Tag: painting

The Guest Room, Painted Pink

This post is sponsored by Dutch Boy^® Paints.

Why did I hesitate to paint the guest room anything other than pink?

The walls were white when we moved in, and they were fine. Unobtrusive and neutral, but kind of boring. When I finished selecting the furniture working on the room’s and layout, the walls were still white and I thought, hey, this would be a fun opportunity to go really bold with the color! I tried a rich, deep teal. It was a pretty color, but so clearly wrong for the space. I thought about going in a different direction, skim coating the walls and putting up wallpaper, but this was just supposed to be a quick project! I knew repainting was in my future.

I had resisted pink because it’s so often my go-to and I wanted to try something different. But in this case, pink truly was a great choice for the room. Lovely and soft, but still a noticeable color. I used the new Dutch Boy^® Platinum Plus Interior Paint + Primer formula in Peachy-Keen (306-2DB). It turned out awesome! Here’s a shot after I did the cutting in and just before rolling the walls.

I like a flat finish for walls, and this paint has primer built-in. It covered in just one coat even over the dark color. Dutch Boy Paint’s new Platinum Plus formula with Stain-Shield Technology is durable and easy to clean, and it’s a great price at around $35/gallon.

Most of the furniture is the same as it was when I first showed the guest room A few months ago. I moved the bench to the foot of the bed and turned the dresser, but I kept the teal chair and side table where they were, and it’s the same bed (which fits the space so perfectly). The big difference is that I got rid of the single nightstand and brought in a matching vintage pair. I painted them black, using the same paint I used on the doors: Dutch Boy^® Dura Clean^™ Cabinet, Door, & Trim in Authentic Black (437-7DB).

I like to mix sets so that the nightstand(s) and dresser aren’t perfectly matching, and I think every room benefits from interesting vintage pieces or antiques. I’m proud of how this room is turning out, but the matchy-matchy definitely was a little more ‘catalog’ than I personally like for my home. The dresser stayed, but was rotated and put on the adjacent wall.

I’m very into the black nightstands and the contrast they add. I don’t always go for symmetry, but a room with the bed centered like this makes perfect sense for this space.

That peachy pink is so good in the room. The new wall color even made the existing carpet look better! It’s low on the list of priorities to replace, and I think the white walls called more attention to it. Now it’s the subtle flooring backdrop it should be.

The bedding stayed the same too. I added a pom pom bedskirt that’s super cute, but I kept the white sheets, duvet cover with subtle embroidery, and statement pillow. That pillow totally makes the bed, and now the wall color plays up those pink tones.

I’m thinking I’ll probably do something fun with the window in the future, but now that the wall color is right, it doesn’t feel nearly as pressing. And pink! You know I’m always down for more pink. This Peachy-Keen is perfect for a room with interesting angles and not a whole lot of natural light.

Room by room, this house is getting closer to my overall vision for it. This was such an easy change too, mostly just the paint! It was pretty before, but now it feels so warm and personal. Not bad for a gallon of paint and a day’s work.

July 18, 2017
Planning Our Paint Color Palette with the Simply Yours Tool
This post is sponsored by Dutch Boy Paint.

We took on several spaces for the latest round of the One Room Challenge. The work spanned all three floors of our Victorian from the front entry, up the stairs, down the second and third floor hallways, and then back down the other set of stairs and out to the back door. Dutch Boy Paint provided all of the paint we needed, and as you might imagine, there was a wee bit of painting involved.

I wanted each space to have its own identity, but the entries and pass-through areas touch every single room, so there still had to be a sense of continuity and a color palette that would work well throughout the whole house. I knew I wanted black doors and white trim upstairs, so that was an obvious place to start. Here’s a tip — you don’t necessarily want to use the darkest, most true black or the brightest, purest white. The contrast may be too stark and you’ll likely get a better result with a creamier white and a less severe black.

Here’s how the colors I chose (Authentic Black, 437-7DB, and Brightened Cream, 005W) compare to similar shades.

I played around with the colors using Dutch Boy’s Simply Yours Tool. I started with the most extreme black and white, then brought my choices in and added a creamy white (White Linen, 007W) to be used on the stairway walls.

Next, I turned my attention to the front entry color, which I knew would be a shade of pink. I was looking for a pink that was strong enough to stand up to our unpainted oak, muted (not too bright or saturated), and on the peachy/coral side or with a beige/brown base. I’ve starred some of my favorites below, and again, I played around with those in the Simply Yours Tool, then picked up some paint chips to help make my final decision.

There were four strong contenders: Amber Wood (409-4DB), Ole Washboard (409-3DB), Old Oak Trail (409-2DB), and Sandstone Quarry (408-2DB). Each of the four would have looked great with the wood in our front entry, but Sandstone Quarry also worked well with the wallpaper for the second floor hall and the two spaces connect at the top of the stairs.

There were several surfaces to paint, each with their own specific requirements. Below is a breakdown of the products, finishes, and colors used throughout. You can find Dutch Boy Paint at your local Menards store.

Walls and Ceilings
- Dutch Boy Platinum® Paint + Primer (Flat)
- Brightened Cream, 005W (2nd and 3rd floor ceilings, 3rd floor walls)
  White Linen, 007W (1st floor ceiling, front and back stairway walls)
  Sandstone Quarry, 408-2DB (front entry walls)
- Most people will choose a flat finish for ceilings, but it’s also my preferred finish for walls. I like a matte look.
Trim and Baseboards
- Dutch Boy Dura Clean Cabinet, Door, & Trim
- Brightened Cream, 005W
- A durable choice for the woodwork in a great shade of white.
Doors
- Dutch Boy Dura Clean Cabinet, Door, & Trim
- Authentic Black, 437-7DB
- A glossy black finish sets the doors apart and will offer protection against daily wear.
Stair Treads and Risers
- Dutch Boy Platinum® Porch & Floor Paint + Primer (Satin)
- Brightened Cream, 005W
  Authentic Black, 437-7DB
- Black and white stairs are classic, and using the same colors as the doors and trim ties them all together.
Once I had made all of my color decisions, I paired them up together with the Simply Yours Tool one last time. I referenced it while creating design boards and choosing fabrics, furnishings, and accessories. The brown (Olde Metal, 414-7DB) is there to represent the stair runner I had chosen, but I do like the idea of it as a wall color. (Brown is back, I’m telling you.)

If you want to try your hand at creating a color palette, you can do so right here with Dutch Boy’s Simply Yours Tool. Give it a go, and you could win a color consultation or Dutch Boy Paint prize pack (but hurry, the contest ends on 11/24)! You can also like Dutch Boy Paint on Facebook for more inspiration.
November 21, 2016
One Room Challenge: Week 5 (When it Rains, it Pours)

I had planned to finish — completely finish — two flights of stairs over the weekend. The old paint beneath the carpet we ripped up had passed their lead check test, so I did some light sanding on Friday and started cleaning the next morning. I washed the first three steps with Dirtex, then went to empty and refill my bucket. I poured the dirty water down the tub instead of using the sink and before I could get back to cleaning, I heard my daughter Eleanor downstairs.

“Mom!? The bathroom is flooding!”

My first thought was that one of the kids had stopped up the sink to play and left the faucet on, but nope. Water was raining down from the ceiling. The good news is that we use the third floor bathroom more like a powder room and we won’t have any more rain in the house as long as we don’t use that tub. The bad news is that we may have to rip everything apart eventually when we are ready to find and fix the leak. Good thing I lovingly hand-painted that floor, huh? I had to switch to cleaning up the mess in the bathroom instead of cleaning the stairs, but the house is fine and we were lucky that Eleanor had noticed the leak right away. I would have kept going!

Anyways, that was our Saturday. Sunday, the fire department came to our door and blocked off our street. Lights! Sirens! Action! One of our smoke detectors started going off (false alarm) and as I was talking to a representative from our security system, it went off again before I could give them my password for a dispatch cancellation. I felt awful for wasting the firefighters’ time and apologized profusely.

So our weekend was fun. How was yours?

That’s as far as I had gotten on the stairs by Monday morning. As of today, they are painted and ready for the antelope runner to be installed. Hooray! That’s happening on Friday, but the other stairs won’t be done in time for the big reveal next week. Since installation had to be pushed back, we could only keep our appointment for one day this week and the rest will be done later in the month. I’m bummed, but at least I’ll have one set of stairs to show.

I suppose it’s nice to not have to rush on the others? Silver lining! Because we got all the rest of the carpeting pulled up and surprise! Everything is awful.

I mean, I can appreciate the red painted runner. Someone put some effort into that! But what’s not good is the condition of the floor at the top landing. Gap city. And the bottom is vinyl, but I’m thinking I could use a deglosser on it and paint like the rest. Or just go wall to wall in the landing? Both landings? Should I rip out the bad wood planks and replace them? Oh, can of worms. It’s been a little while since I opened you — how have you been?

Let’s talk paint! Dutch Boy is one of my sponsors for the One Room Challenge, and their Sandstone Quarry (408-2DB) is the color I’ll be using in the front entryway. It’s a pink with a lot of muddy beige/brown to it, but I need that brown base to play off of the unpainted oak. On the walls, the paint will read as a lovely pink and it’s also a good match for the background in the wallpaper I’ll be using upstairs. That pink is sort of the star, and I built a color palette around it with Dutch Boy Paint’s Simply Yours Tool.

The tool allowed me to create a custom sharable color palette so I could visualize how my colors will complement each other. In addition to the pink I chose, there are two whites. The trim on the second and third floors and the stair risers will be Brightened Cream (005W) — a nice, warm white that isn’t too stark, nor too yellow. The other, White Linen (007W), will be used in the back entry and the third floor hallway. It’s still nice and light with the same warmth that Brightened Cream has, but with just enough of a difference to be noticeable. The brown in my palette (Olde Metal, 414-7DB) is just there to represent the colors of the carpet runner and woodwork, and Authentic Black (437-7DB) is for the stair treads and all of the second and third floor doors.

The front entry and third floor is done. Wait, that deserves more exclamation points. It’s done!!!

I went with Dutch Boy Platinum® Paint + Primer for the walls, which made surface prep easy. Then for the stairs, we used Dutch Boy’s Porch & Floor Paint + Primer. It’s an interior and exterior paint that holds up in high traffic areas.

The walls have been skim coated and primed from the back entry up to the second floor. The trim and doors on the second floor have also been primed. Wallpaper has not yet gone up and I didn’t hire it out because I thought I could get started by now. Whoops! It’s here though, and it will look amazing once it’s up.

Next week is the big reveal! If you need me, I’ll just be over here cleaning/sanding/caulking/prepping/painting/wallpapering.

Follow along with the One Room Challenge participants!

• Jana Bek • Chris Loves Julia • Shannon Claire • Coco.Kelley • The Curated House • Driven by Décor • The English Room • From the Right Bank • Sherry Hart • Hi Sugarplum • House of Jade • Hunted Interior • The Makerista • Making it Lovely • Marcus Design • Pencil & Paper Co. • Megan Pflug • Place of My Taste • Suburban B’s • Waiting on Martha • Media Partner House Beautiful • TM by CIH

My One Room Challenge Posts

Follow along from the beginning!
• Week 1: The Before Shots • Week 2: The Design Plan • Week 3: Work Very Much in Progress • Week 4: Those Stairs, That Hall • Week 5: When it Rains, it Pours • Weed 6: Final Reveal!

November 2, 2016
DIY Tumbling Blocks Hand-Painted Floor
This post is sponsored by Dunkin’ Donuts.

The painted floor in the bathroom is done! It only took a million hours!

‘Tumbling blocks’ is a classic pattern that has been trending for a few years now. I think of it as a quilting pattern from the 1800s, but decorative rhombille tiling goes back centuries. If I were doing a full renovation of my bathroom, I would lay tile like this, but this project is more of a refresh. The wood floor was already painted and in need of a fresh coat, so I figured why not go for something interesting? And of course, I have painted a floor before. I know it takes time and I know I am sore by the end of it, but I also know it’s worth it.

I’ve seen people take on this particular pattern before, or a variation of it. Here are a few examples.
I found a free template, and I played around with the colors and scale in Photoshop. I was torn between black and white or pink and red, and I decided to go with the more colorful scheme inspired by this encaustic cement tile from Mosaic House.

I looked through my paint fan decks and chose three colors. I wanted pink and red, yes, but not too bright or candy-colored. The pale pink is Puppy Paws, the medium is Odessa Pink, and the red is Crimson — a quart of each in floor and patio low sheen enamel, stopping on the way at Dunkin’ Donuts for an Iced Macchiato.

I used to be more of a latte fan, but the macchiato has become my new favorite. When I was at the Dunkin’ Donuts headquarters last month, we were able to learn about the different hot and iced espresso drinks they offer and then make our own. Both drinks are made with milk and espresso, but a latte only has one shot of espresso and a macchiato has two, giving it a stronger coffee flavor and more caffeine (which was definitely needed as I worked on this project!). I like to order mine with a Mocha Swirl because: chocolate. Delicious.

So, coffee and paint in hand, I was ready to get started.

I started at the far end and worked my way towards the door. Luckily it worked out and my pattern stayed aligned with the floor boards (for the most part). If I were doing it again though, I would have started at the doorway where the pattern is most visible. That’s the recommendation when working with tile too. You want to start your pattern where you are most likely to be looking at it, and if it’s going to go wonky, you want that hidden toward the back.

I only drew out the pattern on the far side because I figured I would smudge/erase it as I worked if I did the whole floor. Again, if I were doing it again, I would have started at the doorway, but alas. I drew a portion of the pattern, painted some of the lighter areas, drew more of the pattern, painted some more, repeat.

I have a pretty steady hand, so I painted the whole thing freehand with a pointed artist’s paintbrush (round, size 16). You can create a stencil or tape off the pattern too, but neither really seemed easier to me than just going ahead and painting it with a brush.

It took three full days of work, and three coats of paint for each color, but it’s done. Hooray! And now you can pretend to play Q*bert in my bathroom.

I just have a couple of details to get to, and the whole space will be finished!
July 7, 2016
Lessons Learned from a Hot Pink Room

I was looking at my fan deck, eyeing the pinks and thinking about how many colors I’ve used over the years. Most of them have been a success, but there were some definite misses. Let me recount a lesson I learned in 2006, pre-blog.

Before we bought our first house, Brandon and I lived in an apartment with a very permissive landlord when it came to paint colors. It was great! We were in our early to mid-twenties with free reign to choose whatever colors we wanted to live with. The living and dining room were purple! The second bedroom was dark blue, and later as my office/studio, pink! Not every room was crazy — I painted the bedroom a creamy white, and left the kitchen and bathroom beige. But then there was the back room. It was kind of a mudroom that had been created when the house, formerly a single-family home, was split up into apartments with separate front and back entrances.

I had the great idea to paint that back room hot pink. It was a pass-through, not an everyday living space. Let’s have fun with it! Be bold! So I painted it, finishing up at night, and it wasn’t until the next day that I realized what an awful mistake it was. On a bright, sunny day, light flooded the room and the entire space glowed pink. It shone its bad-taste aura into the adjacent kitchen, making itself known anytime we so much as went to get a glass of water. I think we lived with the room like that for a week before I had my next brilliant idea: tone the hot pink down with stripes.

(more…)

January 13, 2016
Six Designs Inspired by Tile
This post is sponsored by Floor & Decor.

I’m working with Floor & Decor on a few posts for the blog around the three main things they carry: wood, tile, and stone. I’ve already shared my experience with wood (and bamboo), and for the other two posts, I thought it would be fun to put together a bunch of designs inspired by tile and stone. I went to my local Floor & Decor and picked up a whole bunch of my favorites, then came home and played around with paint swatches, wallpaper samples, and other design elements to create different designs.

Today I’m sharing looks inspired by ceramic and porcelain tiles, and in a future post, I’ll do the same for marble, slate, and travertine tiles.

And yes, I totally want to make all of these happen in real life now.

Subway and Hexagon Tile

Pick a color. Any color! Subway and hex tile are classics that go pretty much anywhere with pretty much everything, and they’re cheap to boot. We had both of these in our first house.
Penny Rounds

I imagine this in a cheery kitchen with vintage (or vintage-inspired) green appliances. A tulip table and colorful shaker chairs form a little breakfast nook, and retro/vintage accessories (bread bin, kitchen scale) in shades of green and blue dot the space.
White Arabesque Tile

The tile is a classic decorative shape and it can take star billing if you keep everything else simple. If you want to have a little more fun with your decorating, it pairs up nicely with figurative wallpaper — especially when it’s hot pink. I’d love to see the two in a powder room with wood floors, brass fixtures, and a sink dropped into an old piece of furniture that’s been painted in a rich ochre. A vintage wooden stool with turned legs would make a fine stand for a plant or a stack of fresh towels.
Gray Glass and Striated Tile

Here we’ve got that same tile shape again, but in a very different design. This time it’s sleek in glass, and I’d pair it with long horizontal glass tile in a shower enclosure. Tile with some depth to it (thanks to inkjet printing!) would counteract all of the glossy surfaces elsewhere, and paint or accessories in cool greenish blue shades would finish off the room.
Spanish Red Tile

If you have inherited a house with this tile, you likely either love and embrace it or curse it and wish it gone. It goes rustic with warm, worn woods and creamy white tones, or you can take it boho with plants everywhere, natural textures and a smattering of jewel tones and gold embroidery. And if your taste runs like mine toward pink and feminine? Yep, that’ll work too. Peachy pinks like the paint and wallpaper below look fantastic with the earthy red of the tile.
Wood-Look Tile

I’m not a huge fan of faux-wood tile in large expanses because the grout lines look a little off (wood does not and should not have grout), but they can be great in basements and bathrooms. Our bathrooms have hardwood flooring, and they are not a good mix with kids that sometimes (often) splash water around and don’t clean up after themselves, leaving you to find puddles hours later. Not that we would know anything about that. *ahem*

Anyway! I think the key to pulling off wood tile is to let the wood be in the background by pulling attention toward other design elements (either texture or pattern). Pair one of these plank styles with one of the wallpaper designs — your choice.
Of the designs above, do you have a favorite? How about any that you would do completely differently (a least favorite)?
August 31, 2015