Wednesday, October 20, 2010

gray-licious

Well, if we're friends on Facebook you know I've been busy with various projects around the house. I'm so excited because our house is finally feeling like "our house". We've lived here for over 3 years now, but I never painted but just decorated around the colors the builders had picked. You see, every room in our house has some color it seems except 1 bathroom. It was one of the model homes. So, now that we're putting our spin on things I am falling in love with this house and have warned Ryan that if he wants me to never want to leave Orland it will be through making this home MY OWN so that I absolutely love being here.

The dining room/kitchen/hallway color,as you know, is Benjamin Moore's Senora Gray. I love it and it works so well with our living room color and with all the wood in our home. I feel like it actually makes the wood more beautiful and love the distinction now between the ceiling beams, walls, floors. I actually love the wood now and love my dining room table now more than ever before. Amazing that one gallon of paint (and primer in our case) can do that. It is so true that one of the most inexpensive and most impressive ways to get a new feel in your home is to paint.

I'm not ready to do a full reveal, still need to hang wall art and add some furniture, but I will give you a sneak peak. Before I do, I must say again we had a GREAT experience at Knight's Paint in Chico. Richard is so awesome. He even goes as far as to mop the floors if he knows we will be in that day so that Gavin can scoot and crawl around as he pleases. He has offered to give any of my friends and family the same contractor's discount. Their premium paint (eggshell) ends up being just under $29 a gallon!! Not bad especially for Benjamin Moore! I think that's even less than Home Depot's Behr.


In prepping to paint I had to move the bookcase that has been in our dining room. I've never liked it much there and a few months ago realized that a little cut out area of our hallway was a perfect spot for a bookcase. Although the ideal would be a built-in I don't want to spend money on it and this sucker would fit right in the spot. I really like it more now there and once we finish painting the hallway the wall behind it will be gray. You like my color coordination. These are all of our religious books (except for the Arnold book and NO we are not Arnold fans when it comes to politics. Ryan admires his days as Mr. Olympian!).


and just to give you even more of a taste of the changes going on around our house, here is a sneak peak of the magnetic chalkboard I painted on the front of our kitchen island. More to come on that!!

7 comments:

  1. I can't wait to see the whole thing... especially the magnetic chalkboard in the kitchen... what a great idea to keep little hands busy while you make dinner!

    ps. The halloween mobile above your table is adorable. Where did you get it?

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  2. Cute! You are such a talented decorator. Did you make that halloween mobile yourself? And where did you find those car magnets? They are really cute.

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  3. Dana thanks for the nice compliment! To answer your questions, the halloween mobile is actually individual items hung from our dining chandelier. I purchased the mummies from TJ Maxx and printed off a cut out online of the bat and then traced and cut them on black paper. I can't remember where I got the image from. As for the magnets, I got them from cb2. They were on clearance when I purchased them a couple months ago. I couldn't find them on their website.

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  4. Magnetic chalkboard? I'm going to steal that. You are so amazing. I wished you lived closer so I could get advice from you.

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  5. I'm a gray fan myself and I DO like your color coordination...I may have to borrow that idea! Hmm what color are MY books? :)

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  6. You are amazing! I can't wait to see it when I come out if you are there. I've always admired your interior decorating skills and ideas. It is crazy what a difference the paint can make in bringing out the colors in everything else around it in the room. What made you choose gray? Any specific reasons you were drawn to it?

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  7. love your eye for taste! haven't emailed you about the design stuff yet. i'm planning a trip to tai pan in a few weeks. i want to look around and see what's out there. i am so proud of my pictures i hung today. art on my wall!!! i posted it on fb. all different shapes in a big collage. i've seen it done, but could never figure it out before. i LOVE how it turned out! you'll have to go check it out:-) can't wait for the FULL reveal of yours!

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