#1, 10, 36 & 101- 7 Gallons of Paint and a Few Near Death Moments.

Over six months ago when Jason and I were waking through The Lodge with our Realtor, we had a conversation that went something like this:

Realtor: "Wow, these walls all need a serious coat of paint.

Jason: "Yeah, we'll definitely have to hire out that one.

Me: "Absolutely. There's no way I'm getting up there on a ladder. "

Yet somehow, months later, we seem to find ourselves like this:

Jason and my Super Dad building a jungle gym in the Living Room

First, let me back up. Once we settled on our Living Room color pallet based on some inspiration from the HGTV 2011 Dream Home in Vermont, we couldn't wait to get started. Mostly because our garage currently looks like this:

That's right, 2 of the 3 stalls are full of all the furniture and boxes that belong to the Living Room, Dining Room and Kitchen. We knew from the beginning that the gross tile and carpet in these rooms would have to go. Like immediately. So there was no point moving in anything into these rooms that we'd just have to clear out later. How's that for motivation? But before we lay down those gorgeous new floors and finally get our furniture in, we need to do all the necessary painting, sanding and scraping to make sure nothing gets on those beautiful Maple panels. Or that we don't scrape up the floor with scaffolding. Yep, scaffolding.

What can I say, we're suckers for DIY, and after we got a quote on having painters come out, the idea of doing it ourselves was more and more appealing. Then my Dad scored us a great deal, as he has a friend that would lend us his scaffolding for free. FREE. It was on like Donkey Kong.

The Living Room actually was pretty easy (relatively speaking) with the scaffolding. It just took a lot of time to take down, and then rebuild sections of it when we needed to move it. The angled ceilings made this more challenging, as we needed all three tiers to get to the top of the kitchen side, but only 2 tiers would fit on the fireplace side. We also took this time to clean the skylights, fan and lights while we were up there, as well as touch up some ceiling paint, as I'm not sure we'll ever get to be that up close and personal with the ceilings in this room again.

The Loft actually turned out to be the really tricky part.

Covering up the purplish-gray walls would make me happy, if I wasn't so scared.

Yep, that's my Dad about 3 stories up (and my empty ladder right next to him as I stepped down to take the photo.) The stairs prevented us from being able to set up the scaffolding in The Loft, so we were perched on some pretty scary ladders. Don't believe me?

Here's a look down from my ladder, stretched over the stairs, all the way down 8 half flights to the basement.

My Dad and I we scrunched up in the very peak of The Loft. (My empty ladder on the right.)

View from The Family Room, with my Dad eight half-flights above me.

Okay, so maybe there weren't "near death" moments, but I'll be honest with you, being on that ladder made me feel like Death was knocking on my door. I don't think I've ever been so scared in all my life. We were both shaking so much it was tricky to make a clean cut in line. At one point my Dad asked me a question and all I was able to squeak out was, "Can't... talk... just... paint."

In the end though, after about 5 days, the Living Room, Loft, Foyer, Kitchen and 2 hallways were all painted in 7 gallons of Glidden Cappuccino White. We liked the color because it gave the room the bright pallet we were looking for, but with just enough color to make it interesting. I'm so ecstatically happy with how it turned out. (Which is good since the Hubs says we can never, ever paint these rooms again.) Since we made the decision to embrace the wood work, the goal was to find a color that really let the wood stand out and steal the show. The previous combination of muted grays, greens and taupes didn't do any favors for the focal points of the room, they just made it look really dated. Not to mention that there were all sorts of "seams" where different paint colors from different rooms butted up against each other, since really these rooms are all one big space. Now we have one cohesive, bright and modern looking space.

Kitchen Eat In Space

Living Room with the Kitchen on the left

In the Living Room looking up to the Loft

Living Room looking up to our sweet Master Bedroom windows

I know, it's a bit of a empty pallet now, but that's the point. We'll warm it up with rugs, curtains, art and throw pillows to layer it with color, instead of over doing it on the walls.

See how it looks great against the wood accents, but also has a nice definition from the white trim paint in the hallway?

Living Room

Hallway

More than anything, things are starting to feel "clean," which may have been the very last adjective I would have used to describe this space 6 months ago. Now on to the fun excruciatingly painful part- tearing up all that tile and carpet to make way for the wood floors. This is going to be interesting.