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A Clean Slate

January 28th, 2014

We finally started painting here, a much needed task indeed. The walls show their long life and aren’t really colors that suite our tastes. For years, we’ve painted colors on our walls, this time we decided things would be different.
painting 1
I have a few boards on pinterest filled with ideas for the home, probably none of them will ever come to fruition, but some of them will inspire changes around here.
painting 2
We wanted to create a blank slate. Everything will be white – classic white, the ceiling, the walls, and the trim. The bedroom was tackled first, it took 4 gallons of paint to cover the blue walls and trim  in this large room.  The floor is painted subfloor and will be painted black.  Hopefully we’ll get a very large seagrass rug that will cover most of it and soften the surface.
painting 3
Funny thing is, we painted this room first because it was  our bedroom and now we’re thinking staying in the smaller room because it’s darker and cooler being on the north side of the house.
painting 4
The nice thing is that now this room is going to become my sewing room and probably a guest room as well. We’re definitely excited to see something finally come together and organized. It’s starting to feel less like a college dorm around here.

What’s your favorite wall choice?

15 Comments to “A Clean Slate”
  1. Ilene on January 28, 2014 at 6:10 am

    I like white. It goes with everything. When you hang something on the walls a white background really makes it “pop”.

    It wouldn’t do for me to have a room that’s a guest room AND my sewing room. My sewing room is always in a shambles. There’s enough work to be done when guests are coming without having to do more than just change the bedding in the guest room. Heh.That said, we use our master bedroom as our guest room but since the last surgery I had we just retire to the bed in that room to watch TV after we’ve had our evening bath. Both bathrooms are upstairs, there’s just a half bath on the lowest floor, so this keeps us from having to traipse up and down the stairs another time.

    Painting is a LOT of work, but it’ll be easier since you’re painting celing and walls the same color. You won’t have so much cutting in to do.

    Reply to Ilene's comment

  2. Nebraska Dave on January 28, 2014 at 9:16 am

    Susy, after my wife died, I set out to reclaim the cluttered rooms in the house. I think I’ve mentioned before that she did border on being a hoarder so the task was a daunting one. One bedroom was cleared and the hard wood floor was covered with plastic and taped to the floor edges to keep it from moving. The light fixture was removed and a double coat of Kilz primer was painted and followed up with a double coat of off white ceiling paint. The walls were painted with a butterscotch color and the brown trim stayed the same. New cream hardware for the closet doors and wall plug covers were installed. The light fixture was installed again and the paint spotted plastic floor cover was removed. A good scrub for the floor and a coat of wax and the room was finished.

    The next room was a den on the door entry level that was full of stuff with only a path to the laundry room. Again all the stuff was removed and the floor covered. This room was to be a War Room. My computer would be there, bills would be paid there, and many prayers would be said to cover life events for my family, friends, and I. The ceiling was dealt with in the same manner as the bedroom. Two opposite walls were covered with good grade wall paper that looks like a stone wall. The other two opposite walls were covered with paneling that looks like red brick with black mortar. The ceiling light is a black hanging fixture with six candle lights in a circle. It kind of looks like one of those medieval wheel fixtures hanging from a chain with the candles around the wheel in a circle. Yeah, a real man cave.

    After that room was finished, my daughter moved in and soon after my grandson and the cleaning process stopped. This year I have my eye on cleaning and reclaiming the basement. This will be the biggest most monumental task so far.

    Have a great white painting day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

    • Susy on January 28, 2014 at 9:31 am

      Sounds like you are well on your way to getting things under the control. No doubt cleaning your basement will be on par with cleaning our garage – best of luck!

      Reply to Susy's comment

  3. Lorna on January 28, 2014 at 10:02 am

    My father never allowed colored paint in our house–only white walls. The color came from the many gorgeous paintings and wall hangings his artist sister created for us. So now, as an adult with my own home, I decided to put a little color onto the wall. I think Dad was right–the pale blue we just painted our bedroom is not so very pale at all. Kind of like the blue in your picture, oh my. And the cream we used in the spare room looks yellow! So now I’m afraid of those lying little paint chips and am going back to white walls. But, who knew there were so many shades of white?
    Good luck on the painting projects–it’s a lot of work, but I enjoy the time to think and love the feeling of a crisp clean newly painted room. Even if the walls are smurf blue :)

    Reply to Lorna's comment

    • Susy on January 28, 2014 at 10:23 am

      We chose Benjamin Moore ‘Classic White’ and are very happy with it. It’s the perfect white, not too yellow, not too blue, just nice and clean.

      Reply to Susy's comment

  4. whit on January 28, 2014 at 11:52 am

    When we first moved in, we had the idea of painting, but having just had melanoma surgically removed from my arm, that was out. A friend helped paint the spot Moore’s Circus Tent blue (my husband’s choosing) where the laundry hounds were going; my folks covered the blue and brown walls in my daughter’s room with Moore’s Milkyway. Turns out I hate coloured walls now. We had an orchestrated palette at our old place. White here in the NW ends up looking grey most the time, with the lack of light, so the Milkyway does the trick…it’s creamy enough to reflect what little light there is, so the walls don’t look dirty all the time. That, and there won’t be anymore battles between hubs and me about colours. :)

    Now to decide whether to paint all the white trim in the house white again, or a creamy colour. What do you do when you paint the same colour for walls, trim, and ceiling?

    Reply to whit's comment

  5. Marcia on January 28, 2014 at 1:28 pm

    When we bought the house, it was blue throughout. We hired a painter and found a lovely slate gray with green undertones. It changes along with the light of day and looks lovely against both the natural oak trim and more modern dark furniture.

    Reply to Marcia's comment

  6. Chris on January 28, 2014 at 6:43 pm

    We too like white walls as a blank canvas but I find it can be a little harsh sometimes, depending on the light, so I like to use just a drop of honey (metaphorically speaking) to the can of white. It warms a room and is so soothing to the eye. Parmesan is a beautiful color! :)
    We are redoing a bathroom with cork walls…it is gorgeous! It’s soft to the touch, eye and absorbs sound…and with white towels…so elegant!

    Reply to Chris's comment

  7. Joan on January 28, 2014 at 7:09 pm

    White with just a little yellow to warm it up is probably my favorite. It’s funny – in our last house we had a color called ‘mayonaisse’ on the walls and it looked just beautiful. So we decided to go with what was safe when we got our new house and use the same color again. Here it looks totally different and I don’t like it nearly as much. I think there are two things that made it look different – in our old house we didn’t have low-e glass in the windows (and low-e seems to REALLY alter the color of a room – sunrises and sunsets just aren’t the same with it!), and also here we have natural colored trim and in our old house we had white painted trim. I guess we’ll be living with this for a long while though, whether I like it or not!

    Reply to Joan's comment

  8. Jennifer Fisk on January 29, 2014 at 9:38 am

    Fourteen years ago my divorce gave me the house which had never been totally finished. The walls were still covered in primer. I painted through out with Ben Moore’s Woodland Snow. Now, I’ve started transitioning to colors. My family room has two walls painted a nice rich red and just yesterday, my dining room was done with two walls a sage and two an off white. The two story hall is next.

    Reply to Jennifer Fisk's comment

  9. Deb on January 30, 2014 at 2:39 pm

    No white ever, so bland and gets dirty if you look at it. What painted walls we had were kids’ bedrooms and now that they’re gone I don’t bother wasting money and time on paint as no one sees the rooms except cats. When I do paint the sunroom again it will NEVER be white. So bland and boring. Rooms need color to look like a home White is what apartments always are, so ahte them. The blue you show is so gorgepous. Love it.

    Reply to Deb's comment

    • Deb on January 30, 2014 at 2:40 pm

      Black floors would be so dusty in a flash here with wood heat so would never paint floors that color. i want something that doesn’t show dust and dirt.

      Reply to Deb's comment

  10. songbirdtiff on January 31, 2014 at 9:04 am

    The walls in our last 3 homes have been butter yellow, and this one is no different. I just can’t live with any ither colors…I have tried!

    Reply to songbirdtiff's comment

  11. elizabeth on February 1, 2014 at 12:43 pm

    I love your black barn, can’t wait to see pictures when you’re finished with the bedroom.

    Reply to elizabeth's comment

  12. Missy on February 6, 2014 at 2:18 pm

    So excited to see you are putting your fingerprint on the house!
    Can’t wait to see updated pictures!

    Reply to Missy's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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