Let the painting begin

Mark and I worked with our Interior Designer to choose colors to paint the interior walls.  We started in the basement (so we won't see our mistakes as often). Using the stone from the fireplace and the carpet that we had previously chosen, we selected a color scheme for the whole level.  We decided to highlight the south wall in the family room by painting it a darker color.  The other walls as well as Matt's room would get complimentary colors.  

Here's how it looks.

South Wall of the family room

Another shot of the south wall

North wall of the family room

At the end of the room we will have a fireplace with the TV above it.  We will eventually have built in cabinets on either side so we don't have to paint those spaces.  Mark decided to do his best Picasso impersonation and has created a masterpiece by emptying out his roller each time he changed colors.  As you can see they really do look nice together.

Finishing up the family room

Next on the paint list was Matt's bedroom.  We let Emily choose her bedroom color and told Matt he would get to also.  But he went to Australia and our designer suggested a color that would look nice with the rest of the basement so we went with it.  Quite honestly, I forgot that I told Matt he could choose (of course, he "reminded" me) so I really hope he likes it when he gets home.  

Matt's Bedroom

Another shot of Matt's room.  Should make for a nice guest room once he is out on his own

We painted the hallway as well but I couldn't get very nice pictures of it as we have no lights there yet and it just doesn't look very good with the super bright halogen light (the one that is blinding Mark in the picture above).

Then we moved upstairs.  Again we had a consultation session with our Designer taking into consideration our cabinet color (white), granite color and the tone of the wood floors.  The first floor area has 3 colors as well (we didn't set out to have practically every room be different but it worked out that way.)

We started with the kitchen, dining room and foyer/hallway so that we could get the painting done before the hardwood floors were installed. We started in Friday afternoon and had to be done by Monday morning so I neglected to take pictures of the kitchen and dining room in process.  

We finished in time then took a two day break while the floors went in (see next post for that project). Then we started painting again with the foyer and living room.

I could almost reach all the way to cut in along the ceiling but not quite.  I was too scared to lean off the 10' ladder any more.  Mark had to finish it.

Standing on a "not very wide" board just isn't for me! We are really lucky Mark isn't afraid.

I only wish that this was the hardest area to paint.  Not so! Painting the Living Room required that we rent scaffolding to get the job done. The day before we painted I had a couple of accidents with sharp objects (one while cooking and the other while changing a razor knife blade) so Mark wouldn't let me go up on the scaffolding with paint.  I can't say that I was disappointed.  He did the cutting in for the areas that I couldn't reach using the 10' ladder and then I helped out with the lower parts on the west and east walls as well as the south wall.

Mark finishing up some cutting in while I worked on the 10' ladder

It was a lot of fun maneuvering the scaffolding around the new ceiling fan.  Should have waited a couple more days before we put it up. 

North wall mostly done

Now we are ready for hardwood floors and the two fireplaces.  Those posts will have to wait till early next week as I need to go to bed so I can get up bright and early tomorrow for our annual trip to Duluth with the Thompsons.

Thanks for reading.