1 Paint on the brain

I don’t know if I’m just approaching a 3rd year homeowner crisis or what but over the past few weeks I’ve had the urge to paint nearly every room in my house. Sure, I still have a laundry room to finish and kitchen floors to install, but all I have on the brain are paint colors. I blame Pinterest for pushing me to the edge. Here are a few of the neutral wall color pins that set my paint envy in motion…

Happy Friday, y’all! I plan on spending the weekend talking some reason into myself.

 

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1 Paint Picks from the Pros

We all know it’s true. Paint colors are a tricky animal and can vary tremendously depending on the size of the room, amount of natural vs. artificial light, and frankly, who’s eyes are doing the looking. When I spy suggestions for good paint color go-tos, I hold on tight. Let’s peek at a few I’ve stumbled across lately…

According to the always on point House Beautiful magazine, the right white depends on the room…

 

The fabulous Mary McDonald share's a few of her top hues with Elle Decor…




Candice Olson’s fab 5 Benjamin Moore picks on Color Chats…

And a few more calming neutrals thanks to House Beautiful…

 

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1 All Wrapped Up

Cabinet painting is officially a wrap and I’m killing time puttering around this construction site of mine taking care of loose odds and ends while I wait on my countertops to be installed next week. Puttering around task #1? Paint brush cleanup.

Once I learned the trick of wrapping used paint brushes in plastic and sticking them in the refrigerator to prevent the paint from drying before second coats/touch ups the next day, I was smitten…but unfortunately when you tend to skip around from project to project like I do, you start to accumulate a fridge full of brushes in every color of the rainbow. I was in serious need of a lunch break dedicated to paint brush cleanup and paint brush clean up alone.



And I’m happy to report that I now have an army of sparking brushes awaiting their next task…



…but unfortunately not everyone made it out alive. Some were far too dried and shriveled up to stand a chance…but just check out those killer cabbies in the background will ya? Yowza!

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5 Cabby Talk…again

At the risk of running away every blog reader I’ve accumulated over the past 2 1/2 years of my blogging life (Mom included), yet another cabinet painting post is coming at you on this fine Monday. I want nothing more than to post about something—anything—other than paintbrushes and dry times, but this is all my oil-based paint fume infused brain has to offer.

The good news is just one more coat and these cabbies are a wrap! By tomorrow, just in time for Valentine’s Day, I’ll be breaking up with my Sherwin Williams paint can. My trusted companion and beloved partner in rehabbing crime. Check ya later.

While this project has been almost a week in the making—one coat of primer and two coats of paint—I did cut down on time by keeping the doors hung while painting. Once the bases were painted and 100% dry, I got to work on the doors. Instead of taking them off to lay flat, priming one side, waiting a day to dry, flipping, priming the other side, waiting a day to dry, flipping, first coat of paint, waiting a day to dry, flipping…you get the gist…I was able to knock out a coat on both sides of the cabinet doors each day. Sure this took a bit more care to avoid drips but well worth the time saved.

Rehabber beware: Since the doors had to remain open while they dried, you do run the risk of freaking yourself out when you stumble into the kitchen in the middle of the night for a glass of water and find yourself in the middle of the scary movie scene where the tricky ghost opens every cabinet door in the kitchen.



Just a little more dry time and I’m ready to put the box of cabinet pulls to work…and kick the paintbrush to the curb. Mainly the paintbrush part.

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