What Ana Does

Leah's room was the only one in the house I haven't painted since moving in. She liked the light grey color and didn't want me to bother with it. I hated the pale color and flat finish, plus all the pock marks from moving furniture, but I let it go.  Now that she's away at college, I have (nearly) free-rein on her room, and I have IDEAS!  First up, YES, paint!  I picked Smoky Azurite from SW . It's dark blue but with lots of grey undertones and gives the room a cozy yet active vibes. I immediately loved it. And it coordinates with the quilt and the grey in the curtains. Excellent.  The flat finish of the old paint soaked up the new paint so well that I had to do a second coat in most places -- even though I used the Emerald line of paint from SW, which usually only needs one coat. But that's how it goes with flat; it's an excellent primer.  Here's the desk wall in the old grey. If you could see all the holes and dirt, you'd understand why I was so ex...

 Like a fresh spring green, like the chairs at the Jardin Tuileries in Paris. Like the leaves of my Monstera plant. I'm deeply in love with Matcha Latte from Clare paint. I get a hit of oxytocin every time I walk through here.  Some early morning Sunday photos. This top one is filtered for max green impact! WOWZA! Just a few things about the color to review. I wanted to follow the same bright blue I have in the front room and in the cabinets. The old green wasn't the same temperature and felt dull in comparison. This green feels the same youthful, modern color. And with the new chairs, white wainscoting, black and beige accents in the rug and curtain. It all mixes for just the happy vibe I was aiming for.  I hope people come to my house for a dinner party, and never want to leave the dining room. 

It's been a while since I thought much about our dining room, other than the chairs that I'm desperate to replace. They're in terrible shape, too big and not comfortable. But, lately, every time I'm in the room I find things that annoy me. And since there's no major renovations in the budget for the year, I'm going to pour a little time and effort into this room.  Let's review my to-do list ...  The wall color. While I love this "Greenwich Village" color, it's not the same temperature as the blue in the kitchen or front room. It's too muted, and the rest of the house with color is brighter.  There's a lot of holes in the walls from where I moved art. And I tried to patch areas, and the sample I used wasn't the same color.  It's dark at night! There needs to be another light source.  The light switch is lose and has needed to be replaced since we moved in.  The aforementioned dining room chairs. Too big, too uncomfortable, too ...

It was time to paint our bedroom. The flat gray was just too dull and the hue didn't work with our furniture. It's like matching grey pants with brown shoes -- fashion faux pas.  And, sure, I considered replacing all our furniture, it's a decade old and showing a little wear and tear. But quickly realized that it's just cheaper to paint out the gray. Though, I'm committed to switching out our upholstered headboard later this year.  Not to mention, there is a few places where we patched up the wall that needed to be painted over, and we don't have this gray paint from the former owners.  So, I went through all my color chips. Decided on blue. Picked a hue and ... no surprise ... it's about the same as the front room and the back hallway. Clearly, I have a favorite. Here's a few swatches I went through to decide on the blue. Some where too dark, too purple or too much gray in them.  I decided to leave the bottom part white, though I did look at a bunch of ...

I've always thought this house deserves a lot of green. And dark blue. It's that center hall colonial vibe I love so much. So when it came time to paint the guest room, I wanted to use one of those colors. And after painting the back hallway blue, green just seemed to be the right direction.  The guest room gets a ton of light, since it faces east. So it can handle a moody color. I picked Peale Green from Benjamin Moore and got it from the TrueValue near the house -- it's the closest hardware store. The walls were painted in a blue/grey flat paint with lots of nicks and a few spots where the old paint was showing -- not in great shape. I knew an eggshell finish would pick up some sunlight and give the room a little shine. (I will never understand using flat on these walls. SO weird.)  Here's one of the walls before:   And after the coat of Peale Green later ...  Of all the lovely colors in this house, this might be a favorite! It's a great true-green with a lit...

You know when there's a color you just want to TRY is some room? A hue seen on Pinterest so many times it just looks too good not to do. Well, I've always wanted a dark, energized green room. And I found the perfect place to try it. Yup, the laundry room. Another house, another laundry room. This one is just as good as the last, and just as abused -- I've been jamming random stuff in all those cabinets for the last seven months with no rhyme or reason.  Just as many good features as bad, too. I appreciate the white cabinets (that's a lot of storage) and sink for projects. We lock the dogs in here when we're out. But, I'm not a fan of the tight space, "vintage" washer/dryer and beige color. And the terracotta-ish tile floor was definetly slapped in here with missing grout.   What's on tap for this room? Well, there's a HUGE organization project needed. And I already updated all the pulls from white plastic JUNK pulls to this fun, modern black pu...

Basement painting rolls on ...  If you recall from the masterplan , there is the other half of the basement that needs paint and attention. So this weekend, that continued.  Here's the view from the bottom of the stairs to the right all painted and starting to be set up. The over-sized SoHo image (I worked around the corner from that building) and table are the snack, craft, area. You can catch a glimpse of the fridge area that will get a built-in cabinet next to it for a little kitchenette vibe.   Then you've got the other direction from the bottom of the stairs. The billiards area, that still needs to be painted. And dusted off, obviously. The mural stays and a hanging light needs to be found. (There's a reStore trip in my future ...)  And the LAST project of the basement will be this doozy ....  The stairs overhaul will be a BIG project on its own, but after some shopping around, I have a pretty good idea of what it will look like. I'll create a whole po...

 but ... I painted one anyway.  The black Chalkboard Paint is still drying  I know! I watch HGTV and I'm always yelling at the designers to NOT PAINT that mural. UGH. It's awful. But this little corner of the basement near the bottom of the stairs just NEEDED a little style and I hadn't really thought of the full concept of this whole basement (this was before the water/hurricane Ida catastrophe) and I really wanted to be fun and bold and creative.  Alice I picked the colors and away we went!  Here's the tape ....  And the first coat ...  This corner was going to be the little gym nook, but I decided to squeeze the pool table in here so we could have more space in the media/TV area. So, now, this cool mural will be over that pool table (that we moved with just the four of us and snapped off two legs in the process ... but that's another story).  It will be fun! We'll keep score on the chalkboard and I'll hang a cool light fixture over the whole th...

I am loving this view. Three rooms, all lined up, freshly painted in coordinating colors. And the cutest little dog.  Dining room: Village Green by Behr Hallway: Gossamer Veil by Sherwin Williams Living room: English Channel by Behr  I'm not great at a lot of things. But I'm darn good at picking colors. 

Light lime green isn't my color. And as of last week, it was the last not-my-color color in the house. But we had to wait a few months before the painter had an opening -- because I certainly was not getting on a ladder to paint the two-story foyer.  Here's the before photos, from the listing and a look at the ceiling ...  It's important to me that the colors in this house all coordinate, so I choose Gossamer Veil from Sherwin Williams -- that was a nice natural against the gray-green of the dining room and blue of the morning room. I think it turned out quite nice!  It feels more tranquil, serene and not as dirty or jarring when walking through this hallway now. And the best part ... I didn't get full of paint getting it done. Another thing done on our long list of updates for this lovely house.  Of course, my next thought is to replace the two chandelier lights with more modern colonial of my overall design plan. The smaller will be much easier, and less expensive...

Our kitchen is a bit old and dated. The cabinets are dark and not in perfect shape. The oven is a disaster. I'm pretty sure the stove heats unevenly and the floor looks perpetually dingy.  Mostly, there's not much I can do about that. We'll likely remodel, but not for at least a year, possibly two. So I have to find little things I can do to make micro-improvements.  Enter the competing backsplash vs. counters.  The backsplash is a tumbled stone/travertine tile that's pink, salmon, orange, beige. And the counters are salmon, pink, beige marbled maybe-stone (?). Possibly granite circa early 1990? I can see how maybe someone thought they'd compliment but in reality they just fight for attention. In today's design, you usually pattern up one or the other. NOT BOTH.  Here's what we're working with...  I watched a number of quick youtube videos from DIYs are how SIMPLE it is to paint a backsplash. And cheap. Counters are less simple and cheap. So I went with ...

I love painting rooms ... until I have to do a bathroom. Sure, it's usually less wall area to paint, but I'm not a fan of obstacles. And contorting around a toilet or over a shower isn't my idea of a good time. Suffice it to say, I've been avoiding painting the girls' green bathroom because of this. Well, no more!  I needed a WIN this weekend and knew that bathroom was just the thing to get my home-project-heart pumping again.  Here's what we started with ... green and dirty walls, an old and ugly light fixtures and a mirror no one liked.  By the end of the day, we had creamy (yup, Swiss Coffee by Behr) walls and two new scones not covered in dust and grime.  I even hung some shelves, so they have more room to hang all their products (they love shopping at Ulta or Sephora).  I just need to incorporate more hooks for towels and hang the new/old mirror. They're taking the Target mirror I got a few years ago that's currently hanging in my bedroom -- a bit o...

It's the "front room" or the "living room" or the "morning room" or my "office" -- whatever we end up calling it, it's the room just opposite the dining room and nearest to the front door. It's the room I take my coffee to in the morning and stare out the window while I sip (it faces east). And where I sit all day while I'm working. It's an important, multifunctional room.  So, it was the obvious choice for the next makeover. Here's what it looked like when we bought the house. Clearly, it was used as a "formal" space. The room only guests got to enter -- which let's all agree is an outdated construct, ok? Then we moved in and it looked like this ..   Curtains came down and our well-used sofas came in. Quickly turned into a multi-use room. But that red accent wall and tan had to be updated. I put up many paint chips on the wall with the guidelines that: it had to coordinate with the dining room and foyer, it ...