Thank you all so much for the sweet congratulations on my last post! I just found out my skirts (except the one on the cover) are coming back to me on Friday so my wardrobe will be having a party (and I have to be here to sign for it so no Black Friday shopping, yay!). Some of you actually pre-ordered the book and that totally freaked me out and humbled me. Thank you!
In the meantime we are keeping very very busy here with some spruce ups that should've happened a long time ago but we've recently been motivated to get the ball rolling. Our floors have been bare concrete for over a year and we finally decided that, rather than go through all the work of staining them, we're covering them with laminate. But first, the paint!
It's been over 7 years since I painted the tan color on the left. It was intended to be a neutral "place holder" so I didn't have to look at white walls (which don't stay white with kids). Life got busy and the tan color just stayed. Safe but boring. I'd seen a room with Sherwin Williams Comfort Grey on this gorgeous blog and ran down to get a paint chip.
Because I'm unwilling to spend over 50.00 a gallon (especially when buying 5 gallons) I took it to Home Depot. The more Joey and I looked at it the more we realized we really needed to go a shade lighter since we don't have great natural lighting in our downstairs. So we picked SW 6204 Sea Salt and we LOVE it! Here it is after drying.
Here's the label info if you like it. We like the Behr Ultra (with primer). It was around 159.00 for 5 gallons and I really like it. I always add a little water to the second coat to make it go on easier and fill in all the little spaces I may have missed on our textured wall.
And we've been tackling the floors one room at a time (2 down, one to go). This entry way was the nasty part and it was made nastier because, for some reason, we thought it would be easy. These tiles popped up okay but the concrete underneath them was a real bear to remove. You can see where the contractor left notes on the concrete which was another reason we decided against the stain. The builders had a bit of a graffiti fest under the carpet and it was not coming up.
This scraping part took us 3 days to finish. It was only a 4' x 4' spot but dang, that stuff was serious. Our poor backs. We would bang it really hard with a hammer and then scrape whatever the hammer didn't loosen. This left quite a few gouges, which was another confirmation that we had chosen right when we finally decided against concrete stain.
So here is the entry way now. The laminate is the Tundra Antique Effect from IKEA (at 1.15 sq ft plus the under layer) and we are really in love with it. We are covering 780 square feet and spending around 1200.00 total. We'll finish the last room this week and be ready for Christmas entertaining. Thrilled! A fresh coat of white semi-gloss on the doors and trims really gets everything cleaned up and sharp looking too.
I'll have more pictures soon. I need to get my pictures back on the walls and some other fun things (I think I'm going to tackle slipcovers again, argh!). Have a wonderful, gratitude filled Thanksgiving Day!! Here's my favorite cheesecake recipe (I'd show it to you but we already sent it out to Grandmas house). Keep it in your recipe file and impress everyone at Christmas (trust me, it's the best!).
