me paint this artwork that is now hanging in our dining room:

But seriously, that one was mostly me.  I can't lie.  He knows what I'm talking about.  Shaun is big into tattoos, he has several, so his drawings and paintings tend to look similar to 'art' he likes.  What am I getting at?

Well, we both decided (unbeknownst to eachother) that the Shining room is going to be a mini art gallery and studio area for us both!  We have both been known to strew supplies across the dining room table to draw or paint, and then get crabby that we have to clean it all up.  So I want to have a drawing table, and some nice storage for our painting supplies, which are currently kept in this state-of-the-art box:

As well as places for our drawing pads, pencils, cray-pas, and other stuff that is packed away somewhere.  As for the walls, I'm going dark navy and putting up some picture molding, similar to what we did in our dining room only BIG and TALL, like this:

Our canvases will hang in the middle of the 'picture frames' on the walls.  Also, for those of you that were wondering where this room is in relation to the rest of the house, here's a little 'map' of the upstairs, with the staircase at my back:

Are you wondering why I don't just put our art all over the house?  Well...because some of it looks like this (unfinished) piece:

What the hell, Shaun?  Yeah....it doesn't really scream 'comfortable home.'  But if it ends up looking cool when it's done, it will be displayed in our mini gallery. 

I really enjoyed reading all of your comments about what we could use the room for.  I wanted to point out that we did consider making this room:
~  a storage area, but we already have a basement and tons of closets (and a sauna..heh)
~  a bar area, but we don't currently use the deck to entertain because of the rubber roof 
~  a sewing/craft room, but I am NOT CRAFTY and DO NOT SEW 
~  a library, but I have plans for a different room to have this purpose

What do you think of the art gallery/studio idea?  Is it something you would use?

"All work and no play...."

...is the first thing I thought of when I saw our smallest upstairs room:

Does it also remind you of the hotel in The Shining?   Floral wallpaper, pinky peach molding, water stains on the walls, this room had it all.  Except the twins.  And psychos.

Let's get a closeup of the delicious details of this room:

If I could find words to describe a killer stabbing noise, I would type it here. 

This window apparently had a drooling problem.  Also, the poor ceiling had herpes: 

Don't worry, we dabbed a little Herpecin-L on those spots and it's looking much better.  Our ceiling can date with confidence now. 

And please notice the EXTRA fancy top of the wallpaper, a little 'valance' lining the ceiling.  FAN-CEEE!  I do believe this paper is original to the house, it was so brittle it just flaked off.  That is not always a good thing though...

It helped that no one had painted over this paper like a moron, Shaun finished the entire removal in a day.  The walls are really smooth plaster, unlike anything I'd seen before.  We are not sure what used to be on the wall there, I'm guessing a ballet bar because there is really no way this room could be an actual bedroom.  On the original blue prints it says this was the 'sewing room', how cute is it that the architect wrote that on the plans?  It is a tiny room, 8.5 x 9.5 ft, and there are 3 doorways (and the attic ladder must come down from above) so it impossible to put any real furniture in here.  What the heck is behind all those doors?  Let me show you.  Door #1 is a wee closet:

Door #2 is a sauna kick-ass cedar closet:

Door #3 is the great outdoors, especially nice for all your house-fire-escaping needs:

It is freezing cold in this room, we have to get a storm door for this entrance.  That poor door is weeping water through the panels because there isn't anything blocking it from the elements.  And you know I hate to see a good door suffer. 

Anywho, the only place in the room that we could put furniture is the short wall near the window, helpfully outlined in red above.  What would you do with a room that you couldn't put furniture in?  I'll give you my plan for the room tomorrow and see if you thought of the same thing as me!