New Paint Color in the Living Room

My goodness, this project has been a loooong time coming!  In exacty one week, it will be our three year mark of living in this house.  We finally painted our living room ya’ll (I never say ya’ll but this occasion calls for it)!  These living room walls have been calling my name since before we moved in.  But we had exactly one week to get into this house and work before move in day.  And we made the decision to paint the bedrooms first and foremost, because all the heavy furniture that would go into those rooms would make painting more difficult, do those were our priority.  In a perfect world the entire house would have received a fresh coat of paint before move in day.  But this is not a perfect world.  But I am happy to finally be able to say we painted our living room!

What was the hold up, you ask?  Mostly the fact that this was a daunting job.  The ceilings are very high.  When we first bought the house, we decided we would pay someone to paint the living room and the stairwell.  And so the fact that we had to open our wallets and pay someone kept us from scheduling a time to have it done, I think.  We started working on the things we could DIY, and put this off.  Then, as time went on, I started thinking we could do this ourselves, why spend the money?  It wouldn’t be the easiest job, but we could do it!  So we started with painting the stairwell.  That was by far more difficult than the living room, and we did it!  And then time just kept passing, and we kept working on other things.  And then when it turned 2015, I decided this living room would be painted before summer, and I am happy to say I made my goal!

The evolution of this living room has happened in baby steps.  We actually started by hanging new curtains and getting a new rug next.  This picture below was taken after the curtains and the rug, and way before paint.

And of course this picture below is after paint, after adding, my new MCM record player as a TV stand, and after hanging a gallery wall.  If you scroll up and down between the picture below and the picture above, you can see the difference  the new paint color makes.  It does not slap you in the face with how different it is.  It is subtle, it whispers in your ear and says “ I am better, I am warmer, I am richer, I am cleaner”.  And sometimes it whispers sweet nothings in my ear too, but that is just between me and my walls!  Ha!

We did break down and pay someone to paint the ceiling though.  Neither of us was about to even think about painting it ourselves.  That happened this past winter.  And it was awesome!  Our next door neighbor is a professional Painter (for you locals reading this his name is John Molina and he is awesome), so we hired him to come over here one day while we were both at work and paint the ceiling.  When I left, my ceiling was dingy and dirty and gross.  When I got home, my ceiling was bright white and clean and perfect!  I swear, If I could pay someone to do all of my painting, I just might, it was the best experience!  We debated on what to do with the beam going across the middle of the ceiling, but in the end we went with white.  I guess we could have had tried to make it look like wood, but I was afraid it would look fake.  And so white it is, and I am happy with my decision.  As for the ceiling fan, some people poo poo ceiling fans.  But this one does not bother me in the slightest, so it stays.  A friend suggested to me that we get an extension pole and hang it lower, but when I mentioned that to my husband he was adamantly against it, so it ain’t gonna happen, and that is fine with me.  I have bigger fish to fry.

It is worth noting that we also finally framed and hung my daughter’s senior picture!  You can see it to the right of the window.  I bought the white frame at AC Moore and framed it myself.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen some progress shots of us painting in here, and you may know the color we chose.  I did my research before choosing a color.  As you may know, I am an avid reader of DIY and Home décor blogs (which is what started me on my own blogging journey) and the color I chose is quite a popular one in blogging land, and every time I saw it in a room I liked it, no matter what the particular decorating style may be.  The color is Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore.  But I don’t have easy access to Benjamin Moore paint where I live, so I had the color matched at Home Depot, and the paint I used is Glidden paint in eggshell.  I am always very happy with Glidden paint, so it is the color of Gray Owl, but not the brand.  Still extremely happy with how it turned out.  I also painted all of the trim a fresh coat of white, including this window over the sofa with all of the white spindles.  The white I used is Behr Premium Plus high gloss enamel in Linen white.  This is the color I have used on all trim in my house.  I think it is important for that to be the same throughout.  I never realized how dirty and dingy these spindles and trim really were until I painted them.  They look brand new!  And just so you know, I don’t particularly love these spindles, and would probably choose to demo them out and leave it open if we did not have a 7 year old who likes to climb around like a monkey.

You may have already noticed how we chose to rehang our curtains after painting.  Two curtain rods, not one!  What do you think?  The reasoning behind this is the fact that the window is so large, we were having a problem with the curtain rod sagging.  And even though we screwed something into the drywall to hold it up in the the middle, it kept coming out.  And one day it hit me, tow rods!  We never close these curtains all the way.  We close them at night so only the very middle window is left showing (for privacy).  So with these rods, we are still able to close the curtains as much as we always do, but we never have to worry about a saggy rod again!  Who wants to worry about a saggy rod, after all?  I bought these particular curtain rods in the spring at Home Goods, and I love the little glass balls on the end!

You can read more about our grandfather clock here.  I have some plans to spice up the clock without paint or changing anything permanently, so stay tuned!  I used to have it caddy corned in this corner, but I decided after I painted that I liked it better sitting straight on the wall.  And let me just say that it is hard to photograph when light is shining in the window.  It gets me every time.

You can find a link to this deer head pillow cover and all of the pillow covers I purchased for our sofa by clicking here.  The link are at the very bottom of the post when you click the link.  They are all from Amazon.  Amazon has amazing pillow covers at great prices!

This wall of our living room may be one of my favorite in the whole house.  I just love the way it is coming together.  I love the gallery wall, and I am still adding things to it as we speak.  Somebody stop me!  And look at my vintage suitcases, squeel !!!  The one on top was a gift from LC.  I purchased the blue one on the bottom for a couple of dollars at Goodwill recently, and then last week, I found the middle one on top of a trash pile on garbage day on my street !  Someone threw this beauty out!  If you follow me on Instagram I showed a more detailed shot of it last week.  And I have just one question… who would throw this out???  I’m not complaining though, because now it’s mine, ALL MINE Hahahahahaha!

My Van Gogh print was the inspiration for this entire living room.  The feathered arrows print above it came from Minted.  The piece of tin above the TV was brought home to me from Charleston, SC (praying for the people there, what a tragedy).  And the praying hands were a recent Goodwill find.  LC literally laughed at these praying hands!  I love them!  What is your opinion?

I also found this metal tray on top of the book case on the same day I found the praying hands.  I am going to change up the handles eventually.

When you enter our home and walk up the stairs (it is a split level home), our living room is to your right.  To the left in the picture below, you can see the color we painted the stairwell as opposed to the new living room color.  The color of the stairwell is Sharky Grey from the Martha Stewart Collection at Home Depot.  This color also goes down our upstairs hallway, and in our downstairs hallway.  The Sharky Grey has more brown undertones in it than the Gray Owl.  But I like the two colors next to each other like this.  It is a smooth transition.

Our fireplace mantel was a Christmas gift from LC a couple of Christmas’s ago, and it was hung for a few months before we installed the Airstone surround.  It is an old barn beam from a barn in Pennsylvania, and I love it!  I think the Airstone surround really makes it perfect though.  This fireplace is the most drastic transformation in our home, I think.  I completely changed the look and feel of the whole room.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may have seen my beach glass painted jars that are a recent Trashtastic Tuesday project.  This is probably how my mantle will look for the remainder of summer, with the exception of changing out the flowers for fresh ones every once in awhile, so who knows what flowers will grace the jars over the next several weeks.  Right now they are hydrangeas from our hydrangea bush in our front yard, and a couple of purple sprigs that have dried nicely and stuck around.

We purchased this vintage tennis racket for $5 a couple of weeks ago at a community yard sale.  I was looking at it, and walked away without buying it, and LC stayed behind and bought it for me.  Sweet!

This is the sofa table right at the top of the stairs.  I have had a  thought pop into my mind recently that this might be a nice spot for a piano.  And I know LC would love to have a piano, so maybe we will find an old one one day who knows?  As you can see, I have not installed a cover over the light switch here.  The old one was cracked, and I need to purchase a new one.

This is a view from the other side of the living room  You can see into the dining room and kitchen here.  The dining room is a complete mess right now.  You can see that the paint supplies are all sitting there on the floor from us painting this room.  I am not sure that I have ever shown you this room from this angle.

You can see that if you go to the left you go down the hallway that leads to three bedrooms. You can also see LC standing there in the kitchen.  I was photographing this room very early on Saturday morning, and he and Mr. 15 Year Old were getting ready for a 10K.  I didn’t realize that someone had turned the light on in the hallway when I was taking this picture.  The new paint color goes all the way over to the bookshelf, and then the hallway is sharky grey.  I am hoping to paint all of the doors leading down this hallway at some point.

Adding cheap wrapping paper to the back of this bookshelf really gave it new life.  You can read about that here.  You can also read about the DIY Love canvas that is on the top of the shelf here.    The green leaves in the bottle are cut from a tree in the back yard.

I am very happy that I can finally say our living room is painted!  I would say it is finished, but I can’t quite say that yet because I WANT NEW FURNITURE!  So right now, we are saving for a new sofa and chair, and then this room can officially be done!  We are thinking we might be able to purchase new furniture in the fall, hopefully before Christmas.

Thanks for stopping by today and seeing our living room!  If you made it through all of these pictures plus read everything, congratulations!  That was a long one!  Enjoy your week!