Okay all my artsy/crafty friends (yeah, I’m looking at you Limor, Steph, Jaime), I need help with the baby’s room. I’ve got an underwater theme going in there with bedding, pictures and stuffed animals but I’m not excited about just painting the walls “water blue.” I want to think of a more creative way to paint but I’m not wanting to do a mural in there. I like the idea of a mural but a) I’m not that talented and b) if I’m going to do that, I’ll do it when my baby can have some input so I don’t have to paint over it in 5 years. I’m having a complete mental block on this. And I think the size of the room is throwing me off as well. I don’t want anything too overwhelming because the room is long and narrow, so it feels a lot smaller than it is.

Any ideas?

Sort of. Today we decided to paint the kitchen. The paint has been sitting in the basement since Memorial Day so we’ve just been putting it off. Anyway, after lunch I got started edging one of the bigger walls thinking it would be the only one I got done before Lexi woke up from her nap. After Kevin put Lexi to bed (the 2 of them had been outside in the kiddie pool) he came to help me and we managed to get everything done except for the walls behind the appliances. We even managed to get two coats on everything and the color went on really well so I don’t think we’ll need a third coat. w00t. anyway, so once the kitchen’s done all that’s left is Lexi’s closet doors and touching up places where I bumped the ceilings. Then we are done painting for a while. Although, we’re only stopping because we can’t decided on colors for any other rooms in the house.

My last day of work was Friday and it was a half day so I was home by about 12:30. My plan was to move the bookshelves and toys out of Lexi’s room so I could start painting on Saturday. Well, I was a little more motivated than I thought. I put her down for a nap in the library, taped off her room and edged everything while she was sleeping. I even managed to get both coats of the edging done during that nap. She woke up around 4 so I had to stop. I made dinner and ran to Kohl’s (to get picture frames for the bathroom I just finished painting) and a drop cloth for Lexi’s room. After she went to bed I got the first coat on the walls. And Saturday afternoon I got the second coat on and touched up the few spots I missed. After we finished eating dinner everything was dry enough to put her room back together. I still need to get the ceiling paint out and cover up all the places I bumped the ceiling, her closet doors are going to be painted (they will still be white) and I found these decal things that you can stick to the walls that I need to put up, but I am waiting until later this week because I want to make sure the paint it truly dry before sticking something to it.

I put up a few before and after pictures on flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/monkeyouttanowhere) and after I hang pictures in the bathroom I’ll put those up too. The photos of Lexi’s room don’t really do the green justice. The walls are the same color as the green screen they use in the movies.

Here’s how I spent Memorial Day Weekend:

Friday
Staff development day at work and I was sick. I went into work at 7:30 got done what needed to be done (which means my disaster of a classroom still needs to be cleaned but I’ll make the kids do that on Tuesday.) and went home by 10:00.
Slept from 10:00 - 12:00. When I woke up I thought I was feeling better so I went to Home Depot to buy paint. While waiting for the paint I realized I did not feel better so I came home and went to bed until dinner time. Kevin and his mom took Lexi for a walk and I spent the evening watching Law and Order re-runs and then went back to bed.

Saturday
Woke up feeling better for real. Around 11:00 decided to tear the wallpaper off the bathroom walls. The wallpaper came off pretty easy - the glue, well, not so much.
Saturday night Kevin’s mom babysat and Kevin and I went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and saw Pirate’s of the Caribean 3. (Not a bad movie - not as good as the first, but way better than the second.)

Sunday
Went to church. Came home and tried to wash the glue off the bathroom walls. That sucked. And made my arms hurt. Then we went to REI and out to dinner. When we got home I spackled all the holes in the wall, taped everything off and cleaned up the bathroom a little bit.

Monday
Painted the bathroom blue. It looks pretty good, but it’s still all torn apart so I think it will look better once we put everything back together. I’ll post before and after pictures on flikr once it’s all done.

About 15 seconds after we moved in I went to Home Depot to get paint colors. I don’t have an particular loyalty to Home Depot or their paints, but it’s where we got all the paint for the old house so I started with what was familiar. Home Depot has a decent selection of paint colors to chose from and their color samples are on pretty big cards. Their colors are about 1 inch high and 4 inches across. Not too bad.

Today I decided to branch out and go to Menards. Their paint department is about 3 times bigger than Home Depot and a bunch of their paint colors come on these cool 3×6, peel and stick cards. Plus their display lighting seemed to be a little less flourecent-y. When I came home and looked at the colors again, there wasn’t too much “that’s not what I thought it was in the store.”

Plus Lexi thouroughly enjoyed wandering around the paint department saying “hi” to everyone who was waiting to have colors mixed.

Right now our house is painted 3 colors: white, lilac, and baby-boy blue. One room has wall paper that is shinny and another room has one wall of a white on white wallpaper. So, the wall paper has to come out, the lilac needs to go, and the other rooms just need some color.

Personally, I enjoy picking out paint colors and doing the actual painting. Kevin on the other hand, well, not so much. But he humors me and looks at the stacks of color samples I bring home from the hardware store on a regular basis.

I’ve narrowed down a few rooms and have some ideas for a few others. The kitchen is going to be yellow. The color I like is called Lemon Sorbet (I find the color names very entertaining.) It’s basically a nice, bright yellow. Lexi’s room is going to be Apple Orchard green, like a granny smith apple only a little more muted. The bathroom on the main floor is going to be blue. I haven’t found the right color for that room, but I want to be something close to the way the ocean looks on brochures for places like Hawaii and the Bahamas. I’ve decided to go with a beach/seashore theme for that room. Tonight I came up with the idea of painting the family room purple, but a purple with a lot of red in it - more like raspberry. I haven’t told Kevin yet and I think that might take some convincing. I keep thinking I want to paint our bedroom brown, but everytime I look at the brown color samples, nothing really says “bedroom” to me. They all look like living room or dining room colors. I think our bathroom is going to be a very light brown - more along the lines of khaki. And I don’t know what color to paint the library, but I do know that I want to pick something that feels very calm and relaxing. Kevin’s office is up to him. His last office was bright blue and an orange called Flame so we’ll see what he decides to do this time.

I’m hoping to get colors picked out in the next month so that I can spend a lot of time painting this summer. Anyone who likes to paint is welcome to come help. Anyone who doesn’t like to paint is welcome to come and hang out with me while I paint. I don’t mind if I don’t get the whole house done this summer, I’m not even attempting to do that. I want to get the kitchen, Lexi’s room and the bathroom done.

It should be interesting trying to paint with a toddler and 2 dogs “helping”. I’ll let you know how it goes.