A Touch of Paint

With the weather still on the colder side, the DIY projects in the main house continue. When the weather is nice, I work outside on the property, when it’s cold, I focus on the inside. The face lifts for the master bath and kitchen are complete. I’m now working on the central living area and gradually beyond. As I noted in an earlier post one lesson, I learned from selling our home in Denver is that white walls and trim are universally appealing visually. In our forever home, I am applying that knowledge to all the walls as well as to the walls in our Airbnb. The artwork, and furnishings will be what adds color to the home.

Surprisingly, I think there are as many different shades of white as there are colors in the world! Walking into Ace Hardware I knew this, but I was still a bit overwhelmed when I went to pick which whites to use. I started with 10-20 variations and had all of them taped to the wall. Then over the course of several days, looking at them in different lighting during different times of the day, I narrowed it down to two, a warm white for the walls and a cooler crisp bright white for the trim. With the color temperatures and tints and tones decided upon, I also needed to choose the sheen, for the walls I went with an eggshell and the trim a semi-gloss.

While in the process of painting the kitchen, I picked up a painting tip from my contractor and changed up my painting strategy to first prime the wall and then come in with the second coat as the actual color. As primer is a bit cheaper, this helped me extend the quantity of my wall color which helped with the cost. The other thing that helped was, the fact that I am using the same wall color for the art studio. Eric, my contractor, painted that room and in so doing he bought a large quantity, more than was needed… so with the studio finished I’ve appropriated what was left and am using it to paint the walls in the main house! I’m confident I will get all the rooms painted with what was left over from the studio! Talk about cost savings!

I’m realizing that white walls also give the house a more contemporary feel to it. Although our furnishings are eclectic in nature the walls are clean and although they are a warm white, they still feel crisp. The white walls also make the rooms lighter and brighter which makes the place feel more open and airier. Even though our house is small the white walls make it feel spacious. So, if you have a small space and you want to create the illusion of a larger space, I highly recommend going with white walls! 

Next up are window coverings…