Paint Projects

The upstairs of our house has been neglected since we moved in.  We have two bedrooms up there and a bathroom.  I've had so many different ideas as to what to do with the spaces, but nothing has really stuck.  And since Dan and I are the only ones who go up there, there really hasn't been a sense of urgency to update it.

Since we had the runner installed up the stairs, though, we knew we wanted to at least finish off the upstairs hallway. Before the runner came, Dan painted the entire stairwell, so we knew we'd eventually continue that upstairs.  The original wall color was pretty similar to the "Shaker Beige" we used everywhere else, it just needed to be refreshed.

My hubby is so good.  He took a day off from work and used his time off to paint and do house projects.  We already had the paint on hand, and the hallway isn't very big, so he had that done in a few hours.  As you can see from the pictures below, the change was subtle. 

Before

After

I knew this was on the hubby's to do list this day, but what he didn't tell me was his plan for updating our two sconces.  One is at the top of the stairs and the other is on the wall outside our bedroom.  I always liked the shape of them, but hated their gold finish.  

When we first moved into our house, we had most of the light fixtures replaced with oil-rubbed bronze ones.  We even changed out all of the doorknobs to match.  We wanted to keep these sconces, though, and had plans to spray-paint them with oil-rubbed bronze.  I didn't realize Dan was going to tackle these this day, so I was surprised to come home from work and see them done. 

Dan is very careful when working with electrical.  It's not something he does often and he had a tutorial from a good friend who's well-versed in most home projects, so he felt comfortable doing this.  He shut everything off and unhooked the wires.  He took the sconces down to the basement where he sprayed them with a few coats, letting them dry in between.  Then he just hooked them back up and turned the electricity back on.

I like this so much better than the gold, and it didn't cost us anything since we had the spray-paint on hand from another project.  The only thing that bothers me now are the gold brackets on the bannister.  I really want to take them off and spray them, but the hubby is adamant about leaving them alone.  When we had the bannister installed, I wasn't even thinking about the color of brackets they would use.  I think I was just so excited to have a hand rail installed that I didn't think it all the way through.  I should have specified that I wanted them to be oil-rubbed bronze.  

In any case, here's the entire hallway as it stands.  We didn't end up painting the white trim since it looked to be done just prior to when we moved in.  The hubby was happy about that.

 

The hope chest is my mom's.  It was one of the first pieces of furniture we moved into the house and it just fit perfectly at the top of the stairs, under the slanted ceiling.  It provides a lot of extra storage and it mainly houses extra blankets and sheets right now.  The rug is from Home Goods (of course) and ties in with the green and blues of the pillows we have on the hope chest. 

Continuing with the painting projects, a few weeks ago, we had the outside trim and all of the windows painted on our house.  It was one of those things that came up in our inspection.  The window paint was peeling and the inspector was worried about the wood eventually rotting.  Dan wanted to paint them himself, but life got in the way, so we decided it was worth the investment.  The company we used had most of it done in one day and just needed a few hours on day two to complete it.  It would have taken Dan a lot longer.  It's amazing how some fresh white paint can make such a difference.  

We also had the front door painted.  We figured since they were doing everything else, why not add this.  We had them match the original color since it ties in with our shutters.  I didn't realize how badly this needed to be done until I compared the before and after shots.
   

What a difference!  Luckily we don't need to have the entire house painted just yet.  Up next I think we're going to focus on the upstairs bathroom.  We have to paint the ceiling due to some water damage when we first moved in.  The problem has been fixed, but we haven't gotten around to painting.  I am also toying with the idea of either painting or replacing the vanity.  We shall see.

Be well,