white on white

well, we are officially on the home stretch to get my condo up on the market and sold. so all the things i've been putting off or that were (indefinitely) on the back burner are now on my weekend "to do" list.

first up: refreshing the bathroom with a fresh coat of paint. who knew that an old "white" wall could -- in fact -- be so...unwhite?!!

(for some reason only being able to see Tim's hand and the paintbrush was absolutely adorably hilarious to me)

so tim and i got to work on painting the bathroom while dad worked on the final pieces of trim.

 

oh, and who could forget my little inset "DVD" closet nook in the living room? aka: the wall we tore down long ago in hopes to reveal more exposed brick! obviously that wasn't the case, but we made the best of it and turned the demolished wall into another space for storage or decor.

that needed a few coats of paint over the raw wood and sheetrock.

a look at the completed DVD nook...

 and a before and after view of the bathroom walls and new closet (before the shelving and doors).

a white coat for all

now that all the doors are finally in, it was time to give them all a fresh (or a first) coat of white paint.

so the gang (okay, just my parents and tim) came over to help me tackle the project.

in case you don't remember, i wanted to keep a consistent flow throughout my condo, so all of my doors and trim are painted a nice, fresh white. 

all in all we painted the double-door living room closet, the hallway closet next to the bar, the bathroom door, and the new bi-fold pantry doors in the kitchen.

i absolutely LOVE how the living room closet turned out! love, love, love!

the story of the mysterious puddle

it all started back in september: the puddle.

but where were the drops coming from? after investigating each unit one floor at a time, we made it up to the top floor. BINGO. water leaking under their sink. problem solved.

a few weeks went by with no more puddles (the top floor neighbors had agreed not to use their sink until a plumber came out to fix it). but then...it started again. and this time those tiny splashes of water had turned into constant drops, filling up the buckets underneath. we held an association meeting and decided serious action was needed. plumbers came out to investigate, as well as mold abatement specialists, and it turned out we not only had a leak, but mold as well. bummer.

in the meantime, a tiny hole was cut in my ceiling so the water could drain through and not continue pooling up and billowing out. by now it was a few days before the end of october. about a month and a half of water dripping into my dining room.

then one day i came home to this giant contraption, which i named: the monster.

apparently the leak had been fixed, which meant the mold abatement team could start their magic. they cut a hole in my ceiling, confined the space, and attached a special fan through the only exit so that the mold spores would be captured. ps: that fan was incredibly loud.

but unfortunately in the next few days i noticed water still dripping (and by dripping i mean there was more water pooled up in my dining room than ever before) from outside the monster. see the two buckets i set out? yep. another leak (or two) had sprung.

so the next day the mold abatement crew and the plumber were back. they doubled the size of the hole in my ceiling -- therefore doubling the size of the monster -- which was now taking up the majority of my dining room. you can see the section of plumbing that was repaired, the wood surrounding it was painted over with a special white paint.

fast forward almost another month when the mold was officially proclaimed obsolete, and i finally got to say goodbye to the monster...and hello to a completely useless dining room, taped off in plastic (note: this was not the first time this room has been plastic'ed off).

now it was the carpenter's turn. his task: repair the ceiling.

so far the carpenter's been at my house for six straight days, and i think the end is finally in site.

what's left? once the ceiling is ready, the carpenter will repaint the ceiling. then we'll hire a painter to re-texture the ceiling and then the carpenter will be back to repaint (both the ceiling and part of the teal wall). and then hopefully i'll have my dining room back.

unfortunately i've been told that won't be until quite a while after the turkey day holiday is over...

the philosophy behind paint color

now i know that most people spend hours, days, months even when choosing their paint colors. they go to the store, grab swatches, use online color planners, paint test patches, investigate under different lighting, and repeat until they think they are happy with what the outcome will be.

not me. my philosophy is to go for it, and if it doesn't work, just repaint it. actually that's a total lie, my real philosophy is that i have no patience and im never going to get around to repainting. so whatever i decide upon is going to be there for the long haul. i didn't even decide where each color would go until in my dining room until we were already painting.

i guess i just depend on my designer instincts and tune out what everyone else says,* since all along people have been skeptical of my decisions (until they see the final product of course). case in point:

• black hardwood floors
• lawn chairs in my living room
• faux cobblestone laminate flooring, indoors

so without furth ado, here are my four wall colors:

very berry by glidden. for my largest wall i chose a really deep fuchsia hue. it might be dark, but i like it. and who says your rooms need to be light anyways? i want it to feel more of a lounge than a room anyways.

pink salmon by glidden. the name says it all, and as you know, this color has been up for a while, today we just went over it with a second coat. i originally ordered it as a sample and ended up keeping it after my dad surprised me by painting my bedroom-side wall one day while i was at work.

realm by behr. this is a rich turquoise blue. i decided to paint it on my bathroom-side wall as a gateway into the tranquility of my bathroom. even though it is probably last on my to-do list, i anticipate it being very serene and ocean inspired, so i thought this color would help set the mood.

home song by behr. if you've been a fan of my blog since the very beginning, you might remember back to my first paint task, the living room. i chose a very muted, pale green to compliment my dark hardwood floors. so we used more of that to finish off the walls flowing from the two rooms.

check out how it looks finished.


*and yes mom, i know you have always been very supportive of my choices

a perfect fit

 

once again my family proved how much they love me.

bright and early the day after the fourth of july (on our day off) they showed up at my door at 10am, paintbrushes in hand. and despite the humidity and the fact that i have no AC, they powered through it all: putty, sanding, taping, priming, and painting.

along the way we discovered there actually is a reason i dealt with all the short comments throughout my lifetime: i fit perfectly into the window, my ponytail just barely brushing against the top of the window frame. matthew didn't fit quite as well.

by 2pm i had four finished dining room walls, in four different colors. (well, we still need to paint a second coat...but that can wait) and now i can officially introduce you to my india-inspired opium den dining room.

up next: creating a wall-length wooden storage bench, scattered with silk throw pillows of all colors and patterns.

painting with mickey mouse gloves

matthew was nice enough to pick up a few bundles of trim for me, so tonight i decided to paint it. im planning on using the same trim for the entire place, and painting it all white for consistency.

so we set up the saw horses in the garage, and got started. we even used this cute mini-roller that worked perfectly. it was all going SO smoothly. too smoothly in fact. we had a system of moving the freshly painted pieces to the back and sliding the unfinished ones up. before we knew it, we had finished the entire bundle.

i brought all our supplies downstairs to the big sink to clean them up and that's where i noticed something slightly odd. when i took apart the mini roller, my hands immediately became covered in slimy paint...and it wasn't coming off as i washed the roller pad. i rubbed my hands in the water, and instead of rinsing them, the water turned them into what looked like mickey mouse gloved hands!

ooops! we must have used the oil-based primer instead of regular wall paint!

here's what happened: the paint can had already been opened, and was covered in paint so we couldnt read the label that said "oil-based primer." from now on we will double check what's in the can!

just call us tom & huck

around noon or so me and matthew headed over to the condo. we had finished taping down the flooring on friday, so our next project was to prime the walls. we had a little putty work to do, so matthew worked on that while i finished taping around the edges of the cabinets, etc. we also had to get the fridge and oven out of the way, which led to a little scare. matthew kind of dropped it, hard, and it stopped making noise. we were pretty worried, but i think it's working again. i hope.

we started painting — me with the lil brush and matthew with the roller — and we finished. phew. two rooms took longer than we expected, but i guess we were doing about half the condo! anyways, at least we're done...and i must say it looks 100% better than it did just a few hours ago.

an unproductive day

i don't know if today was actually unproductive or if it just felt like it since we have been going going going and now we're at a frustrating stand-still? either way, we spent a a few hours over there tonight, and didn't feel like we got anything accomplished.

the floor was too bumpy and uneven to sand down, or putty for that matter. and we couldn't even prime along the walls and ceilings too much because there was wallpaper in the way or damage that needed to be fixed first. grrr!

oh well, hopefully next time will go smoother.

seal it in...once and for all

today was messy: we used kilz odorless oil-based paint on the floor. but i think i was more soaked in paint than the floor. and oil is a pain to scrub off.

supposedly this stuff is a primer, sealer and stainblocker all in one, and we were told it would seal in the remaining cat odor. so if this doesn't work, nothing will (since we've already ripped out the original flooring, cleaned it with special odor-eliminating cleaners, scrubbed and vacuumed every crack, and now sealed it with this paint. goodness gracious).

let's stay fifteen more minutes

after working on primer for an hour or so, dad says "let's work for fifteen more minutes...and then we'll call it a night." well, in that fifteen minutes we got the entire bedroom pergo flooring out. wow, that was easy.

demolition derby

the boys had a lot of work ahead of them. first, they finished up demo of the old closet between the living room and dining room.

then they got started on ripping out the living room coat closet and main hallway closet.

here's the plan with that: see the right edge of the closet where dad is? we're going to cut off that extra few feet and square it all off. then we'll remodel the hallway closet and one side of the bathroom (adding a closet, since there isn't one currently). this should really open up the space.

another view. this is the hallway closet that will be remodeled once we square-off the new wall.

meanwhile...i was all alone priming the bedroom walls with killz.

now back to where all the action is happening...the boys in the living room.

lookin good! right now we're deciding what to do about that last few feet of sheetrock on the brick wall. let's take it down and see what's underneath! bummer, nothing good. we'll have to re-cover it at some point...

might as well rip off the ceiling while we're at it! just kidding. but they really did tear it down, because then it will be easier to replace with sheetrock.

all done! phew, what a long day. tons of work, but totally worth it. and a totally giant pile of debris.

glitter and pink paint

memorial day. thank goodness stores are open! me and mom spent quite a while at the home depot narrowing down light green paint for the living room wall. i ended up choosing "home song" by behr for the walls....i hope it looks good!

oh, and we decided to get ceiling paint that goes on pink and dries white -- so we can see where we have already painted. im just a little skeptical about putting pink paint on the ceiling, let's hope the pink fades away like they claim it does!

so we headed over to the condo to get started on the living room ceiling. dad rolled on the pink paint while i followed behind him throwing glitter up into the wet paint for a sparkly ceiling! who would have guess i would get sore from throwing glitter into the air.

next we ripped down the big closet between the living room and dining room. we found a sewer pipe running through the edge of the wall, so that beam will have to stay, but other than that, the demo went really well. and meanwhile, mom was priming the walls and ceiling in my bedroom.

we finished up around 5:45 and headed home for a few hours for a yummy memorial day bbq of burgers, corn on the cob, and fruit salad. then me, chad, and dad were back at the condo moving in the fridge and dryer until 10pm. phew! what a day! but so much fun!

get the party started

8:30 am: over to the home depot to buy supplies, then over to the condo. it's never too early to get started i always say...or wait...is that my dad? oh well, i was too excited to sleep anyways. like a child on christmas eve.

first up, the living room. we taped around the woodwork and lights, primed the ceiling with kilz, then took a break for lunch while the paint dried. we walked down hennepin a block or two until we saw a quaint little converted house-to-restaurant called duplex. the wait was longer than expected, but it was nice to relax in the beaming sunshine. plus, has anyone tried their sweet potato fries? three words: o.m.g.

after lunch, my gramma and aunt linda stopped over, somewhat unexpectedly. they got the tour, and even helped tear down wallpaper, how nice is that?!

last task for today: spray texturing the living room ceiling. we covered the room in plastic, beat the putty until it looked like oatmeal (i have to admit, i was pretty curious to see if it tasted at all like quaker oats), and then began spraying the ceiling...and my hair....thanks dad.