Painting woes, part II and house update

First, responses to your comments:

Yes, we completely agree that the arching wooden trim has to go- we’ve already removed that.

I am definitely not completely sold on the idea of not painting our wooden trim- but those of you who are aghast at the idea will be relieved to know that we probably won’t have time to paint it for awhile. They are generally in good condition, but wood trim just isn’t my favorite. Also, it bugs me that the previous owners did not use tape when they last painted- so there are paint marks along the window frames and trim that I couldn’t remove without damaging the finish. And I’m a perfectionist :).

We have already been working with the decorator type person at our local paint store- and she’s doing our best to help us without actually seeing the room. I brought her the same photos I posted here. And Spools, we’re using Sevens on 29^th and we LOVE them! They also offer a six month discount to new home owners :).

We've gone through a few color samples for an accent wall and have found two favorites: a deep slate blue and a deep red. Although Bryan and I both love the idea of having red in our kitchen we have decided to opt for the blue for two reasons. The first is that we think the blue will match nicely with the gray carpet and will do a lot to tie the room together. The second is just a time constraint- red paint is notoriously difficult and generally requires extra coats. We just don't have the time for that right now, so we're going to use the red in our dining room instead- beneath the chair rail. The other three walls in the kitchen are probably going to just be a boring white as I've not had any luck finding anything else that works in the room and I'm not willing to spend any more on those cute little paint jars.



In the meantime we have pulled up the carpet in two bedrooms and a hallway on the main floor and have gotten to work refinishing the hardwood underneath. This has turned out to be a huge undertaking but I think we'll really love the final results. Good news- our bedroom is no longer neon blue! Once we removed the deep blue carpeting our walls settled down and are now a nice soft blue :). We've also spent a considerable amount of time on wall repair in the dining room and kitchen area. (Thank you, Bryan! You're my wall scraping hero!) The dining room is now all patched, primed and ready for paint. The kitchen area is getting there. Our biggest struggle in there is figuring out how to get off the old wallpaper glue without completely destroying the walls. We've tried a friend's wallwik product, fabric softener and TSP. Trying to sand off the glue only gums up our sandpaper. Today I'll be trying warm water and vinegar and I'm really crossing my fingers it will work!

(p.s. sorry about the font issues in this post, I will try to come back and fix it later!)

Happy Mother's Day!

We celebrated by taking a walk to the park and taking some pictures.

Checking out a new toy

Anna's first tulip time

Today Anna and I headed out to Holland (Michigan, that is) for Anna's very first tulip time! We watched the dancers, did some shopping and had lunch with our friends Karissa, Lillian, Lindsey and Gabe. The kids were mesmerized by the dancing and just stared the entire time. It was such a beautiful day and we had a great time!

New pajamas!

I love this photo. It's just Anna all over. Our perpetual motion baby.

Painting woes- suggestions welcomed!

Over the last couple of weeks we've been removing wallpaper, prepping walls, choosing paint colors, painting, etc. I have come to strongly dislike painter's tape. As far as color choices go I'm having a hard time striking a balance between A. chickening out and just painting the entire house white and B. WAY overdoing it on the color. We've chosen (or is it chose? I'm tired today) 3 paint colors so far- a nice soft buttery yellow for the guest room (which will be Anna's temporary bedroom), a blue for our bedroom that looks nice 80% of the time but looks VERY blue at around dinner time when the light comes in the strongest, and a soft taupey-brown that we love for a hallway and part of the living room (Benjamin Moore 1004 if anyone cares to know). This nice brown was intended to also be the color for what we've come to call "the great room," but when we painted swatches of it on the wall our nice brown color suddenly became a hideous institutional gray. The lighting, I guess? Here's the difficulty- this room has grey carpeting, salmon countertops, an ugly black woodstove on an ugly gray stone setting and wooden cabinitry. What on earth works with all of those colors? The carpeting and countertops will go someday, but it's not financially feasible to replace them right now so we're just going to have to live with them. I'd like to paint the kitchen cupboards, too, but that's not going to happen anytime soon either because we won't have time before move in day. We are going to paint the woodwork (baseboards and windows) white before we move in if we have time.

Color suggestions, anyone? Please leave a comment!



P.S. Thank you, Laura, for all of your help and for the loan of your color wheel!

Kids & Media

I have never been a huge fan of young children knowing every TV show on PBS and amassing a huge collection of character toys, clothing, dishes, etc. For some reason seeing one year olds that can already name syndicated characters just rubs me the wrong way. I'm not really sure why. I guess I don't really approve of kids watching a whole lot of television and I hate the idea of consumerism getting to my toddler at such a young age. For the most part we've steered clear of the character stuff, but two have slipped through my radar- Elmo and Thomas. Now, I have absolutely nothing against Elmo. In fact, I am a fan of the Sesame Street program and all things Jim Henson. Elmo slipped in with a couple of toys and a whole bunch of You Tube clips that we used to entertain Anna. Thomas began when Anna found a Thomas DVD at the library and wanted to take it home and I thought, sure, Anna's really into trains and I don't mind encouraging that. Since then she has had an amazing eye for spotting anything Thomas at the library. For some reason, I find myself very irritated whenever the narrator in those videos describes Thomas as "a cheeky little engine." I think Anna is thrilled with anything to do with trains, though, not just Thomas.

Oh, well. I can live with Elmo and Thomas, but please, let's steer clear of Barney and that Yo-Gabba-Gabba stuff, okay?

Here are some photos we took today at the bookstore. We were killing time there while our car was being serviced a few doors down the road.

Nope, Mommy is definitely not ready for Disney princesses, either.

Anna signing "please" while we had a snack in the cafe.

A rare quiet moment

Hairstyling

On morning when we have time Anna and I sit down for a minute on the couch to do her hair. I let her watch a couple of Sesame Street clips and I grab a comb, a bowl of water, and a hairband or two. Today Anna got to my supplies first and decided that she was going to do her hair herself today.