Home Improvements :)

For the months of November & December 2010, Dan & I were on a painting kick that appeared to have no end in sight. For approximately 4 to 5 weekends straight, we painted rooms in our house & it was exhausting. We've now decide that when we start to paint again that we would consult a professional to see how much it would cost. Painting can be rewarding, but it can also be extremely draining.

When we bought our townhouse in February 2008, every wall in the house was white & we left it like that for quite a while until I just couldn't take it anymore. It was plain, bland & kind of depressing if you asked me. I wanted lots & lots of color! Dan needed a little more convincing though; his most common sentence when I would bring home paint samples was, "I just don't see it." I quoted my friend, Sandra Lue, several times by saying, "just work with me here!" Finally, I decided that he won't get the whole picture until I slap up some paint, hang photos & arrange furniture...so that's what I did.

Here are the before, after & current photos: One of the walls in our living room with Behr's Desert Caravan paint.
A view of our downstairs; the contrasting wall is Behr's Caramel Latte paint.
Our fireplace accent wall which is currently Behr's Glazed Pecan will soon be changed to Mocha because the Pecan & Desert Caravan are just too similar.
Another living room shot.
I love how the white doors pop with the Desert Caravan.
Our kitchen cutout view from the dining room, again this is Caramel Latte (Dan loves this color).
Our dining room = my favorite wall in our entire house; Behr's Deep Blue Sea. I'm currently waiting for a painting to go on sale at World Market that will be hung on this wall. We also purchased a bamboo rug & I love the light color paired with the dark floors.
Kitchen shot - Behr's Camel paint. This color also surrounds our blue accent wall in the dining room.
We decided to put a contrasting color (Caramel Latte) inside the window.
Last kitchen photo.
Stairs to the second floor; Behr's Glazed Pecan.
Hallway upstairs; again, love the white doors & trim.
Our Master bedroom; Ralph Lauren's Moss paint.
Master bathroom was also painted with Moss. The before photo is a picture of Dan's current bathroom, but I wanted to show how we use to have the large mirror, etc. I wanted more cabinet space so we added the cabinet on the wall.
My favorite painting that inspired the green bathroom; Dan & I bought it from a local artist at the Herndon Festival several years ago but just didn't have anywhere to hang it - it reminds me of Lexi. =]
We also added new faucets & drains to both our bathrooms on the second floor. You don't even want to know what the old ones looked like.

Our next painting project is Dan's bathroom which I would like to paint blue, but we're going to wait on that for a bit - at least until one of us no longer despises painting. For now, I'm just going to enjoy our house finally looking like a home.